Promises in the Dark (30 page)

Zane was prepared though, and they would make the trip with Tristan. The plan was to get to the port during the late morning hours—less suspicious and a better time to blend in.

“Ready?” It wasn’t really a question, because Zane was already out the door with their bags. She followed, noting he was wound so tightly that she felt the tension vibrate with every step she took toward the tent where the family stayed.

She knew Rowan would be inside the tent, as would Doc J and maybe Tristan, although he usually remained outside patrolling while the others met. The family remained in the supply tent and the rest of the plan would hopefully fall into place today.

By that afternoon, they’d be on a boat headed toward Morocco—closer to Elijah, and ironically, closer to safety.

As they approached, Rowan came out the door. Zane broke away from Olivia, telling her he needed to talk to Tristan and she continued on until she got next to the other woman.

“Rough night, I’m guessing,” Olivia said, and Rowan nodded. “Anything I can do?”

“I’ve been keeping her as comfortable as I can, but she’s been refusing a lot of the pain meds so she can be awake to talk to the kids,” Rowan explained. “They’re almost ready. It’s just … I couldn’t watch, you know?”

She gave a small shrug and Olivia noted her eyes were red. She didn’t want to imagine the good-bye scene playing out in the tent either.

With a low rumble, Tristan brought the truck around, with Zane in the passenger’s seat. They waited inside, their heads together, no doubt going over contingency plans.

Doc J emerged from the main tent and walked over quickly to join Olivia and Rowan. He carried a bag with him, which he handed to Olivia. “Food and water, for you and the kids,” he told her. “The local women fixed it.”

“Thanks. That’s great.” She paused. “With Tristan coming with us … doesn’t that leave you all unprotected?”

“What do we look like, chopped liver?” Doc J pointed between himself and Rowan. “We’re fine. We can handle anything.”

Rowan smiled a little at that, until the door behind her opened and Randy ushered Jimmy and Jocelyn out. “I’ve got one bag between them,” he told Olivia, who shouldered the light canvas tote easily. “I can’t thank you enough for this.”

“You don’t have to,” she told him, noting that Zane had come forward to lead the kids to the car. Randy caught her in a quick hug, as did Rowan.

The backseats of the old Land Rover were collapsed, and there were several large burlap sacks marked Grain in there. Plus, three empty sacks.

“You don’t need to get in them unless I say so,” Tristan told her in a low voice. “The three of you need to stay down back there, though. Checkpoints pop up at any given time and place, and I won’t take a chance of you guys being seen.”

She nodded. “Do the kids know?”

“Yeah, I told them,” he said gruffly. “I’ll try to make the ride as gentle as possible, but we’ve got to make time.”

The sun would be fully up in another half hour. For now, the eerie morning light made her shiver and as she said her good-byes to Rowan and Doc J, she also said a quick prayer for their safety.

She hadn’t prayed in a long time because it hadn’t done her much good. But for them, the risks they took, she would.

“Liv, we’ll be fine,” Zane told her, helped her inside and she got herself as comfortable as possible next to the kids.

The atmosphere remained tense. She didn’t want to look at the kids, to see their eyes swollen, their expressions heavy with the knowledge that they wouldn’t see their mother again.

She was surprised when Jocelyn curled up against her, but she gave her a hug, reached out to hold Jimmy’s hand. He didn’t refuse it.

“We’re going to be okay,” she told them, because there was nothing else to say … because she finally believed it herself, and the more fiercely she did, the truer it would be.

They nodded silently because they wanted to believe her, but the atmosphere would remain tense until they reached freedom.

She had to be right this time. It had to matter.

They would make it to the harbor and beyond. She’d made Julia that promise.

“Will my father come for us?” Jimmy asked finally. Somehow, his question echoed in the silence of the car, and Olivia knew Zane had heard it. She was grateful not to be able to see the pain in his face, but she heard it in his voice anyway when he called back, “He will. I’ll make sure of it myself.”

At his words, the car jerked with a sharp tug and hit the open road, grinding along and dragging all of them closer to their future.

By now, Zane should have them to Freetown. But hours passed and there was still no sign of Tristan.

Rowan paced outside the main tent nervously, where neither Julia nor Randy could see her; waited alone because Doc J had insisted on sending the women who worked here away, along with the children.

She was grateful for that. Would be more so if she didn’t have the horrible foreboding that came with waiting for an imminent attack.

At this point, Julia was the only patient in the room. Randy was sitting next to the bed. He refused to be separated from her now.

What if the soldiers come for them?
she’d asked Doc J earlier.

Doc J had said to her,
We greet them like nothing’s wrong. We have nothing to hide, because there’s nothing here
.

She’d asked about the weapons and he’d shrugged.
Like I said, nothing to hide
.

She hadn’t thought they’d had much time to do any preparation, but Tristan had snuck out of her tent while she slept at some point, crawled back to her hours later and said he’d had some things to take care of.

Obviously, he’d been planning just in case the soldiers came back with reinforcements and it made her feel better. Marginally anyway, because she was straining her neck trying to look down the road for any sign of his car.

“Stop worrying.” Doc J came up from behind her.

“I’m not,” she protested lightly, and he shook his head.

“Here.” He handed her some homemade bread with jam spread on it. “You haven’t eaten and you’re making me nervous walking around like GI Jane.”

She laughed in spite of herself. She’d been holding the rifle Tristan gave her the way she’d been taught by several Special Forces soldiers who’d spent time in and around the camp hospital in Iraq. Although she’d never been considered front line, she knew that in so many ways, she’d always been exactly that.

She was ready for this. There was a time to heal and a time to protect. If necessary, she would take a life to save the people in this camp.

Now she put the safety on and let the rifle hang from the strap over her shoulder instead of holding it, and she accepted the food, her stomach growling in appreciatory anticipation.

That feeling soon turned to unmitigated dread when she saw a blur of a figure running into the camp from the outskirts.

Doc J saw it too, and before either of them could move too far toward him, the young African boy was in front of them, panting, “They’re coming, they’re coming.”

How far he’d run to deliver the message Rowan couldn’t tell.

“Who? From where?” Doc J demanded of him, his hand firm on the boy’s shoulder to steady him.

He pointed from the way he’d just come. “Soldiers. Many … six, at least. From that way. They’re not far behind. Stopping … at … every village.”

Doc J took the water bottle from a pocket on the leg of his cargo pants and handed it to the boy, stared over his head at Rowan.

The boy drained the bottle quickly, handed it to Doc J, who told him, “Thank you. Go, now. Stay away from the camp, understand?”

The boy nodded, took a few deep breaths, as though preparing for a race, and then he was off, cutting through the back of the camp, probably in an attempt to avoid the soldiers.

She and Doc J would not be that lucky.

Maybe some of them would be saved, like he was. Right now, he was saving the two he could—and for the moment, it would have to be enough.

He smelled the strong brine from the sea. If he stayed long enough, the salt would lightly coat his cheeks and he would taste it for hours. The waves were stronger here than just twenty feet out, but the waters could be deadly. He knew that now—had known it then too—but he hadn’t realized then they weren’t only deadly because he couldn’t swim.

When Zane had entered the military, he’d chosen Navy—and the SEALs—because of the water. Because he remembered feeling trapped as a young boy, being that close to the fresh, inviting blue-green waters off the dock of Freetown and wishing like hell he could dive in and leave everything behind.

He’d seen those waters as his only chance for escape, and so the second he was able to, he took swim lessons, spent more time in the water when they went on vacations—surfed, swam, sailed. And when it came time, and Cael thought he would go Army, Zane let the Navy lure him right back into the water. His escape route, sometimes the only one. The only place he could truly be free.

His body responded to the water close by. If the port had been quieter, he would’ve been tempted to strip and dive in for just a few minutes, to let the lull of the current soothe him into a trance, a place where none of this shit existed … where he was at peace.

But this time, he wasn’t alone, and the fear would only drive him to do a better job—he knew enough to harness it, knew that fear let you know you were alive.

Fear was a damned good thing.

Dylan didn’t wave, didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, but he’d spotted Zane. Riley had too, and Olivia was close to him, the kids pressed to their sides, and in another twenty feet they’d all be closer to safety than they’d been in a long while.

When they got to the boat, Riley took over the kids, and instead of cursing or throwing orders, Dylan grabbed him in a headlock of a hug.

When his brother let him go, Zane saw that Riley had gotten the kids on board and out of sight already. She waved to him briefly before disappearing below to the cargo bay.

“You okay?” Dylan asked.

“Fine, I’m fine.” He paused. “Get them out of here, okay?”

“You’re getting on this ship, Zane. Cael will have my ass if you don’t.”

“Their mother’s dying. Their father stayed behind—I have to make sure he gets out. I have to.” His voice was low and controlled but even that couldn’t stop the emotion from bleeding through, cutting a path through his brother’s resistance faster than a heat gun through steel.

Dylan sighed and then asked, “Does she know?”

He glanced to where Liv was, already on the ship, watching the exchange. “No.”

“You’re going to be the one to break it to her. I don’t need another woman trying to kick my ass.” Dylan paused. “You’re going to need some help.”

“I have help waiting.”

“We don’t leave for another few minutes—they’re still loading,” Dylan said finally, his only admission that he was consenting to Zane’s plan. “Talk to your woman.”

Zane caught Liv’s eye, motioned for her to come back down the plank to him, which she did. When she got close, she asked uncertainly, “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. The boat’s just taking on last-minute supplies,” he assured her, and the tension around her eyes eased a little bit.

“I can’t swim.”

He smiled but it faded quickly. “I thought about that so many times back then when I couldn’t swim either, stared at the water and wondered what would happen if I just jumped in.”

He looked at her, his eyes bright. “It would’ve been sink or swim. Either way, I’d have been out of hell.”

An eleven-year-old having to make that decision … she wanted to say she couldn’t imagine what that must be like.

But she could. All too well. They both bore the marks of survivors, and without saying anything further, he tugged her to him and kissed her, a long kiss that made her knees weak and her body flood with heat. She twisted her hands in his hair, pulled him closer …

Until she realized he was saying good-bye.

“No,” she said against his mouth, pushed at him until he backed off.

The look in his eyes told her that her instincts had been correct. “Why? You pushed me to leave and I am!”

“For the kids,” he insisted, and she didn’t understand until he continued, “I have to make sure their father gets out of here safely. The kids will be safe, you will be safe. I have to give them something to make up for the loss of their mother.”

And she got it. What could she say, except grasp at straws? “Doc J and Tristan said they’d take care of that.”

“It’s more about me. I can’t sit back and let what happened to my biological parents and me happen to Randy and his kids. Not when I have the means to stop it.”

“What means?”

“Tristan’s waiting to take me back. I spoke with him earlier.”

Such fierce determination in his eyes. Such love. The only thing she could do was give him one last kiss before she accepted Dylan’s hand and boarded the ship.