Someone.
Shit, where’d they come from? She hadn’t heard a damned thing.
She backed up a step, heart pumping too fast for someone her age. The silhouette was large, dark. Her mouth opened—to yell? Hell no, she couldn’t yell. She didn’t have time to get the pistol from her coat pocket before he was on her. Thick arms tightened around her and a hard hand pressed over her mouth.
You were right, Daisy. Shoulda had my ears checked.
Chapter 25
Though the wind howled and things crackled in the woods below, Elias could hear nothing but Leo tossing and turning in the tent. She’d gone to bed an hour ago and didn’t appear to have slept a wink. He could relate. He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep either, despite his exhaustion.
It wasn’t a surprise when the tent zipper came up and Leo emerged. “Can’t sleep.” She made her way over to where he sat with Bo splayed out across his feet like a living electric blanket, and settled beside them—close, but not touching. “I’ll take this watch. You do the next one.”
He nodded but didn’t move. “Cold?”
She grimaced.
Rather than go into the tent and suffer through his own insomnia, he sat quietly beside her.
“You like it here?” She broke the silence. “Alaska?”
He blinked. “Um…”
She snuffled, the sound halfway between a laugh and a snort. “You didn’t choose this life.”
Was this her asking, in an oblique way, what else had happened ten years ago? Maybe. Probably.
“I chose it.” He infused as much certainty into the words as he could. Not easy to do while the memories converged—an uncomfortable hodgepodge of images and feelings. He sorted through them, or tried at least. Suddenly, more than anything, he wanted to tell her. Everything.
“It was just a job, you know?” He shook his head. “I could have let it slide, like everybody else did—like we were pressured, and then ordered, to do. Could have toed the line, agreed with my superiors.” His eyes flicked her way, though she was just a shadow, any physical responses hidden by the night. “Dr. Campbell Turner was a traitor. That was the message. Plain and simple. He’d stolen something very important from the government. Highly classified. Way beyond my clearance level.”
“Why were you involved to begin with?”
“I’m the one who tracked him down. He escaped custody—with the help of a colleague. Who died, too, by the way.”
“Everyone dies,” she said, quiet and grim.
He wanted to hold her hand. Instead, he nodded, knowing she couldn’t even see him. “I’m the one who figured out where Turner had hidden.”
“How?”
“Put myself in his shoes.”
“And?”
“He’d moved into a house in his old neighborhood.” He swallowed. It was painful, tight. “To keep an eye on the wife and kids. It’s what I would’ve done. Anyway, he was holed up in a place that was about to go on the market. I only found that out through a neighbor. On our third interview. Thing was, I expected a dangerous man. What I found was a heavily injured, intelligent guy who didn’t want to die but couldn’t leave his family behind. He talked right away. Told me about the virus, the research. Let me know he’d tried to reason with his employers. He’d been injured on the run. Never saw a doctor. They’d threatened his family, everyone. Told him they’d take him to a black ops site, where they’d do more than withhold care.”
“They planned to torture him?”
“They tortured him.” He met her gaze. “They’ll do anything to get that virus back.”
“I know.” She leaned in. “What were they using it for? What’s the whole point? We can’t figure it out. Are they planning to use it as a bioweapon? Is that it?”
“Sure. You could call it that. But it’s not just a bioweapon, Leo. This thing…it’s not a subtle killer.”
Was Leo holding her breath? He couldn’t tell, but he thought so. She was utterly still, as if suspended—waiting for what was next.
“They were testing the novel Frondvirus.” He expelled a hard breath and tried not to remember. “There was footage.” Memories so raw they hurt. He felt sick, wrong. “Suffering like you wouldn’t believe. The damn thing was immediate and unstoppable. It could take out entire populations. In no time at all.”
