The breath shuddered from her body. Yardley’s vision grayed out in her relief. KC was alive. “Are you bleeding? Did he get you?”
“For fuck’s sake.” Strong hands yanked her to the floor. “I’m fine, but you’re going to get the both of us killed.”
“I am not.” She was. Yardley had forgotten her training and made herself a target for Dr. Brown, who was still shooting atthem. She felt woozy, but there wasn’t time to put her head between her knees. KC took her hand, pressing her damp palm into Yardley’s, and Yardley wanted to bring it to her lips to kiss it.
KC towed her outside. It was literally a circus on fire. Yardley recovered herself enough to remember what to do. “The van!”
KC got them to it, Dr. Brown somewhere behind them. She tossed Yardley through the open driver’s door and shoved her into the center space so she could take the wheel. Yardley was about to sing hosannas to KC that she was alive and well and looking so good besides when KC peeled out.
She glanced at Yardley sprawled on the van’s floor. “You almost got yourself shot! I knew you’d come with the van, but you were supposed to be getting my Morse code on how to pick me up, not barrel in there like a rodeo bull!”
“What?” Yardley moved to a seated position, peeking out the windows, hoping the second helicopter above was theirs this time and that it wouldn’t fall from the sky any moment after losing its computer controls. “Dang it!”
KC swerved around a pair of guards. “What made you lose your mind like that, for Pete’s sake!”
If KC was censoring her language, then she was extremely agitated. KC cursed for pleasure. “He’s your mentor! He was playing on your emotions! He had a gun on you, KC. And he went bad, but it would be normal if you couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t believe it at first. You didn’t have any comm! That’s too much for a first mission!”
KC was swerving around guests, her body low in the driver’s seat. “Too much for who, Yardley?”
“God, KC!” Yardley winced as the van grazed something very much on fire. “Too much for me, obviously! You knew enough toknow I’d come with the van but not that I’d come and get you my own self?”
“I guess that’s for one of our ‘later’ conversations.” KC downshifted and looked back over her shoulder.
She was smiling.
Flirting, even.
“I knew he’d switched sides as soon as I saw him behind me,” KC said. “I hated it, but a lot hadn’t added up for a long time. I’ve known him forever. He thinks he knows me, but men always think they know someone, and when have you known any of them to really pay attention to anyone but themselves? No offense, Gramercy.”
“Not at all.” His voice was remarkably calm for the amount of automatic weapons fire and small explosions going off around them. He’d been here before.
“Oh,” Yardley said.
“Yeah. I was playinghim. I actually had a lot of options in there as long as he didn’t shoot me, which I didn’t think he really would. Men underestimate their emotional attachments. I’m the same age as his daughter.”
“He has a daughter?”
“Gretel,” KC said. “She’s an architect in Arizona. He dotes on her.”
“I did not know that,” Gramercy said.
“Me neither,” Atlas said.
“Everyone brace yourselves!” KC shouted, and immediately after Yardley gripped the seat in front of her, the van made sickening contact with an immoveable object. “Stay down and follow me. Don’t stop moving, even if it gets weird.”
KC opened the van door and rolled out of it, and the soldierYardley had ejected from the role of driver, obviously recognizing authority when he saw it, ripped open the sliding van door and got into a crouched, sheltering position, leading out Atlas, Gramercy, and the two techs.
“Get yourself back together, Whitmer,” Yardley whispered, her usual calm finally starting to return. “KC Nolan is a superhero, and if you play your cards right, maybe she’ll take you to dinner.”
She crouched down and followed the techs out, the soldier at the rear. That was when she realized that KC had rammed the van into the M1126 Stryker Combat Vehicle. Immediately following this realization, Yardley experienced an auditory hallucination of KC telling her,I can drive anything.
Whoa.
She’d already brought down the rear entry to the Stryker. Atlas, Gramercy, and the techs were buckling themselves into the seats that lined each side of the interior. Yardley looked at KC, who directed her to a seat behind the commander’s. She put the soldier in the second driver’s seat.
“I’ve only completed computer simulation training, ma’am.” The soldier buckled himself in.
“That’s enough for where you’re sitting.” KC got the rear door shut, then reached over her head to turn on orange interior lights. “What’s your name?”
