Realization dawned. She was related to the man on the road and she didn’t want Diggs to know it. Had that pathetic excuse for a man hurt her,too?
He studied her face for the telltale signs of abuse but found none. She didn’t have that deadpan look in her eyes of someone who’d lived through trauma after trauma—not like Trigger did. Not like some of his own teammates did sometimes when their memories caught up to them and haunted their daydreams and their every wakingstep.
Diggs had seen that look in his own eyes sometimes when he stared into the mirror. A haunting reflection of his past misdeeds, out of his control or not, was still present and still just as devastating. Each and every one of them had betrayed the code, not on purpose, not because they hadn’t fought against it—but General Rainier had somehow taken control of their minds and forced them to commit murder. To kill the innocent. And they would forever carry that bloodstain on theirsouls.
Audra didn’t have nightmares in her eyes; she was sure and innocent and beautiful. But he could smell the fear rolling off her pores inwaves.
There was something dark in her past. Something Diggs found himself wanting to destroy and Diggs knew it had to do with theman.
Melissa continued, her uncanny gaze not unaware of Audra’s reaction. She continued that train of thought out loud, so both of them could study Audra’s reactions. “His injury looks like it was from a severe explosivetrauma.”
Each word Melissa spoke, Audra grew paler, as if the blood was forcibly being leached from her face. She stared fixedly down at Trigger, patting his neck over and over as if on mechanical repeat. And all the while her body trembled. “He was hit by acar.”
Not true.Diggs probed quietly with the truth. “I’ve seen those dogs before in combat. Damn fine soldiers; they can smell the danger and yet they still go into thefight.”
Audra’s pulse hammered as fast as a hummingbird’s wings against the base of her throat, and Diggs knew he’d got it right. “Audra, what aren’t you tellingme?”
* * *
Every single thinginside of Audra was squirming to get away, rippling with the aftereffects of the fear Diggs’s words had unleashed. She had to get away. He was getting too close. How could they have guessed that Trigger was a bomb dog? How the hell could any of this havehappened?
Had Diggs said he’d seen dogs like that himself inaction?
Her legs turned to cold Jell-O. She had to lock her knees to keep fromfalling.
Scared to look away from Trigger, she gave Diggs a quick once over out of the corner of her eyes. The rippling muscles around his arms shifted as he placed one hand on the table next to her and leaned down, battering her senses with his raw scent of pure man. Even now, as the fear was growing inside her, she felt desire. She wanted to ease her hand over and interlock her pinky with his. His touch seemed to calm her. She didn’t know why, but it did. She trusted him—no, she didn’t trust him. She didn’t know him. She didn’t know Melissaeither.
What kind of place had a lab underground in the middle ofnowhere?
Audra’s entire body stilled as the realization struck home. This was a top-secret research facility for the military, the kind that Audra thought only existed in movies. It had to be, there was no other explanation that even remotelyfit.
Her throat squeezed up tight so that she could barely drag in air but she still didn’t move. Shecouldn’t.
Suddenly, a stream of men, larger than she’d ever seen, poured into the room. Each one was bigger than the next. More muscular. They all towered over her like giants, taller even than Diggs himself, and she’d had to crane her neck back to look into hisface.
Their hair was cut short except for on top—just like how Jeremy had kept his. They all wore black tactical pants and boots, and plain black or gray T-shirts, except for one guy, one with black hair and even blacker eyes. He didn’t have a shirt on at all and around his neck hung a silver chain with two dog tags trailing at the end.Military.
Jeremy had warned her not to trust anyone in the service and she’d walked right into the middle of their commandcenter.
“Bringing strangers into our home?” one of the tallest men said. He had a jagged scar running down his face, which made his lips pull up a little bit to the side and gave him the air of a frightening nightmare. But that wasn’t what made her heart trip over itself. It was the deadly look in his gaze. A gaze that was locked onher.
Diggs stepped in front of her, putting his body between them and crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t have a choice,Top.”
Audra peeked around Diggs’s side to see the same frightening man step closer, an air of authority hovering over him like a shield. The other three men formed a line behind him, standing with their feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart, their hands clasped in front of their bodies. Audra suddenly got the feeling that she was staring at an impenetrablewall.
The leader’s gaze left her and he spoke to Diggs. “You always have achoice.”
Audra wanted to run, to hide in a corner, but Diggs didn’t even flinch. “Reaper, she had tocome.”
Reaper—what the hell kind of name was that? The answer came to her in a flash—the Grim Reaper. That’s who he was. Death surrounded him, threatening and monstrous. If Diggs wasn’t standing between them right now, she’d probably fall at his feet, too scared tomove.
“Explain,” Reapersaid.
Diggs shifted to the side and Audra shifted with him, cowardly hiding behind his massive shoulders. He gestured to Trigger, still asleep from the drugs Melissa had given him. “We found someone beating this dog on the side of the road outside of the compound. He was going to killhim.”
“You went outside the compound?” Even though the one called Reaper spoke quietly, the emitting threat in his voice couldn’t have rung anylouder.
“Idid.”
