“It’s the mercs,” came Dahl’s calm voice from Drake’s side, almost making him cry out in shock. “They’re massing.”
“What? And for fuck’s sake, Dahl, make your presence known next time. I coulda hit you.”
The Swede smiled tolerantly. “No,” he said. “You couldn’t.”
“Forget that,” Alicia said. “Where’s the bloody army?”
“Do I look like a friggin’ sand monkey?” Dahl spluttered. “How the hell do I know?”
“Shit, I thought you were better than that, Dahl.”
Ignoring the Swede’s shocked and unhappy expression, Alicia smirked to herself and moved away. Drake followed her, grinning. The land sloped sharply downhill and then rose back up. The trio moved carefully, eyes slitted, guns at the ready and fully loaded. By Drake’s calculations the valley edge could only be forty feet ahead but then he could be wrong. He wondered briefly what had happened to Kinimaka and the others, but knew they had to take care of themselves. The mass ahead solidified and, as the swirling sands briefly parted, revealed dozens of tightly packed mercenaries, all with guns at the ready.
Oh fuck.
Most of them saw the trio and instantly opened fire, raking the air with death. Dahl flung himself headlong, hitting a slope and rolling out of sight. Drake flung himself at Alicia, grabbing her around the waist and registering two bullets slamming into her before they were landing hard and then rolling, rolling, rolling far too fast and for far too long.
It couldn’t be the cliff edge. But Alicia was screaming, and it was impossible to stop.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
Amidst the great storm, Alicia shrieked, a sound most unbefitting of her. Drake held her tightly as they tumbled, refusing to let go and quite possibly lose her forever. End over end, side over side they fell, sand erupting from their every revolution. His embrace was unbreakable and he could feel her cheek pressed tightly to his own. Just as he imagined they might roll that way for eternity they struck bottom and rolled level for a few more revolutions. The world still spun, rotating around and around inside his head. Alicia panted against his cheek. Down here, the fury of the storm had abated somewhat.
Drake rose to his knees, still holding Alicia, and opened his eyes. They had stumbled down the side of a valley, now completely cut off from the fight and faced with a hard slog back to the top. Luckily, he couldn’t feel any breakages or even bruising. Some people would pay good money for a trip like that.
The thought reminded him of Alicia. It wasn’t like the blond woman to just lie in his arms. Gently, he cupped her face and pushed her head back until he could focus. Alicia’s eyes were closed.
“Hey,” he said. “You okay?”
He wiped a smudge from her forehead. Alicia’s eyes fluttered open. “Matt?”
“Aye love. It’s me.”
“Are we… alive?”
“I bloody hope so. I’d hate for this to be the afterlife.”
She pulled away and checked her body. Drake remembered two bullets striking her almost simultaneously and felt his heart suddenly take a great lurch. Oh no…
Two tattered holes gaped in Alicia’s clothing over her new body armor. The blonde grimaced at the sight and then stared at Drake.
“I should be dead.”
“I guess we all should be. Ten times over. Maybe someone somewhere just likes us.”
“Matt.” Alicia again used his first name, something unheard of, and more than unnerving. “I should be dead. Long before now. I shouldn’t be here.”
Drake began to worry that she might have banged her head. “Lean over,” he said, struggling to his knees. “Let’s take a look.”
“What?”
“At your head. I’m not sure your brain’s intact.”
“All my life I’ve been running. All my life I’ve been barely surviving.”
Drake met those blinding blue eyes and felt a deep shiver of fear. This wasn’t at all right. Ghosts, he thought. Ghosts do exist out here in the desert and they’ve made her… take stock. Pause.
The world was about to explode.
Alicia struck at him, the punch glancing off his chin. Drake saw stars. “I shouldn’t be alive!” she cried. “Don’t you see? I don’t want to be alive!”
Drake threw himself into the very core of it. “Of course you do. You’re a good person. You save lives and deserve to live yours. Properly!”
“Fuck you!” Alicia swung at him, two blows, the first a diversion and the second feeling like it took a chunk from his ribs. Drake gasped for air and folded. “No…”
Alicia leapt on top of him, her hands around his throat. Instantly she began to squeeze. “You think it’s fun being me? Do you? Every decision a bad one. Every new move questionable and tainted.”
Drake knew she would kill him. Alicia was imploding and exploding at the same time, running on destructive auto-pilot, and facing the crisis of her life. This was all-out war, the fury of the storm above reflected in the storm exploding within Alicia Myles.
“Move on. Move ahead. Never stop… never stop running. That’s my creed. That’s my motto.”
“No,” Drake managed to gasp. “Alicia Myles is ‘One Life, Live It’. That’s you.”
“What I pretend it to be! You think I’m living my life or running from it? Don’t be a fucking bell end.”
Alicia bore down on his throat and Drake saw a deeper, more alarming blackness. His only thought was that she would not stop. She would kick and pound his dead corpse if it came to that until something got worked out. Slamming his hands up he connected with her face and managed to loosen the grip, then inserted a hand beneath hers. He rolled, pressing hard on her body, then rolled back. He squirmed, bent her fingers as hard as he could. Alicia yelped and jumped back. Drake hung his head, panting, barely surviving.
“None of this is your fault, Alicia. Don’t you remember? Your dad was a drunk, a fucking weakling who shrank rather than stepping up and taking responsibility for his kids. Your mother didn’t fight him. They both failed you. The Army took you away but then it failed you too. Made you keep on running. It’s been coming a long time — this reckoning.”
“But the memories.” For a moment Alicia crouched there like a starving predator, eyes wild. “Nothing calms them, soothes them except the next experience. Nothing keeps them at bay. Moving on is all I have.”
“But then they return even worse. You must face them and fight them and then kill them. Like you would any adversary.”
Drake threw his body to the side as Alicia pounced again. His right hand jabbed at her ribs to give her something to think about, maybe to take some of the violent ardor out of her. She sucked it up and gave only a feral grin in return.
“Give me some more of that.”
He should have known better.
Alicia kicked sand at him, then flung herself into a flying head-butt straight at his solar-plexus. Drake collapsed again, feeling the energy drain away. Next, a punch drew blood from his gums and snapped his head sideways.
“Stop. Not like this,” he gasped.
“What? You want me on top?”
Alicia jumped onto his lap, grabbed both his ears and wrenched them hard. Drake squealed and then threw both of them to the side; the battling duo tumbled together along the bottom of the narrow valley, spitting curses into each other’s faces.
Drake couldn’t help but think: It was always going to come to this.