Again, she was quiet for a moment before asking, “So where did you end up going instead?”
“The rest of them went to Florida, where else?”
“You didn’t go?”
Damon shifted a bit farther from Ravyn. “I couldn’t. It seemed wrong to go somewhere and have fun when people had died. When it hit so close to home.” He just about groaned when he saw she had tears in her eyes again. Damn, he knew he should have kept quiet. The loss of her mother couldn’t be easy to talk about even though it had happened so long ago.
“You were pretty sensitive for a teenager,” she said thickly. Then she surprised the hell out of him by reaching out and running her fingertips fleetingly across his hand.
In his shock, Damon nearly jerked his arm back. Instead, he cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the idea that she thought he was sensitive. Soldiers were
not
sensitive. He opened his mouth, but closed it in a hurry when he realized how close she was. He wasn’t quite sure how she’d managed to move without him being aware of it, but the thought went right out of his head when she placed two fingers lightly against his lips.
“I know,” she said, her voice low, “you’re dying to deny you’re sensitive. To tell me you’re a Spec Ops officer, not some sissy. I know you’re tough, Captain.”
He couldn’t quite tear his gaze away from the soft smile she had on her face. Ravyn caught him flatfooted again when she pressed her lips against his cheek.
“Goodnight.” She rolled away, her back to him, before he was able to gather his wits enough to react.
Slowly, Damon brought his hand up and briefly touched the spot she’d kissed. He could swear it buzzed. All he could do for quite some time was stare at her. When he realized her deep, even breathing meant she had fallen asleep again, he returned to his back and tucked an arm behind his head. He was going to have to watch himself. Her nearness had been too disturbing, her touch too exciting. Even now every cell in his body vibrated with pleasure and all from a simple, innocent peck on the cheek.
Damon willed his mind to still, his body to calm, but they didn’t obey him. He’d had more control over himself in the middle of his first firefight as a green second lieutenant. The realization did not please him. Neither did the knowledge that he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep that night.
With an effort, he managed to wrench his thoughts away from Ravyn. What came to mind was even more unsettling. He saw his team, his friends, in the clearing. Even with his eyes open, he could see them as clearly as he had when they’d found them. His jaw tightened until a muscle began to tic.
What had the power to disarm and murder six of the toughest men in the Western Alliance?
Damon scowled into the night. Crossing one booted foot over the other, he ran through what he knew again. It didn’t take long. The list of unanswered questions took a lot more time. Most puzzling of all was the pattern in which the bodies had been arranged. What was it? He could sense it was important. Squinting, he brought the scene into his mind’s eye and studied it.
A lightning bolt!
Damon sat upright in a hurry. Shit. His men had been arranged in a zigzag pattern that was supposed to represent a lightning bolt. Unfortunately, this bit of knowledge didn’t make anything clearer. It just raised more questions.
He tried to remember the placement of the CAT team’s bodies. It had been so damn dark in that room. Damon closed his eyes and focused even more intently. Nothing came to him and he shook his head. They weren’t laid out in a lightning bolt, or even a series of lightning bolts. He knew that. Finally, he tried to picture the scene from an aerial view.
Damon opened his eyes and ran a hand over his chin.
That couldn’t be right. No damn way.
He was dealing with a psycho. There was no question about it. Yet he couldn’t conceive of even the sickest being arranging nineteen bodies in a giant flower. Now that he’d recognized it the image was undeniable. A giant flower complete with a stem and leaves. And all made out of mutilated bodies.
Silently getting to his feet, Damon paced the perimeter of their camp. Whomever, whatever, they dealt with, he didn’t think the killer was human. Not with the choices he made defying any kind of logic Damon had ever learned.
What if the Old City wasn’t really abandoned? What if this being was one of the original settlers? Or a descendent of the original settlers?
He stopped and settled back against a tree. The night sounds of Jarved Nine soothed him. The low hum of insects; the slight scurrying of nocturnal animals. As long as he heard those sounds, Damon was sure there wasn’t danger present.
Before he could block it thoughts of his friends filled his head in a kaleidoscope of images. The look in Carter’s eyes as he’d taken his wedding vows. Lopez beaming with pride as he’d shown off pictures of his kid’s first day of school. Eng, normally Mister Calm, worried about proposing to his girlfriend. Bauman full of plans for his folks’ ranch when his enlistment was up in a few months. Petrelli grinning from ear to ear as he’d told the team his wife carried twins. And Spence changing his mind every five minutes on whether his daughter’s birthday cake should have teddy bear decorations or cartoon characters.
Damon leaned his head back and stared up at the moon. How was he going to tell their families about the deaths?
He’d left them in the clearing. The thought pierced through his heart. Scavengers would get to the bodies. The pain in his knuckles made him realize how tightly he’d clenched his hands. He forced himself to relax finger by finger.
The families weren’t going to have much to bury, but there had been no other choice. His first responsibility was to protect Ravyn, to get her safely back to Earth.
But he wasn’t leaving Jarved Nine without getting justice for his friends. Damon straightened. He would hand Ravyn off to the rescue team and then go hunting. He’d been trained to track, trained to kill and that was exactly what he was going to do.
“An eye for an eye,” he vowed quietly.
CHAPTER FIVE
“You ready?”
Ravyn started slightly at the brusqueness in Damon’s voice before nodding. It was a wasted effort since he’d already turned and picked up the pack. He didn’t look at her again before starting off.
So that’s the way it’s going to be, Ravyn thought. She wrinkled her nose at his back before obediently trotting after him. She should have guessed this would happen. If the subject ever came up again, she’d remember to pick a different word than “sensitive.” Something more manly. Biting back a smirk, she decided the best course of action would be to act as if nothing were amiss. It would confuse him if she didn’t seem to notice a difference in his behavior. She loved keeping Alex on his toes and it looked like she was going to have the same fun with Damon.
He turned to check on her and caught a smile on her face.
“Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” she said as a diversion.
With a grunt, he looked forward again.
Actually, it barely qualified as morning. The sun wasn’t quite peeking over the mountains yet. Technically, she knew they were hills, but they looked like mountains to her. They’d reach them today, no doubt, and the thought of hiking through them was daunting. Still staring off in the distance, Ravyn stumbled over an exposed tree root, making enough noise to capture Damon’s attention. He stopped and raised his eyebrows.
“I’m fine,” she told him, blushing slightly.
His eyes traveled the length of her body, then he nodded and continued walking.
Ravyn made sure to watch where she put her feet this time instead of worrying about the terrain ahead. At least here the ground wasn’t clogged with undergrowth the way it had been most of yesterday. The easier walk was a relief.
For a second, Ravyn thought she smelled coffee. Her mouth watered before she realized the odds of finding coffee brewing on Jarved Nine were about on par with waking up and finding the last few days had been a bizarre nightmare. She turned her head to examine the path they traveled, to distract herself, but the first thing she saw was a patch of sinestas. The flower Sondra’s wreath had been made from. She could still see them spattered with blood.
The reminder of her dream sent a quiver of desolation racing through her body. It hadn’t been a replay of when she’d found her friends’ bodies, although some of it had really happened. This time Damon had been killed, laid out on an altar as a sacrifice. She was still shaken by the depth of pain that image evoked. Just thinking about anything happening to him...
Ravyn shuddered. Only the embarrassment of breaking down again kept her from wailing. She struggled to close the door on her memories and finally visualized erecting a brick wall to keep them contained. She watched the ground, focused on putting one foot in front of the other. This time she couldn’t block her thoughts. Flashes kept sneaking past her barriers. She’d no sooner banish the image of the bodies, when she’d recall yanking the flowers from Sondra’s hair or the feel of blood coating her.
Somehow it was worse, though, when she thought of how she’d seen Damon in her dream. It made Ravyn feel guilty.
After all, she’d only known him for a few days and she’d known her teammates for months, and in some cases, years. Yet her soul felt ripped apart when she thought of anything happening to the captain.
Her hands curled into tight fists, her nails digging into the palms, as she fought against the tidal wave of remembrance. Even with her eyes open, though, she couldn’t focus on the vibrant life surrounding her, only the emptiness of death.
Surreptitiously, she wiped her eyes. Her thoughts slid to Sondra’s birthday party. The guys had been giving her a hard time about turning thirty. Ravyn smiled slightly even as more tears fell. Sondra had laughed and told them all that getting older was better than the alternative. Ravyn turned a sob into a cough, hoping Damon wouldn’t notice.
The evening had been boisterous and full of laughter. After dinner, they’d gathered in the communal room to watch movies and that had been when she’d slipped away. Ravyn bit down hard on her lower lip, hard enough to draw blood. She wasn’t aware that Damon had stopped, that she had automatically stopped as well, until he took her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake.
“Come on, sweet pea, snap out of it.” The insistence in his voice made her curious how many times he’d tried to get her attention before this.
The second shake wasn’t quite as gentle and she blinked up at him in surprise. The sun was up now and Ravyn guessed she’d been lost in thought for hours. Finally, she focused on Damon and realized he was concerned. “I’m okay,” she assured him, but the shakiness of her voice did not inspire confidence.
The warmth of his touch anchored her and she brought her own hands up, gripping his forearms almost desperately. Ravyn could feel the play of his muscles under the long-sleeve shirt and that distracted her. She stared at his tan throat, watched his pulse beat. For the first time, she noticed his ears stuck out a little bit. His hair was disheveled, standing straight up and sticking out in different directions. It was sexy as hell. A squeeze of her shoulders had her finally looking into his eyes.
“I need you with me,” he told her.
Ravyn nodded, knew exactly what he meant. He needed her in the here and now, not in her head. She had to be aware of her surroundings, had to at least be of minimal help. “I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I can’t stop remembering.”
“You’re tired. It’s harder to push the memories away when you’re not rested, but I need you to do it anyway.” He looked around before bringing his attention back to her. “Do you feel it?” he asked.
For a second, Ravyn thought he meant the attraction between them. Oh, yeah, she felt it. In every cell of her body. Then she realized he wasn’t talking about that. She closed her eyes, letting her senses gather information. The air felt heavy and there was a muted quiet, as if the normal noises of the planet were muffled by the heaviness of the atmosphere. It was hard to breathe and even the scent of flowers seemed smothered. Opening her eyes, she said, “There’s a huge storm coming.”
Damon nodded. “That would be my guess. We need to eat something and find water and shelter before it hits. Don’t think about anything else, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed and stopped clinging to his arms.
“Good. We’re going to have to split up. There’s food here. Gather up enough for the entire day. I’m going to scout ahead, try to find us some water and somewhere to ride out the storm.”
The urge to grab him again was strong, but she refused to give into her weakness. He said he needed her; she wouldn’t let him down. Taking a deep breath, Ravyn nodded. She tried not to be scared, but it must have been written on her face.
“Believe me,” he assured her, “I wouldn’t leave you if I wasn’t positive you’d be safe.”
“You mean safer than with you.”
Damon looked away briefly, then locked his gaze on hers. “We did some circling as we walked. Our rear and flanks are clear. For now. But I don’t know what’s ahead of us.”
“And you can move faster without me.”
“We’ll save time if we split what needs to be done. I won’t be gone long, I promise.”
She straightened her spine and gathered together all the determination she could muster. “I’ll be fine.”
He gave her a two-second smile. “I know you will. Don’t wander off,” he ordered. Then, shocking her, Damon pressed a kiss on her forehead and disappeared into the trees.
Ravyn wasted about ten minutes trying to figure out what that kiss meant before she could shake herself out of her stupor. All the impetus she needed was to think of Damon returning to find her standing where he left her. Now that would be pathetic.
He’d left the pack, a fact she didn’t discover until she almost fell over it. Man, she had been out of it, Ravyn thought as she surveyed the area for fruits and vegetables. She gathered a variety, storing them in the pack when her arms got too full. She didn’t stop until she had filled it. If the weather got really bad, one of the huge hurricane-type storms that could roll through, they might be holed up for days. She wasn’t sure where they were, but the area surrounding the Old City was particularly susceptible to big storms. One of the enigmas of the settlement was why they had chosen to build there.