God, this was nuts. A few days ago, Landon had been the greatest regret of my life, and now he sat beside me about to embark on a reconnaissance mission.
I let out a slow breath, sinking into the heat of his body. He’d always felt like his own personal furnace, no matter how chilled I’d been. The memory of us cuddling on a sofa watching TV gave me comfort—a warmth to offset the coldness of reality.
Whatever my brother’s goals for me working for Landon had been, there were many good moments, ones I’d taken out like cherished heirlooms and held close to my heart when things got rough. Those first weeks in basic training, the intensity of it compared to the fake life I’d built with Landon, were almost too hard to bear. I’d used those memories to combat harsh military life. But even the good memories weren’t enough sometimes.
Thank God for Marley. She saved me from myself too many times to count, knew I was hurting, but never asked for the details.
I turned my head to stare out the front windshield. We passed under a green traffic light and kept going, trees and houses lining the darkened road. It must have rained recently, because the occasional puddle splashed under the tires.
The closer we got to the bottling plant, the more my veins buzzed with the need to move. I might have appeared calm on the outside, but my insides tingled in excitement. Before I joined the army, I wouldn’t have considered myself a thrill seeker. Now the pre-mission adrenaline rush was almost addictive.
I guessed Emerson had gotten his way in that regard. He’d sent me to the military to toughen me up, and I had. Now I could take a stressful situation, piece it apart, and keep my head level. My mind went back to our recent op.Most of the time.
But with Landon at my side, my focus was split. I didn’t want anything to happen to him. Hell, he’d even refused a gun. Instead of centering all my thoughts on what lay ahead, I was concentrating on the man beside me and hoping he came out of this unharmed. And all of those distracting thoughts were detrimental to the mission.
Pushing my internal battle aside, I stared at the surveillance equipment in front of me, ignoring Landon’s sharp eyes on my face.
We stayed that way for a long time. The rap music changed from one song to another, ads after that with the DJ cutting in to talk about a music event happening on the weekend. I would have preferred silence, but knew Alina needed the noise to quiet her mind.
After many more songs, Marley took a right off the main highway, then another left. When we arrived at the coordinates we’d preselected, she pulled over to the side of the road in amongst trees, and put it in park.
Alina turned off the radio. “Everyone ready?”
With a nod, I pushed to my feet, my neck bent so I wouldn’t hit the roof of the van. Scooting past Landon’s knees, I opened the back door, then hopped out with him following.
I straightened, cracking the joints that had gone stiff during the ride, and surveyed my team. This was really a five-person operation, but since we didn’t have a fifth, we would leave the van unoccupied in order to approach from two different sides in pairs.
Landon placed the helmet on his head, and if we’d been anywhere else, I might have given in to the chuckle wanting to leave my throat. He really did look ridiculous. Landon and special ops didnotgo together.
The thought sobered me more than anything.
Everyone adjusted their night vision goggles, and with a nod from Marley, we headed through the trees in the direction of the bottling plant, making sure to look out for motion detectors like we’d spotted at the other warehouse.
Moisture dotted the leaves and transferred drops of water to my arms and legs. With every step, I was aware of Landon right behind me. My heart beat in time with my footsteps. I stepped over a fallen log. Frogs jumped out of our way. The trees thinned.
A light rustling sound followed us as we all cleared the foliage. We paused. A building stretched out in the dark, the size of a football field. Everything was dark, not one light to say anyone was home. After giving Marley and Alina a quick glance, we continued forward, then crouched beside a chain-link fence.
Already my senses tingled in warning. I’d thought it would be more like the warehouse we’d infiltrated yesterday, but this place appeared abandoned, no one in sight.
I adjusted the settings on my goggles. No heat signatures lit up beyond the walls.
“Looks like everyone went home for the day,” Marley whispered, her focus on the building.
“I guess that follows if it’s actually a bottling plant. No one would be here after closing time.” I just hadn’t expected it to be what it said on paper. When my brother was involved, it always seemed something nefarious lay below the surface. Could this be a normal factory?
“We need to take a closer look,” Landon said at my side.
I agreed, but didn’t voice it, really wanting him to return to the van and stay out of harm’s way.
“No sense sitting around and chatting about it,” Alina said, taking the bolt cutters out of her pack to start on the fence.
“Are those mine?” Landon asked, his posture straightening.
Alina only grinned and made the first cut. Theclick clickof each steel wire provided counterbalance to the crickets chirping behind us. After making a hole big enough, she returned the bolt cutters to her pack and bent the remaining wire aside.
I glanced at Marley and nodded. Silently, we crawled through the gap and stood. I only waited a second for Landon to get to his feet. Then I was off, jogging toward the north entrance, knowing my two friends went to the south.
Nothing moved. The whole place felt like it had been empty forever instead of since closing time. No one came out of the shadows. No one stopped us. We crossed a parking lot empty of cars, gravel crunching beneath our shoes.
