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Glancing up at her, Mikayla saw the understanding in the other woman's gaze, as well as the compassion.
"Does it matter?" Mikayla finally sighed heavily as she tucked the edge of the material and pinned it into place. "If love isn't acknowledged, does it still exist?"
"Of course it does," Kira said gently. "As long as one person loves, Mikayla, then it always exists. The lack of acknowledgment doesn't cancel it out." She shook her head. "It won't matter when he's gone," she said painfully. "Do you think he'll ever remember, Kira? That he'll look back and know what he left behind?" She watched as the other woman sat forward slowly, her arms folding over the tops of her knees. "I don't know, Mikayala. What I do know is that Nik leads a very dangerous, very lonely life. I would think those memories would be something he would be unable to forget, especially during the darker times he faces."
"Is he a mercenary?" Mikayla wasn't entirely certain what he was, but she had a feeling he was much more than anyone wanted to admit.
"Of a sort," Kira agreed. "A very specialized one, though. Nik makes things happen. His expertise is in weapons, and in logistics. He would have made an excellent commander if that was the route he had wanted to take."
"Before his wife and child's deaths?" Mikayla needed to know as much about him as possible. As much as she could get from the few who knew him.
"Even then," Kira stated. "I've always thought Nik was a man searching for something he had never had. Funny, though, when I saw him here the first time, he no longer gave that impression."
210
Mikayla's heart clenched. "He doesn't love me, though. If he loved me, Kira, he couldn't walk away."
Kira smiled at the statement. "Funny, I don't see him walking away, Mikayla." Her lips parted to comment, to assure the other woman she could feel him already walking away, when the lights went out.
Mikayla immediately dropped to the floor. She'd been shot at enough that she wasn't about to remain standing.
"I have a light," she hissed to Kira as she scrambled to her appliance drawer and pulled free two small Maglites that she kept on hand for emergencies. Kira was there beside her, her fingers slipping over one of the lights.
"Do you have a weapon?" The other woman's voice was quiet, carrying no farther than Mikayla's ears.
"Dad gave me a .22." She pulled the tiny six-shot gun from the drawer.
"Well, hell," Kira sighed. "At least it shoots bullets. Now come on. Stay close to me. We're going to slip out the back and make our way to my car."
"Call Nik."
"The phones are jammed; I hit the panic button to Ian's phone the second the lights went out and the call wouldn't go through. We're going to have to get out of here, then call once we get out of range of the jammer. Turn off the flashlight and stay close. The light will only give us away."
Mikayla's eyes were slowly adjusting to the dark, but with that came the shadows that seemed to shift and twine throughout the room.
Kira was calm, confident, as though it were no more than a game. Mikayla knew it was much more.
She could hear her heart beating in her eyes as her chest tightened, restricting her breathing. Panic was only a breath away as Kira, staying low, began to make her way to the opened doorway.
Swallowing past the tightness in her throat, Mikayla stayed close to Kira as they crawled quickly through the room and past the doorway.
"Ian will know something's up soon," she promised Mikayla. "We have a system. When my hourly ping doesn't hit his phone, then he'll know there's trouble."
"Ping?" Mikayla felt stupid asking the question.
"It's programmed into our cell phones, like a computer. Every hour when we're apart the phones ping each other automatically. If the signal doesn't go through on one end, then the phone alerts the other. It's a safeguard." Mikayla nodded, though it made about as much sense as anything else did anymore.
Making their way through the short hall to the kitchen, Mikayla tried to make out whatever might or might not be in the shadows. Whoever had managed to cut the electricity could be waiting anywhere. No doubt with a weapon. Now this was just getting ridiculous. It wasn't as though anyone believed she had seen Maddix kill Eddie Foreman. Why the hell was he determined to kill her now as well?
Moving up on the glass sliding doors, she slid in behind Kira at the edge of the door frame.
"Damn, you have no cover out there," Kira cursed as they stared out at the 211
moonlit backyard and open deck. "Nik should have fixed this for you."
"He's been rather busy," Mikayla stated breathlessly. She heard a small snort. "No doubt." And a second later the door began sliding open.
"We go out low," Kira ordered. "Slide out along the side and slip over the deck to the yard. If we can get to the side of the house, then we'll have more cover to the car."
