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He’s a fucking loose cannon with a god complex who I’m going to have to kill someday soon to spare Caleb, the only person I would call a close friend, the pain of doing it himself. And that would be a gift to him even if he can’t see it now. In fact, I have no doubt the General pairs me with them because he knows I’ll kill Julian if he goes too far. The General knows, as I know, that Julian’s always right there on the edge, but then so am I.
I’m everything he wants and needs in a soldier, but far too close to something none of us want to talk about, for him to ever want me near his daughter. This thought is as random as the many other times over the past three weeks away that Addie’s popped into my head when she should not be there, and I curse my distraction.
Raj is now whimpering like a baby, begging for his freedom. “I don’t have time for this,” I snap, and I don’t. Not with millions of lives on the line, and reliable intel from the Israeli government that the attack is planned for some time in the next twenty-four hours. A week and a half of chasing our tails for the details has led to only one person—Raj. He is all we have. He’s all the people of Israel have.
“I don’t know what this is!” Raj spouts out, and I snatch his gun from him and press it to his ear. “I’ll start here and move on.”
Gunfire sounds behind me.
“Anytime now, Creed,” Caleb snaps.
I lean in close and say, “I could disappear and take you with me, but there’s a high probability you’d die in the process. But if the soldiers get here before you talk, you leave me no option.” I ease back and let him see the truth burning in my black eyes.
Raj spills his guts before I do it for him. “Don’t let me find out you lied,” I say, “I’ll come back for you and it won’t be gentle. Anything else you want to tell us?”
“No! No. No. That’s all. I swear it on my life.”
“It is your life.”
Soldiers have reached the tent, and we’re now surrounded by guns. “Now!” Caleb shouts, and the three of us disappear, and I for one, do so knowing Raj is alone and alive but he won’t be for long.
He’ll be considered a traitor and slaughtered, and the fear he’s feeling right now, knowing that reality as truth, is sweet revenge. I feel absolutely no sympathy or guilt for leaving him to this destiny because he’s a monster. At least, that’s why I tell myself I’m okay with it, but on some level, I can feel my humanity slipping away, and maybe, just maybe, I’m losing the ability to feel such things.
That’s when I become a monster, too, but then, that runs in my family.
Chapter Ten
Near sunrise, several hours later, I materialize from inside the wind behind one of four terrorists, on top of an unlit fishing boat they’re preparing to arm, and silently snap the man’s neck. Only a few feet away, two more insurgents are taken out by Caleb and Julian. If Raj’s claims were accurate, then in exactly three minutes a supply Jeep will appear on the barely existent dirt path leading to the dock—that Jeep will hold the live biological agent the men on the fishing boat were here to collect.
I scan for the fourth man that, per Raj, should be here, locating him on the edge of the boat, about to jump. I windwalk to appear beside him and take him out with another snap of a neck. I hike his body up and follow Caleb and Julian’s lead, dumping the bodies down the stairs leading below deck.
The eerie sound of what I know to be the Arabian wolves who inhabit this area howling rips through the distant woods. Caleb and Julian step to my side, and Julian murmurs softly, “Another ten insurgents a half mile down the hill, with the intent of protecting the exchange we already stopped from happening.”
I don’t ask how he knows. Julian is now the “animal whisperer” with a weird as fuck way of talking to animals, which doesn’t fit him at all. The whole theory that animals are a good judge of character is blown to hell in rocket fuel.
Headlights flicker down the dirt path, and the group of us fade into the shadows, taking cover. The engine grows louder, and I watch a canvas-covered truck halt in front of the dock. You’d think this is when I’d feel the adrenaline rush as I ready for battle, but that reaction is no longer a part of who I am, not when fighting at a skillset that amounts to kindergarten playground time. We’re no longer like our enemies. The only reason we’re hiding at present is to ensure this mission is short and sweet before it’s over which means no reinforcements are called in and that no one escapes.
