Spark Rising (37 page)

Lucas didn’t wait for the new threat to arrive. Desperate, he lunged forward, swinging the branch back and around.

She curled away from it. It cracked into her side and shoulder.

New hurt bloomed and then faded to join the pain already crashing through her blood. She scrambled away as he swung again, the branch passing short of her. She dove in, arms outstretched, hands reaching.

He scrambled back, then stumbled in the undergrowth.

Even as he regained his footing and swung the branch back, she rushed to take advantage of the opening. The branch swung around, but she had poured her body into the breach, fingers outstretched for his face.

The branch cracked into her chin and nose. Her head snapped back. Her lower jaw smashed up. She was weightless, flying away for a terrible, stomach-twisting second before landing facedown in a heap.

Her vision went dark. The must of leaves and the metallic tang of her own blood filled her nose. A rhythmic thumping came closer and closer, and something thrashed near her. Pain engulfed her face and neck like flames racing along her nerves, fire that consumed, leaving behind char with a glowing core.

Noise coming. Danger?

She got her arms under her, her push feeble with shock but enough to roll her over. Movement flashed by her feet, and a body came toward her with the sound of crashing leaves.

Her legs automatically kicked out and caught him, one foot low in the belly and the other in the thigh, sweeping his leg out from beneath him. She closed her eyes, braced for an impact on her body that didn’t come. The thumping behind her stopped and became air pressure shifting above.

Air rushed from a man’s lungs with a hoarse groan and the dull thud of bodies colliding. They crashed to earth beside her.

Even as she reopened her eyes, Lena scooted back away from them. She tasted metal. Blood bubbled as it flowed from her nose. She panted through her open mouth.

Jackson and Lucas both rolled to their feet. No longer worried about keeping her touch at bay, Lucas discarded the branch for a knife from his belt. Jackson bent forward, ready, and his own blade glinted. The men circled and then came together, grunting. They slashed and grappled, each searching for an advantage. They didn’t speak. No words, just thick groans of effort echoed through the clearing.

Lucas’s hand broke free to slash at Jackson’s face. Jackson feinted back. The blade cut him across the bridge of his nose and skimmed both cheeks. Blood spattered out and ran in fast rivulets like dark tear tracks. Lucas laughed hoarsely, an ugly sound. The men closed again, each holding the other’s knife hand away while kicking at his enemy in an obscene dance.

She focused, reaching for the Dust. Communication wavered away like a heat wave with every attempt.

You want to help. I know you want to help. Help me now.

One of them groaned in pain. Lucas tore away, spinning and landing on his belly before her.

He lifted his face, contorted with pain and rage. He brought his knife hand around.

Lena dragged up a handful of dirt and broken bark and leaves from beside her. She threw it in his face, hoping bits of it would catch in his hateful eyes.

He roared in pain.

Jackson pounced from behind, gripping Lucas by the hair and dragging him back. He smashed his foot down on Lucas’s wrist once, twice, then kicked the knife away. He flipped Lucas, pulled him to his feet, and then rocked Lucas’s head back with his fist.

Lucas staggered, gasping around a nose as bloodied now as Jackson’s. His glazed stare at Jackson shifted, looking behind him.

Footsteps pounded closer, dull impacts in the silence of the forest broken only by the labored sounds of the three of them breathing through blood.

Was it Alex? Or Lucas’s soldiers? She reached back, grabbed the rough bark of the tree, and pulled herself up. She didn’t know what she could do. She’d manage something.

Jackson didn’t turn. He didn’t wait. He smashed his fists again into Lucas, striking his jaw and cheek on the left and his temple on the right.

Lucas staggered to the left after the second impact, bent double, before falling sideways and rolling down a slope. A moment later, a splash echoed up as he hit water somewhere below.

Alex slid to a stop before her. His left hand pressed a long wet tear in his shirt. The leather binder was gone. He stared at her, chest heaving.

Her chin and lip pulsed, heat beneath the cold wet of torn flesh. Her face must be a bloody mess.

He reached out his hand to her face, as if his first thought was to heal.

“Lucas,” she gasped out, spattering droplets of blood on his chest and face as she tried to explain. She collapsed to the side, gasping for air.

Alex scrambled for her, holding her up, pulling her in to his chest. “Lena,” he said. And then again, and again. His voice was heavy with fear and something else she couldn’t name. He caught her to his chest, his arms like vises around her.

She tilted her head back to look up at him. Her blood smeared across his chest.

He lifted a shaking hand to her face. His lips compressed with tension and focus. Nothing happened. He gasped, his face contorted with disappointment and fear for her.

“Come on!” Alex bore down again, gaze trained on her torn face. A moment later a groaned sob tore from him before he snarled over his shoulder at Jackson, “Get over here.”

Jackson moved closer, but not fast enough for Alex. One arm uncurled from around Lena, shooting out to grab the front of Jackson’s shirt and drag him to them.

“Heal her. Heal her now!”

He scooted backward, pushing Jackson into his place before Lena. He rose, then, and scrambled away down the slope. His head dipped below her line of sight.

She blinked, fingers curling into loose soil and crushed leaves beside her.

Jackson reached out his hands to her face, as if to heal.

It took a few long, metallic-tinged wet breaths before the panic faded and she came back to herself.

Jackson nodded, little movements meant to soothe.

And Alex?

He was somewhere else, with a man who had almost gouged Jackson’s eyes out with a knife. He had gone over the slope.

She pushed Jackson away and struggled to rise. He leaned in to pull her back, and she batted him off.

“No, get off. Alex!”

He was still in danger. She surged away and staggered to the edge of the hillside. She managed two shaky steps over the edge before falling to her hip and sliding through the moldering remains of last winter’s leaves caught in the underbrush of the steep slope. She came to a rest halfway to the bottom, her fingers caught in the branches of a fragrant honeysuckle.

Below, barely discernible through the failing light, Alex straddled Lucas, his hands around the man’s neck. Water half-submerged Lucas’s head. His body stretched out into the deepening river where he’d fallen.

She used the bush to pull herself to a stand. She half-slid and half-walked down the slope, until the forms of the two men became clear.

Lucas’s arms flailed. He tried to beat at Alex’s sides, but the impacts, and the arcs of his arms, grew smaller and smaller as his strength failed. His hands clutched at Alex’s shirt in a final grip before falling to the side. Lucas’s legs kicked out, splashing twice in the deeper water before they stilled and bobbed as they were tugged at by a swift current.

Alex leaned away from Lucas, pulling his shaking hands from the man’s throat. “No. It isn’t enough,” he growled down at the still man below him. “Not for what you did.” He stared down at Lucas, his features twisted.

She didn’t think it was just fury. What did he have to be ashamed of?

“It’s okay, Alex,” she called out to him. Her voice sounded wet and hoarse. Hearing it hurt as much as the effort of speaking.

He lifted his head to stare across the stream at her on the hillside.

“It’s okay. It’s okay to like it. Remember?”

His head fell to the side and grief twisted his face. He shook his head, rubbed his face, and muttered under his breath. “You did that, Reyes. Proud of yourself?”

She started to descend toward him.

“No,” he shouted. He waved her back. “I’m coming.” Alex swung his leg over Lucas. He slid on his backside through water and leaves and mud until he pulled clear of Lucas, kicking the man’s side as he pushed away.

The kick had enough force to dislodge Lucas’s head and shoulders from the hold of the muddy shore. Lucas slid out, spun as the current caught his lower body and then flowed loosely away in the water.

Alex started, then scrambled to his feet and waded in, following a few steps as if to retrieve Lucas’s body. When he stopped, he stared after his former partner for a long moment before turning back to her.

His beautiful face was a study in rage and shame. He splashed across the shallow water to the hillside then climbed to her. He moved as if in pain, but it wasn’t physical pain slowing him.

He stopped in front of her. “It’s not okay, Lena. It’s not.”

She stared back into his face. His expression was as haunted as that of the boy under the train car and filled with pain. The bloody slash showing through his torn shirt flashed her to a man crawling away, a gaping wound across his throat.
It’s not okay. It’s not. But he does.

Alex cupped her cheek away from her wounds. He shook his head in small movements back and forth as he searched her eyes above her mangled face.

It’s not okay to like it. But I do, too.

“I just—I almost lost you.” His voice broke, and he swallowed.

She nodded. That made it okay? It didn’t. “It’s not okay to like it,” she whispered. “But we do. We do.”

He picked small bits of forest detritus from the blood thick on her face. His hand fell to her shoulder, and he pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her, not a vise this time, but a cradle.

Lena’s hands went up automatically, wrapping around his sides.

Alex bent into the embrace, lowering his face into the space between her head and neck. His voice was muffled, meant only for her, “We do what we have to. And I almost lost you.”

“Hey.” Jackson called down to them from the top of the hill. How long had he been there?

Alex’s arms tightened around her for a second before he pressed his lips to her temple. The warmth of his breath curled on her skin. When he pulled away, her blood coated his cheek and lips.

Jackson said something above, but Lena lost the words to the look on Alex’s face. Grief and guilt mingled with rage—darkness. But something else pushed at the darkness like light oil spreading through wine.

He ignored Jackson. He kept his focus on her. He swiped the back of his hand across his face, smearing her blood into his skin.

“Thought I told you to heal her, Lee?”

“She ran to you.” Irritation flared in Jackson’s voice. “Was he done? You want me to head downstream to find and finish him?”

Alex still didn’t raise his face. Instead, he looked back down the river as if he could see Lucas’s body, long gone like a log fallen in the night.

“He’s done enough. Let him drown.” The words throbbed with hatred, different from his usual agent cool. He pressed his hand to his side. “It’s going to be full dark soon. We need to get Lena to the rendezvous. Let him rot.”

“Yes, sir.” Jackson said.

She looked up at him. Jackson nodded, his expression as empty and implacable as that of the man he looked down on from above.

Chapter 32

Alex took Lena’s hand and helped her up the hill. If he thought she’d let him, he’d carry her. When they reached the top, he could feel her resist, but he tightened his grip. He pulled her the last few feet to where he stood. The sharp twist of fear and guilt and anger at the ruin of her face eclipsed the burning throb of his wound. Somehow the smell of bruised honeysuckle that clung to her made the torn skin that much more devastating.

“It’s going to be okay,” he told her. “As soon as we get you healed.”

But would it?

She glanced back over her shoulder.

His eyes followed hers to where Jackson still stood behind them on the crest of the hill, gazing down. Alex wanted nothing more than to peel away the skin of the young agent’s face in retribution. He had one job. How could he have lost her?

Alex led her back to the tree and pressed her down in front of it, kneeling before her. He examined her face in the half-light and winced. Glancing back at Jackson, he growled again for the younger man to get over to them.

“Can you heal this?” He demanded of Jackson. “Really heal it this time?”

Jackson nodded without hesitation. “I’d have healed it last time if she hadn’t gone after you.”

Alex turned back to Lena. “I’d do it myself if I could.” The fact that he couldn’t bothered him more than he’d say. The way she tangled her fingers in his for a moment made it evident that his voice reflected his disappointment. The self-recrimination made his next comment come out as a rasp. “Hopefully Jackson won’t fuck this up, too.”

She shook her head. “I saw Lucas. I came after him. It wasn’t Jackson’s fault,” she managed to speak with a minimum of movement.

“No, just his responsibility.”

Alex rose, pressing his hand to the knife wound on his lower abdomen again. Jackson wouldn’t meet his gaze.

Guilty conscience, kid?
He should feel guilty. He should feel damned lucky, too. If Lena had died, Alex would have carved his loss out of the Agent and left him to bleed out on the forest floor while trying to gather up his scattered body parts.

“Much as I hate to leave you in his care again, I’ve got to make sure our route to the rendezvous is secure and that there aren’t any more surprises in these woods.”

“Alex,” she protested, “you’re wounded, too.”

He looked back at her. The torn skin of her lower face oozed blood, and she had an enormous broken goose egg across her forehead where she’d been hit. Except for her eyes, her face was painted with dried and drying blood filled with debris. He shook his head.

“You have priority. I’ll be fine. I’ll be back soon and we can get you to the rendezvous. Once you’re there, you can take care of me yourself, if you want to.” Alex stalked away, moving through the darkening forest.

He moved back and forth, quickly and quietly. Their area of the forest secured, he headed back in a straight line. He swallowed, trying to push back the remains of the acrid near-panic in his throat. He couldn’t believe he’d nearly lost her.

He’d done everything right, even to the point of risking the loss of her affection. He had adapted to every change in circumstances, worked every scenario, before and after they’d set out. He had kept her protected from things he didn’t think she could handle yet, urged her to take on the things she needed to in order to grow into the powerful woman she could be. He’d achieved everything they’d set out to accomplish.

Except he hadn’t gotten to her first after
Jackson
lost her. Alex had managed to catch up to Jackson at the edge of the woods. It was Alex who had covered his back, pulling a knife after he’d run out of bullets to engage all three of Lucas’s soldiers who’d pursued them from the caravan. It was Alex who had urged Jackson on after Lucas and Lena, the distraction costing him the slash across the belly. Once he’d disposed of the soldiers, Alex had hauled ass to make it to her. And he’d been too late.

Watching from a distance as Lucas slammed her in the face and sent her in a crumpled heap across the clearing had nearly been his undoing. Too far away to do anything. Too far away to even make it there in time to engage Lucas. All he could do was run to her, mind blank and savage.

And now as he silently approached the clearing where he’d left them, Jackson’s voice snaked through the trees.

“—and I could go with you, help you build your own school, help you find more girls. There are more. There have to be. If they could discard some, there are more. And they need to be found. We can do it together. Stop listening to Alex. Don’t give him another opportunity to betray you. Everything out of his mouth is a lie. Everything.”

Alex felt a low throb of rage pulse at the base of his skull. Red washed forward and colored the forest in front of him. He might have charged forward, but for Lena’s response.

“No, he hasn’t lied to me. It’s hard for you to see, to understand, because you’re not like him. You can’t do whatever it takes and justify it and feed off of it. I can. I
do
. I know where I belong and what my role is.”

Alex enjoyed the exultant surge of emotion as she denied Jackson so much he almost missed her next quiet words.

“Even if it destroys me.” The calm certainty in her voice stopped him in his tracks.

Alex stood frozen in the dark murk beyond their vision. Is that what she thought would happen?

I almost lost her already.

“It doesn’t have to be like that. Get away from him. Step out of his shadow. Stay away from the dark. Lena, there’s light in you. I helped you find it back in that car. I can do it again. That’s what you
need
.”

A wave of relief flowed through Alex at the low, impatient sound she made.

“I need to make a difference for those girls. I
need
to make sure they have the chance to decide who and what they’ll be for themselves. This path is the way to do it. We’ve cleared the Council from one city. There are seven more.”

Seven more cities to stalk and clear. Seven more chances for the Council to strike at Lena.

Alex’s eyes closed for less than a second, but the weight of the truth pulled at him. When he opened them, the red haze dissipated. He had done what he did so well. He’d made a decision.

He glanced down at the forest floor and deliberately stepped on a branch. The crack echoed through the clearing, and he stepped out to their faces turning toward him. Except for the smears of dried blood on their cheeks, they’d both been healed. After Jackson had worked on her, she’d evidently been well enough to fix his face. Maybe it was the stark newness of the skin beneath the smears, but his face seemed livid with guilt to Alex.

Jackson dropped his gaze.

Lena didn’t. She watched him come, eyes wide, and scrambled to her feet to meet him.

He wanted to go to her and reassure her, give her soft words and a soothing touch like the idiot in front of her, lay it out for her and make the choice so easy Jackson would never be able to make her doubt it. But Jackson was right about one thing.

And it had Alex’s stomach churning.

The anxiety made him stride forward, keeping his voice business-like instead of offering her comfort.

“Are we good? Everybody healed up and ready to go?”

Her reaching hands caught at the bottom of his shirt, tried to lift it to get to the bloody slash beneath. He caught her hand and forced a small, tough-nut smirk. “Once we’re at the rendezvous point. I want to get you out of here. Now.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he turned away, gesturing Jackson ahead of him with his head. They marched through the forest, the last of the light from dusk falling outside the dense foliage barely penetrating.

With Jackson and Lena healed, they made good time. His mind roamed ahead to what was coming—not just the conversation he’d need to have with her, but the decisions he’d have to make for his men. Unable to predict the outcome of the former, he focused instead on the latter.

How many men had they lost? They couldn’t afford any. It took too long to train their young agents, and the available pool of candidates was limited to Sparks strong enough to be sent off to the Ward School.

Alex had been telling Thomas for years they needed to expand their reach and begin drawing in mid-ranges to the cause. Erika had been an example of what a talented, dedicated mid-range could achieve. It wouldn’t take much to plant some of their Ward School Guardians in the Relo-city schools to keep an eye out for likely candidates. He’d even made the strategic move himself at Azcon a decade before, grooming a sympathetic young Azcon student he’d overheard making impolitic statements against the Council to his mother as they shopped. That the relationship had eventually revealed secrets that led to complications didn’t lessen the young man’s overall usefulness.

He glanced down at one of those complications now as she marched beside him. Judging from Jackson’s stiff back as he moved through the underbrush ahead of them, he was none too pleased with her loyalty, even if she had been angry and disappointed with Alex before.

In spite of her apparent choice, Alex didn’t doubt the decision he’d made. This time, he’d rather stay the course and let events play out as they should, even if they led to danger. Even if the danger was emotional, and not physical.

They came over the next rise, leaving the tree line, and a line of electric vehicles spread out as dark shadows below them on the back road. His men moved around them, wearing their headlamps, stowing gear and weapons. A group of five of his most senior Agents gathered around a map one of them had spread over the hood of a vehicle.

“Lena, can you wait for us?” He nodded to indicate the middle cars. “You know where the water is if you want to clean up.” They carried a supply in the back of every vehicle. “Jackson and I need to check on what we know about Lucas and his soldiers.”

“Wait,” she protested, “you said you’d let me take care of you.”

He flashed her a smile. “I can keep five more minutes. They need orders. Go get cleaned up. I’ll be done before you know it.”

He didn’t look back when he turned. He stalked away, moving through the dark to his men, expecting Jackson to follow.

They turned at his approach and made room for him before the map. One of them produced a headlamp for him.

“Tell me you have something good,” he told them as he slipped it onto his head, “because someone needs to pay for that clusterfuck.”

“We have their camp, sir.” Derion, one of his top Agents, pointed to a spot marked on the map. Derion had been a possible replacement for Lucas before he’d met the multi-talented, and ultimately disappointing, Jackson. He’d just become the prime candidate again. “Three of our men followed their retreat. Instead of pulling out, they went in, set a perimeter, and hunkered down. We figured it may be a trap.”

Derion’s finger moved over the landscape features that led Alex to agree it could indeed be a deliberate attempt to draw his men in.

“But the way they packed up everything but the essentials and made the effort to hide their trail,” he shook his head, “it seems more like they’re waiting for someone before pulling out.”

Alex grinned. The bastards knew they couldn’t go back without Councilor Four’s grandson.

“They are. And it’s going to be a long wait.” He laughed softly.

“Really, sir?” Derion’s grin mirrored his.

“Yeah. Really.” He nodded with satisfaction and then leaned in, hands spread wide as he studied the map. He chewed his lip. “Work up a northern approach for me.”

“Over the bluff?”

He nodded. His attention briefly turned to Jackson, who hovered at the outskirts of the circle of men. Field maneuvers, maps, navigation, and ambushes were the young Agent’s specialty, but he had barely engaged. He wasn’t interested in their plans. Jackson really was already gone, and he planned to convince Lena to join him. Alex’s lips thinned.

Instead of dwelling on it, he outlined what he wanted from his men, pointing at positions on the map. “I want a clean sweep,” he concluded. “We’re taking out everyone but two.”

“Two, sir? Which two?”

“Any two. They’re going to be messengers.” He tapped the map. “Work it up.” Alex backed away. It was time to give the kid
his
new orders.

Derion nodded. He and his men closed back in around the map, talking fast and low.

Alex moved in close to Jackson, close enough to make the younger man feel threatened. He should feel threatened.

“You, with me, now.” Alex took Jackson’s arm and walked south along the road. He kept his voice low and clipped, telling Jackson what he expected in a tone that brooked no arguments.

Jackson threw him one startled look before he tucked his chin to his chest and listened.

Alex had to give him his due. When Jackson realized that not only did Alex know what he’d been attempting, but that the senior agent had twisted it for his own purposes, the kid didn’t react more than tightening his jaw.

You want to walk away from your duty post with me? You want to be by her side, keeping her safe, helping her carve out a place of her own for her girls at Fort Nevada? Okay. Done.