Survive By The Team (Team Fear Book 3) Page 10

  Her gasp was audible in the dark car. “I remember when he left. Said he had a new assignment. I didn’t hear from him for months.”

  “They were titrating the medication. Each man had a very exacting dosage. They were not interchangeable. The process was long.” He left out the details that would hurt her. Her brother had endured such severe pain he’d begged for death at one point. They all had. “We didn’t know each other as well at the time. You remember when he came home on leave that first time?”

  She nodded. “It was as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. The haunted look was gone from his eyes.”

  “Fearlessness had kicked in. We’d passed our operational tests and they gave us a pass. Gault was the only one who went home.”

  “So he was fearless then?”

  Stills nodded.

  “I noticed a difference, one I couldn’t name.” Her words dripped with regret. “I thought he’d finally come into his own. He was so young—we were so young—when Ellie was born. When he joined the military and I became Ellie’s legal guardian.”

  “You still say we. Still talk as if he’s alive.”

  She turned to stare out the passenger window. A moment later her hand lifted to swipe the moisture from her face. “From the moment Ellie came into our lives, we were terrified. She was sick. The stress was unreal. Our parents wanted Danny to give Ellie up for adoption, so he didn’t trust them. They fought. He joined the military and named me Ellie’s guardian.” She sighed and frost coated the window. “He thought joining the military was his only option, but the pull of opposing responsibilities wore him down. He wanted to be there for Ellie—she was the reason he joined in the first place—but he had a job to do. He felt guilty and stressed until that time he came home.”

  Mandi reached over to flip the heat back on. The leaf started spinning and rattling in the vent, but the fog from the side window slowly faded and the heat gradually warmed the chill.

  “I thought he was finally happy. He’d finally reached a place where he could handle the stress, but that was a lie. The only reason he was okay was because he was on some false high. Fearlessness.” She said the last words as a whisper. “God, I was jealous of how much he’d grown, of all the places he’d traveled, and all the while, he kept this huge secret from me.”

  “He didn’t have a choice. We signed a nondisclosure agreements.”

  “You don’t get it. As twins, we told each other everything.”

  “Not everything,” Stills scoffed. “There was this time in Amsterdam that he sure as shit wasn’t telling his sister about.”

  “Fine,” she admitted. She continued her tirade in a fast clipped tone. “Locker room talk was off the table, but the rest we shared, like it or not. We couldn’t lie to each other, not because of some moral high ground either. When Heather got pregnant, it changed everything. He was disappointed in himself and ashamed. He’d rather eat glass then tell me, but I was the first person Danny told. Why? Because I knew when he was lying. It went both ways. I went to Danny when I nearly got kicked out of school for underage drinking—”

  “You?” Surprise lifted his tone. “You say fanny instead of ass. Garbage instead of bullshit.”

  “I wasn’t always someone’s aunt.” The darkness hid her expression, but sadness oozed from her melancholy words. “The point is, being a twin isn’t something you turn off when it’s convenient. Mom called it our freaky twin-sense. At twelve, he broke his arm while goofing off at the creek and I felt it two miles away. My first boyfriend broke up with me before prom, and Danny beat him up before he got home to hear the story. Sometimes, we just knew things.”

  “He was a good brother,” Stills said quietly.

  The rattle in the heater couldn’t drown the grief. Heartbreak filled the inky night, and Stills reverted to type. Distracted while they drove toward the unknown. “I would have let dirtbag prom boy off with a warning.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Seriously.” He adjusted a knob to turn up the dashboard light so he could see her better. “I was like that guy, Prom Boy, working my way through school girls faster than the Gatling gun spews bullets. In another life, your brother would have had to kick my ass.” Because he sure as shit would have pursued Mandi.

  “Would he have won?”

  He laughed in surprise. As serious and frustrated as she was, she still had a sense of humor. “I don’t know. We never put it to the test. Was he always so...” He motioned with his hands far apart. “Big?”

  “Why?”

  “You ask that question a lot.”

  “I live with a six-year-old.”

  “Fair enough. I guess I’m curious. Conventional wisdom says that in addition to all the other crap they doped us with, they gave us steroids.”

  “Oh.” She shook her head vigorously. “I don’t think so. Not Danny.”

  They all wanted to believe that, that despite the mental and emotional alterations as a result of the meds, their bodies were still their own, but until they found a breakdown for the drug protocol, they didn’t know for certain. “So Danny was a big guy growing up?”

  “Always.” She gave him a half smile, showing off a small overlapping tooth. “Mom said he stole my nourishment in utero. He was nine pounds ten ounces at birth, and I was less than five pounds.”

  The tightness in his chest loosened as the topic veered away from the seriousness of their situation. “Sounds like him. Boy could eat a horse.”

  She nibbled her lip. “They incubated me, but I didn’t put on any weight until they put Danny in there with me.”

  “So you were close?”

  “Always,” she repeated. “Until he got back from that last deployment.” Her lower lip trembled. “I get why he joined the team. I even understand why he kept it a secret, but I knew something was wrong. That twin-sense thing. The last few months, I felt his confusion and overwhelming anger. It left me shaking—his anger was my anger—but Danny wouldn’t talk about it. Said I was better off not knowing.”

  “Look, I know you’re angry that Danny lied to you.”

  “I’m not angry. I’m hurt. And confused. Lying to me shouldn’t have been an option, and it set him up for incredible isolation.”

  Stills absently rubbed a hand over the steering wheel. The confined space was charged with emotional intimacy and physical proximity. He smelled the hospital shampoo she’d used and all the way under the shampoo to the subtle scent that reminded him of the outdoors. Something natural and sweet-smelling. He heard every move through the rustle of her scrubs and the rub of the vinyl seats under her very nice ass. There was less room between them than if they shared a king-size bed, and they’d been traveling that way for hours. Longer than Stills had spent with any woman since this shitstorm first broke.

  The chemistry between them sparked every time they touched. Hell, he was sporting a woody right now and they hadn’t made contact in several hours. If it were merely a physical reaction, he would make a suggestive joke and move on. Much the way he did with Rose’s sister Camy, but he genuinely liked Mandi. A knot in his gut twisted at her pain and he wanted very much to ease her grief. To explain in a way that might help.

  He wanted her to know... What? That they weren’t monsters? That he wasn’t a monster? The jury was still out on that question.

  They were all stronger, more fearless, and less human than they had been before it all began. “Danny wasn’t rejecting you, he was protecting you. He isolated himself so you and Ellie wouldn’t be exposed.”

  “That’s a load of garbage.”

  The vehement response cut through the tension. She had legitimate questions, and for once in his life, he was stepping up to answer. “We all did it. Kept pieces of ourselves private. Compartmentalized as a form of self-protection. I knew Danny had a sister, but not a twin. He knew I had a girl back home, but he’d never seen a picture or knew her name. I didn’t know he had a daughter, and that kills me, but I get why he did it. He needed to keep that cor
ner of his soul—the piece that was truly him—safe from everything we were going through. He needed one thing in his life to be good and pure and right. He needed something to protect, that made the experiments worth the cost.”

  Flip-crunch-flip-crunch the leaf fluttered in the vent.

  “Was it worth the cost?” she asked softly.

  A foreign emotion clogged his throat. He coughed it out and then glanced at her before turning his eyes on the empty highway, but he couldn’t get the picture of her out of his head.

  The tears had dried, but her eyes were hidden behind thick lashes that left her thoughts a mystery. Her pale, freckled face with round cheeks and button nose were the embodiment of innocence. And he’d been the one to break the news that her brother had sold his soul to the company for the cost of medical treatment.

  He swallowed a whole bottle of water before he answered. “If you and Ellie are safe, then Danny would say yes. It was worth the cost.”

  Chapter Nine

  A rain-snow mix pelted the windshield, followed by the thwump of the wiper blades. Mandi welcomed the new sounds to cover the squeak of the vinyl each time she fidgeted. The longer she remained in her seat, the more aches and pains made themselves known. The bruising along her shoulder and lower abdomen from the seatbelt ached deep into her skin. The scratches and chemical burns on her face and neck stung with each brush of the slightest breeze and her throat burned like an inferno. The entire left side of her face throbbed, but that could be from clenching her teeth. Not knowing if Ellie was safe only added to her existing tension.

  She twisted to ease a dull ache in her lower back and the seat creaked. There was simply no way to make the springy, lumpy seat comfortable.

  “Hell, I forgot.” Stills pulled a prescription bottle from his pocket. “I picked these up when we were still in the hospital.”

  She clicked on a light to read the label. “Edna Hendricks?”

  “I didn’t have time to pick and choose. It’s the same prescription the doctor had in your records.”

  “I don’t want to be loopy.” If anything bad happened, she wanted to be awake and aware.

  “These won’t make you woozy, but they will take the edge off the pain.” The words were stated as fact. His gaze stayed on the road, and he didn’t act in the least bit suspicious. Of course, he could probably lie to a preacher with a straight face.

  She reached behind the seat to grab a bottle of water they’d picked up on a fuel stop. A twinge zipped from her low back to her neck. She winced.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Stills muttered. “Let me.” He grabbed the bottle from the back seat and twisted it open. Handed it to her. “Take the damn medicine. It will help your body recover.”

  “Fine.” Something about his autocratic orders sparked a childish rebellion. Yes, she knew he was right. Now was the time to relax in preparation for what was to come, but, “Do you have to be such an ass about it?”

  “Only when you push.”

  “Look whose talking. You’re pushier than a narcissist standing in line for a mirror.” She swallowed the pill and downed most of the water before flicking off the overhead light. The seatback had weird dips and hollows from years of use, which added to her discomfort. One particular knot was like a fist in her spine. Reaching beside the seat, she pulled a lever and let the seat fall back a notch. The move put the bulge in her shoulder, which proved marginally better.

  The night raced by in the headlights, much as it had on her way down to Arizona, but now the snowfall drifted through the lights like shooting stars. Was it really only twenty-four hours ago that she’d left in search of answers? She’d failed, bringing danger to her family.

  “Do you think she’s okay?” she finally asked.

  “I bet she’s sleeping in a tent on Miss Connie’s living room floor as we speak.”

  “Doubtful.” Mandi snorted. “The day Miss Connie allows clutter in her living room is the day she quits.”

  “Is she like a surrogate grandmother or something?”

  “I don’t know. I thought she was ancient when she watched Danny and me, but she outlived my parents, so maybe not. I don’t think she considers herself a surrogate grandparent. She wouldn’t let us take care of her if we paid her for the privilege. I always figured she needed the money, but after Danny died, she refused to take any. Told me to keep it. Turns out she’s loaded.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The suspicious tone was subtle, but she was starting to understand Stills. A little anyway. “You’re trying to figure out if she can be bribed, blackmailed, or threatened.”

  “Yes.”

  The bulging seatback near her shoulder aggravated the bruising from the seatbelt. She twisted to the right. “I’m sorry you think the worst of people.”

  “People tend to prove me right.”

  “Not Miss Connie.” The stalwart southern woman had a spine of steel. No one forced her to do anything.

  “You said the same about Glen.”

  “And I stand by that belief. Maybe the problem isn’t people but the kind of people you associate with.”

  He laughed, the sound as rough and honest as the man. “No argument there. Tell me about Ellie.”

  The sudden change in topic threw her, but she guessed he didn’t talk about himself much. “Ellie’s this amazing kid. Soft heart, like you’d expect, with a twisted imagination. You know that kid who says he sees dead people?”

  Stills nodded.

  “That’s Ellie. She doesn’t really see people after they’ve passed on, at least I don’t think she does, but she likes the story of it. She tells great stories, but she doesn’t talk to anybody but me or Danny or Miss Connie because she gets made fun of at school.”

  “She stutters?” he asked.

  “Not exactly. Certain letters and combinations are hard for her to pronounce. Words with more than one syllable throw her off. Her vocabulary is limited and she honest to God doesn’t know how to talk to kids. All that time in the hospital with people talking at her rather than to her.” Mandi shrugged the weight of failure off her shoulders. “We’re working on it.”

  “The speech therapy?”

  Mandi nodded. “Ellie knows she’s not like kids her age. When she opens her mouth, people hear the difference so she keeps her mouth shut. It’s hard being different in a small town and the facts are stacked against her. She lives next door to a funeral home, her daddy went off to war—God help her when she hears what really happened to him—and she lives with an aunt everyone calls Morticia. If talking to imaginary friends gets her through childhood I’m all for it.”

  “Sounds like a smart kid.”

  “She is, but you wouldn’t know it right off. The biggest thing you need to know about Ellie is that she’s fearless.”

  Stills snorted in disbelief. “I hope for both your sakes that isn’t true.”

  She turned to face him, but the darkness hid his expression. “I suppose fearlessness sounds ridiculous given what you and your team went through, but Ellie was climbing trees when she was two. We worried that she’d be a frail little thing living in a bubble. Then I found her on the roof—three stories—when she was four. She’d never tell me how she got there. I think dealing with the possibility of death before every surgery made her work overtime to live life to the fullest.”

  “That’s not fearlessness. That’s courage.”

  “That’s one way to look at it. I always said she took after Danny, so courageous works.”

  “Not to take anything from Danny, but it doesn’t take courage to do what we do. It took millions of dollars of research, steroids, and God-knows what else.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she answered. “You lived in battle for months on end. Risked your lives.”

  “Battle is as risky to me as asking a pretty girl on a date. And it costs us nothing.” He flicked the heater off. “Except our humanity.”

  This wasn’t the first time he’d disparaged himself and the others, saying they
were soulless. Now he claimed they were without humanity. “Yet here you are. Helping me. That’s a very human and selfless thing to do.”

  “Quit making me something I’m not.” Irritation tightened his shoulders. His cut lip curled into a frown. “You see the good in everyone, like your friend Glen and Miss Connie.”

  She certainly didn’t respond to Glen the way she reacted to Stills. It was the hoodie and his split lip. Even the gun and the chase with Echo stirred up hormones that Glen’s best male friends—the good guys—didn’t trigger. Mandi liked the hint of danger in Stills. The edge that made her want to push his limits and watch him snap. To know that she could be the person who did that to him. He made her pulse beat stronger and her lungs skipped a breath. The physical reaction proved that she existed beyond the job. Beyond her pathetic history. Some days, she desperately needed to know she was more than Danny’s sister and Ellie’s aunt. More than invisible.

  “You’re a good person, and you see goodness reflected in those around you,” he said.

  “God. You just described Mother Teresa.” Her heart sank. The last thing she wanted him to see was a nun-like figure in the seat next to him. Besides, his assertions were off base. The sarcastic comments she kept inside and her attraction to all the wrong men were hardly the thoughts of a good girl. “If I stole a car, would that convince you otherwise?”

  He chuckled. “I’d love to see you try.”

  “I’ll see if I can arrange a demonstration.”

  He faced her briefly, the dim light giving his dark eyes an interesting glow. “The next time we need to change cars, I’ll let you do the honor.”

  “I’ll be Bonnie to your Clyde,” she said, and then she did something she’d never do in the light of day. She winked. Winked at the sexiest bad boy to ever cross her path. Heat climbed to the tips of her ears.

  He laughed. “How’s that medicine working for you?”

  Ah, man, he thought it was the medicine making her outrageous. Was that good news or bad? It was humiliating, she decided, and wrapped her arms over her chest. The aches in her shoulder didn’t twinge as much as they had twenty minutes ago, which said something for the medicine. Even if he did think she was loopy.