Rogue Protector, page 8
“Was. Twenty-four years, six months, and nine days. Look, I get that you don’t know me. But we’re wasting time. I can make a few calls, probably find out where your Site One is in an hour or two. But that might be an hour or two Mik doesn’t have.”
They’ve got all of ten seconds before I call Ryker McCabe. Because his wife, Wren, is the best hacker I’ve ever worked with. She could break into the Smithsonian’s computer system and probably into Mik’s email faster than I can pack up my shit. “Fucking ridiculous,” I mutter as I turn on my heel and stride for my room.
“Wait!” Corey calls just as I pull out my key. “I have a map and can get you the coordinates. But we should get Dr. Mik’s key from the front desk. She has spare inhalers in her room. If she’s hurt out there, she might need one.” The kid sounds like he’s about to lose his shit, and even though I could pick the lock on Mikayla’s door faster than any of them could make it to the front desk and convince them to give them a key, I nod.
“Fine. You,” I say as I point to Isaiah. He straightens with a groan. “You get the key. Li and Corey, you’re going to show me where you last saw Mikayla and the route she’d take to get to the site.”
Li sits on the floor next to my bed with her arms around her knees. “I should have gone with her,” she says while Corey pulls up a map on his laptop.
“If you had, both of you could be out there. And we wouldn’t know,” Corey replies and zooms in on a remote area a good forty minute drive from the hotel. “Site One is here, and Dr. Mik would have taken this trail.”
I enter the site coordinates in my GPS, along with those for the mobile lab unit. “Give me all the other sites as well. You keep supplies there?”
“Not really. A spare bottle of water. A protein bar.”
Isaiah bursts through the door with two inhalers and a small plastic box of pills clutched in his hands. “Take these. The meds are anti-inflammatories.”
“You have a car?” I ask. Shoving the inhalers and the box into my waterproof rucksack, I yank open my dresser drawer, grab my hunting knife, and strap it to my thigh. The second knife—my backup—is already sheathed to my belt.
My pack is kitted out with everything I’d need if I were stranded for up to three nights. Two Mylar heat blankets, a camping mat, waterproof fire starters, MREs, a full first aid kit, flares, and a solar-powered battery for the GPS. If only I’d listened to my dad and packed a sat phone, but those damn things are heavy.
Li hands me a set of keys. “It’s the black Land Rover at the end of the first row of the parking lot.”
Shouldering my pack, I usher the three of them out of my room and lock the door. “As soon as I can get a cell signal, I’ll call the hotel and let you know she’s safe.”
“You say that like you’re sure you’ll find her,” Li whispers.
“Failure is not an option.” I zip up my windbreaker, then pat myself down, expecting to find half a dozen weapons and a tactical vest, but that’s not my life anymore. Still, some habits don’t die as easily as we hope.
Every time I blink, I see her face. Hear her laugh. And regret not sharing anything beyond the superficial with her last night. If I never see her again, I will curse my cowardice for the rest of my life. Because Mikayla? She’s mine. I don’t know how or why I know this, but I’m as sure of it as I am my own fucking name.
Chapter Ten
Austin
The closer I get to the mobile lab, the worse the weather turns. Thunderstorms in New England don’t have anything on the ones in the mountains around here. If Mik is out in this, I hope to all that’s holy she found shelter somewhere.
With the cloud cover, it’s pitch dark all around me, outside of the headlights and semi-regular lightning strikes, which means slow going. The last thing I need is to drive off a cliff. GPS is a gift from the technology gods, but it’s not foolproof.
My fingers ache from gripping the steering wheel so hard. Every scenario running through my mind is worse than the last. Mikayla injured somewhere after a bad spill. Suffering an asthma attack halfway back to the lab and being unable to get to her inhaler in time. Falling to her death—No.
I can’t let myself go there.
I could drive halfway to Site Three. It’d be dangerous, but this vehicle can handle it. If I did that, though, I could miss something. Some sign of Mik.
Or her body.
Forcing myself to continue all the way to the lab, I park and check inside, just in case she managed to make it back. No sign of her. The lights blaze—Li left them on so Mik could see them from a distance—but it’s empty.
Tightening the straps on my pack, I steel myself for the climb. The trail—if you can call it that—is barely passable. Between the driving rain and the wind, it’s half destroyed. My foot sinks into a six-inch-deep hole full of water ten minutes in, and I almost go down.
“Mikayla!” Shouting into the wind is useless, but I have to try. After close to an hour, I’m soaked to the bone, but Site One is just across the river and up a final steep climb.
The roar of the water is deafening, and the bridge…it’s hanging on to the shore by sheer will. If I cross it, there’s every chance it’ll collapse under my weight. But I don’t have a choice. Mikayla could be on the other side.
The wood cracks and strains with every step, but miraculously, it holds. Picking up the pace, I push myself through the last two tenths of a mile and squeeze through the narrow opening into the caldera.
The flashlight beam sweeps around the basin, and my God. It’s so beautiful. Dozens of orchids cling to trees and large rocks, their roots gnarled and twisted like thick ropes. The entire space is smaller than a couple of baseball diamonds, but every single inch of it is green.
Clearing the caldera takes too long, and though the rain isn’t as heavy as it was back at the lab, from the state of the ground, any evidence of Mik’s presence—if she even made it here—is long gone.
A couple of the orchids look…odd though. Their roots are smaller. Shinier. And they’re not as well entrenched as the others. Like someone’s disturbed them recently. Was she here? Did Mik do this trying to take samples? I pull out my phone, snapping a couple of photos.
Retreating to the rocky passage guarding the site, I have to duck under a curtain of hanging vines, and in my periphery, a scrap of orange fabric catches my eye. Mikayla’s backpack. It was by her bed when I kissed her at her door a little after 1:00 a.m., and I’d commented on the color.
“For visibility,” she’d said. “The Mexican government promised us they’d patrol regularly up by the sites to deter the poachers.”
“Poachers? Mik, that sounds dangerous. And who’d want to poach orchids? You can buy them in every grocery store.”
“Not this one. And if it goes extinct, all chances to use its roots to help treat Parkinson’s go out the window.”
She was here, and she left her backpack behind. It’s open, everything inside soaked. A large plastic box with glass vials in individualized compartments, tools, a USB drive in a waterproof bag, a granola bar, and half a bottle of water. She’d never just leave this. No ID, no passport, no phone. The sample box is empty, so something pulled her away from her work before she could start.
The icy pit in my stomach grows, and a large drop of rain slithering down my back only adds to my overwhelming sense of dread. “Mikayla! Answer me!”
She can’t be far. Zipping up her pack, I secure it to mine with a couple of carabiners and push to my feet. The GPS shows a large, flat area on the other side of this spire, and I start picking my way over the rocky trail, stopping every few steps to sweep the flashlight around the area and call her name.
When I emerge out onto the plateau, fear coils in my gut. Though the rain has half obscured the depressions, the tire tracks are still visible. Someone had a vehicle here. A big, heavy one. At least the size of the Land Rover. I follow the tracks for half a mile until they disappear, then return to the muddy expanse and search every fucking inch. Nothing.
Staring up at the dark sky, letting the rain pelt my cheeks, I beg whatever deity is up there to give me something. Anything. “Mikayla! Mik! Please answer me!”
“Some of the trails have steep drop-offs.”
Corey’s words echo in my ears, and I adjust my grip on the flashlight and retrace my steps on the way back to the grow site, searching for anything out of place. Small rock slides, any place the trees are sparse enough for someone to slip and fall over the edge. Every few feet, I aim the flashlight over the side of the cliff, peering down at the steep decline, calling her name.
And then the beam catches a glint of something. I almost missed it, but the rain is starting to let up now, and it’s easier to see. There it is again. Twenty feet down. I grab the small pair of binoculars. “Fuck, Mikayla. No.”
She’s on her side, the small, rocky outcropping barely six feet wide. Spindly tree branches—some dead, some not—half-obscure her, but enough are broken that I can see her hands, shoulder, and part of her face.
I have to get down there—and find a way to get back up.
I’m trained for this. To operate under the most intense conditions. But nothing prepares me for the fear that a woman I care for—a woman I think just might be the one for me—could be dead. My hands shake as I withdraw the rappelling line and secure one end of it around a large tree trunk. I don’t have my belay controls, but the gloves I’m wearing will grip well enough—even in the rain.
Careful not to disturb too many rocks on my way down the cliff lest they fall directly onto Mikayla, I lower myself down slowly, hand over hand, until my boots are solidly on the ground next to her. My bad shoulder aches, but I ignore the pain.
“Please be alive,” I whisper as I kneel, strip off one of my gloves, and press my fingers to her neck.
A faint heartbeat. Thank fuck. But she’s so cold. Her lips are tinged blue, and—goddammit. A zip tie is wrapped tightly around her wrists. Someone did this to her. The glint I saw? Her bracelet. The amethyst and tourmaline caught the light when nothing else would have.
I yank the hunting knife from the sheath on my thigh and snap the plastic in a single quick motion. “Mikayla, can you hear me, sweetheart?” I don’t want to move her. The fall could have broken her neck, her back…any number of bones. But if I don’t, she’ll die of exposure. Between the wind and the rain, she’s probably half-hypothermic already. Her fingers are badly pruned, which means she’s been out here for hours.
I squeeze her hand, and she coughs weakly, then tries to draw in a wheezing breath. Relief sends me onto my ass, where I shed my ruck and paw through it for one of her inhalers. “Breathe out, Mik,” I order as I gently part her lips and hold the mouthpiece in place.
Her eyelids flutter, and with my hand on her chest, I can feel the exhale. Dispensing a dose of the Albuterol, I wait, praying, until her lungs expand. She manages a second breath, then a third, each deeper than the last.
“Mik, it’s Austin. I’ve got you now. Can you open your eyes? I need to know how badly you’re hurt.”
“Aus…tin?” Her voice is weak and slurred, but I’ve never been so grateful to hear anyone say my name.
“Thank God. I’m here, Mik. Tell me what hurts.” Her lips aren’t as blue as they were, but with the flashlight balanced on a rock just above her shoulder, I can’t see any visible injuries other than a cut on her forehead close to her brow.
“Can’t...” Mikayla forces her eyes open, but they aren’t focusing properly, and I lean closer so my face is bathed in light. “Numb.”
If she broke her back, we’re fucked. Or worse, her neck. But as I race through a thousand possibilities for why she can’t feel anything, she moves her legs, just enough. Then her right arm. Her left is pinned under her.
Field assessment was never my strong suit. I can shoot, fight, run tactical, but I was always shit at medical.
“Don’t let them find me,” she mumbles, her eyes closing.
“Who? Who did this do you? How long have you been out here?” I start down at her feet, patting her down, gently squeezing her ankles, calves, knees, halfway up her thighs.
“Don’t know.” Her body trembles, and my heart leaps into my throat. No. Not trembling. She’s shivering. She’s numb because she’s been out here in the rain and wind soaked to the bone.
“Mik, this is important.” I slap her cheeks lightly to get her to open her eyes. “I need you to focus on me and answer my questions. As soon as I know your neck and back are okay, I can get you out of here.”
She blinks hard a couple of times, and then nods. Shit. If her neck was broken, that was the wrong thing for her to do.
“What day is it?”
“Sunday.”
“Where did we meet?”
The corners of her mouth curve into a weak smile, and shit, even out here, injured, half-drowned, she’s beautiful and perfect and all I want is to be able to hold her. “Bar.”
“Just a couple more, sweetheart.” I take my finger and trace it along her jaw. “Can you feel this?”
“Uh huh.”
Continuing down her body, I reach her right wrist. “What about now?”
“Uh huh.”
Slipping my hand under her torn rain jacket, flannel shirt, and tank top, I find her waist. “Now?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Please…just get me out of here.”
The desperation in her voice shatters my control, and I slide one arm under her knees and another behind her back with my fingers cradling her nape. She whimpers when I pull her to my chest and buries her face against my neck. I can’t climb with her like this, but I couldn’t let her lie there another second.
“It’s a twenty-foot climb, Mik. Getting back up there is going to be hard. I need to know you trust me.” Checking the back of her head for lumps under the guise of smoothing her hair, I’m relieved when I find only a small swelling. How she managed to fall down here without serious injury is a fucking miracle.
“You c-came for m-me,” she says, her teeth starting to chatter. “I t-trust y-you.”
Mik clings to me when I set her down, braced against the steep rock face, and I try to calm her. “Shhh, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere. But in order to get us out of here, I need to find a way to tie you to me so you don’t fall.”
Her shivering is getting worse, and if I can’t get her warm soon, she’s going to be in real trouble. Pulling off my belt, I maneuver her until the canvas strap is under her ass, then buckle it as loosely as I can. I have a couple of bungee cords in my pack, and clip them almost like a harness, one around each of her thighs, and all four ends secured to the belt. “This’ll hold you like a seat. But you’ll need to hang on to me. Can you do that?”
“Th-think so.”
Dropping into a crouch, I tie a figure eight knot to the belt, then turn so my back is to her, pulling the rope up and winding it around my torso and through the straps of my ruck. There’s just enough slack for me to take the blight and use my last carabiner to hold it fast.
“Put your arms around my neck. You have to hold tight. This is a shitty harness, but it’s all I have.”
“I can do it.” The tremors in her voice don’t give me a lot of confidence. She’s fucking terrified. She’s not the only one. I should have swapped my ruck around so I could feel her pressed against me, but I don’t want to take the extra time. We have to get somewhere warm and dry so I can find out who hurt her. And then make them pay.
Mikayla
My head feels like it’s about to roll off my shoulders, and the only thing keeping me conscious right now is holding on to Austin. The hard muscles under my palms, the grunts of exertion and pain as he climbs hand over hand up a thin rope to the top of the cliff. Where I fell. No. Where I was dropped.
I try to swallow my sob, but from his quick flinch, I don’t think I was completely successful. He knows someone hurt me. I’m going to have to tell him what happened. How the kid I sponsored, the one who said I gave him a future he didn’t deserve, was part of this.
I was so stupid, thinking I could come out here on my own. Thinking it would be safe. But in three weeks, we’d never seen another soul. And Corey…I never thought…
We slip a few feet, and Austin curses as I tighten my arms around his neck. How is he doing this? Carrying me up a mountain? Heck, how did he find me in the first place?
With a guttural shout, he pulls us up, again and again, his feet making scraping sounds against the rocks, and my teeth chattering incessantly.
After what feels like forever, we’re level with the trail, and Austin slides forward on his belly along the narrow path, twisting himself until he’s stretched out safely, then pushes up on one elbow. It’s dark, and I can only see a hint of his profile before my vision goes soft and hazy, and my stomach pitches. I’m so cold.
Before he found me, I’d feared I’d crack a tooth. Until everything slowed, then stopped and I couldn’t feel anything. Couldn’t muster the energy to care. Now, I care very much, and all I want is to be warm. With him. In his arms.
And then I am. In his arms at least, huddled against the rocks. “Look at me, sweetheart.” His firm tone helps me focus, and I force my eyes open. “We need to get out of these wet clothes, and you need a doctor. I parked the Land Rover at your lab, and it’s a solid hour hike at least—“
“No.” Shaking my head is a mistake, because everything goes fuzzy for a few seconds. “Poachers,” I manage. “Stealing the orchids. That’s who…” I shudder. “They know where the lab is. And the hotel.”
It’s hard to make out his expression in the dim light, but he cups my cheek and I lean into his touch. “Mik, we don’t have a choice. I can’t carry you all the way back to town, and you need a doctor.”
“What if…? Austin, they had guns.” I can’t face Corey again, and if the other two…crap, I can’t even pull their names out of my muddled thoughts…if they come after us, they could kill Austin. “If anything happened to you…”
