Ten
January 24th
4:38 P.M.
A shift in the air had Voodoo freezing.
Nothing discernible had caught his attention, no sound or sight, it was just a feeling that he and Indigo were no longer alone.
As in tune as she already was with him, something he could only attribute to the fact that both of them had finely honed instincts, even if Indigo didn't know exactly how to use hers, she froze as well.
“Is it them?” she asked, her voice a faint whisper, without any training at all, she seemed to have mastered how to speak without letting her voice carry.
According to Whitney, one of the effects of the drugs was a heightened ability to tap into the more primal part of the brain, those instincts that most people no longer used because mankind had been living in relative safety for too long. All those skills that humans once used to evade predators, that people like him had learned to access as part of their military training, now came easily. Even walking with a broken legand a crutch, Indigo made a lot less noise than most people would walking normally.
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. It didn’t matter that he hadn't seen anything, hadn't heard anything, if his senses said someone was out there, he trusted that.
“What do we do?” she asked, and he was so proud of her for already knowing she was ready and willing to fight.
Still, as much as Indigo was definitely improving, the infections receding, her temperature still elevated but hovering closer to normal, her wounds healing, she was still injured, still weak, and had zero training in how to fight.
This wasn't the kind of thing you could learn in the midst of fighting for your life.
“You're going to hide,” he murmured as he reached out and swept her off her feet.
Indigo’s lips pressed into a thin line, and he glimpsed the spirit that had gotten her through twenty-nine years of a life that was constantly trying to beat her down. No matter how hard it tried, though, she kept bouncing back up.
“Don’t bother arguing,” he warned. “I don’t know how many of them there are, and we need to kill them quietly, so they don’t get a chance to communicate our location with Dr. Gardner and the rest of the guards.”
Giving a sharp nod, he knew she agreed, even if she didn't like feeling like a burden. Everyone in her life had made her out to be one, to not be worthy enough of their time, attention, and love.
But not him. He was determined to prove to her the opposite.
“When we get home, we’ll get you trained,” Voodoo promised as she scanned the area for a place where she could hide. “Then next time you can join in the fun.”
Spotting a small tree that was sprouting out of the bottom of a much larger one, he determined there was enough leafy brush to hide her small frame, so he headed toward it. Setting her down, he pushed her back a little so her spine was pressed against the trunk, then arranged the branches around her until she was no longer visible.
Because there was no way in hell he was leaving her without aweapon, just like when he’d left her in the cave to get water for them, he pressed his back-up weapon into her hands.
“Remember how to use it?”
“Take off the safety, aim for the chest. Don’t hesitate because if I waste my chance, I might not get another one,” she parroted out the instructions he’d given her.
“Only shoot if you absolutely have to,” he reminded her. “We don’t want them to know we’re here.”
“I know, because if they do, then they can call in our location.”
Convinced that she was as informed and prepared as he could get her in a short space of time, Voodoo still found it difficult to push to his feet. Leaving her behind felt wrong. Not just because she was injured and weak, and not just because she was one of them, not even just because everyone in her life had let her down.
But because she was his.
He knew it, felt it in some deep, dark part of his soul he hadn't even known existed. Voodoo had wondered how Steel had fallen for Rose so quickly, and how Blade had fallen for Whitney even as he thought at the time she was one of the people they were fighting to bring down, but now he knew.
From the first moment he’d dropped to his knees beside her unconscious form as she tumbled out of that supply cabinet, he’d felt it, she was special.
Now he had to leave her behind, knowing there was a chance that he wouldn't ever come back to her. While he always knew that his enhancements gave him an advantage, Voodoo was also careful to never get cocky. Being arrogant led to making mistakes, and he would never make a mistake when his team’s lives were depending on him being at the top of his game. Now that it was Indigo relying on him, it was even more important that he not let anything distract him, not even his own superiority.
Assuming these people hunting them knew who he was and that he was out there was the smart thing to do. It was the only logical conclusion given the sheer amount of men Dr. Gardner was throwing at this area. There had been time for that first lot of guards shooting at themas they exited the lab to figure out that his team had been there and call it in.
