“I offered to pick you up. I wanted to see you first.”
“I’ve got other plans for today.”
“What, another surf?”
“Maybe.”
She slipped her hands into the front pockets of her jeans and took a step toward him. “Don’t you care about anything beyond the next wave?”
He looked into her dark brown eyes. She didn’t blink.
His heart quickened again.
Arguing with her was pointless, but he tried anyway. “You know as well as I do that there are no winners in this kind of situation,” he said. “Only losers. The harder we retaliate, the more they hate us. If we ignore them, they’ll eventually go away.”
“You’re not hearing me, Carter.”
All she cared about was getting him to do what she and Thomas wanted.
He looked over his shoulder.
The three guys were drifting out to sea, slumped over their boards.
Two of them were out for the long count, but the guy with the dreadlocks was starting to come to.
He needed to make a decision. Either go with Erina, meet with Thomas and be put through the emotional wringer once again, or just walk away.
Out the back of the break, an anonymous surfer took off on a screamer.
“Look at me, Carter.”
He turned his head and met her steely gaze.
“We’re your family. You need to think about what kind of man you want to be.”
It was as much a threat as a plea, and deep down he recognized the truth of what she said. The order was the closest thing he had to a family, and he had to admit he’d struggled to live in the world without them.
Thomas would play on that.
But it wasn’t going to happen. Not today.
He picked up his board. It felt light in his hands.
“So what’s your answer?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, Erina,” he said, softening his tone. “I’d like to help. But I can’t.”
He kept his focus on her, pushing down the emotion welling in his chest. He needed to make her see he was serious so she would leave him alone.
After a few moments she raised her hands and smiled, revealing the single dimple in her left cheek.
“Okay,” she said. “You do what you need to do. I’ll respect your decision.”
Carter’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.”
“Thomas said if you wouldn’t come back willingly, you’d be no use to us.”
“Thomas is a wise man.”
She extended her hand and he took it in his own. The familiar calluses from countless hours of martial-arts training, including up to a hundred chin-ups a day to maintain her upper-body strength, rubbed against his palm.
“We can do better than that,” she said.
She dropped his hand and held out her arms.
Without thinking, and still holding his board, he stepped into her embrace and felt her arms wrap around him.
He drank in the freshness of her hair and the warmth of her body. They fitted together like the last two pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
Against his better judgement, he allowed his whole body to relax. He closed his eyes and for a fleeting moment felt like he’d come home.
Then a sharp shiver ran down his spine, breaking the potent spell.
A warning.
He started to pull back.
Too late.
He felt the sharp prick of a needle at the back of his neck.
Numbness spread down his shoulder and arm.
“Fuck you, Erina.”
He wanted to say more, but no words came out.
His muscles went slack. He heard the board drop onto the gravel.
There was a moment of great peace.
A sensation of falling.
She gently guided him to the ground, and his world faded to black.
7
Carter drifted back into consciousness sitting in the front seat of Erina’s four-wheel drive, speeding down a narrow tree-lined road.
The first thing he noticed was that his hands were cuffed and resting in his lap. He was still in his board shorts, and his naked back and legs sweated against the leather seats.
Every muscle ached. His stomach was queasy, his skin clammy and his bone-dry mouth tasted of zinc. She must have used scopolamine hydrobromide. In low doses it put the subject to sleep for under an hour and had no long-term effects.
He glanced out the tinted window and recognized the rolling hills behind the picturesque town of Mullumbimby, twenty-odd miles north-west of Lennox. The aptly named Mount Warning, usually one of his favorite local landmarks, stood tall and remote in the hazy distance, its head lost in the clouds, removed from life below.
He moved his tongue, trying to work up some spit.
“You okay?” Erina asked.
He could barely form the word. “Fantastic.”
“I’m really sorry about this,” she said gently. “But avoiding Thomas wasn’t an option today.”
“So it seems.”
“You never should’ve left without saying goodbye.”
Carter stayed silent and refrained from looking at her. He wasn’t going there.
Erina was an elite member of the Order of the White Pole, a private black ops organization based in South-East Asia. He’d been a member too, for over twenty years. The only way he’d managed to escape was to walk away without any explanation or argument and stay away.
“If you still refuse to join us after hearing him out,” she said, “no one will try to stop you.”
He’d heard that one before.
“I promise,” she said, using her free left hand to lift a small plastic bottle with a straw to his lips.
He drank the warm milky antidote and flexed and relaxed his legs to get his blood flowing.
He wasn’t thrilled with what she’d done, but blaming her was pointless. Thomas was not only her leader but also her father. And whatever feelings she might have once had for Carter were now long buried. For Erina, the ends always justified the means, and she wouldn’t allow sentiment to cloud her actions.
On assignment her motto was Get the job done or die trying. That’s what made her a dangerous opponent when you crossed her and a great ally when working on the same side — something he could no longer do.
He was mostly angry with himself. He should’ve been more alert. Getting close to Erina in any sense was way too dangerous.
“How’s it going with that woman you left us for?” she asked. “Jessica, wasn’t it?”
“You know my leaving had nothing to do with her.”
She glanced at him sideways, as if she knew what had happened to him the night before, why he’d gone on such a bender.
“It’s over,” he continued. “She said she’d met laptop computers with more emotion.”
Erina giggled like a young girl, reminding him how sweet and lighthearted she could be. “She obviously doesn’t understand you.”
He looked out the window at the trees rushing by and said, “I wouldn’t have thought I was that complicated.”
She accelerated out of a tight corner. “You need to find a woman who knows how to handle you.”
Carter looked across at her. “What, like you do?”
An impish grin spread across her face. “I never said that.”
He almost cracked a smile. “No one would ever accuse you of letting your finer emotions get in the way.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She held the bottle to his lips again and he took another long sip. The reason the relationship with Jessica had never worked was that his heart was never in it. He hated himself for hurting her. But he couldn’t shake his feelings for Erina and wasn’t about to tell either woman that.
He stretched his shoulders back and shook his head. The antidote was starting to kick in.