Gator kicked their assailant in the head hard as he reached down and jerked her to her feet. “He’s got partners. Get out of here. There are more of them.” He shoved her toward the canal. “Run, damn it.”
She didn’t hear anything, but she felt the telltale rush of her senses, a heavy dread that signaled far more danger. Flame ran, but her leg was throbbing, every step jarring her. She tried to hide it, jumping over the fallen logs in their way and racing toward safety. Gator dropped behind her, covering her back as they zigzagged through the e and brush to leap into the reed-choked canal. He shoved her underwater as bullets spit into the water around them. Keeping contact, they dove as deep as possible, using the rotting logs and plants on the bottom to pull them away from the island and out toward more open water.
With the enhancement of their bodies, both could stay underwater far longer than normal so they swam away from the island and the debris of the houseboat. Gator directed her with hand signals on her body and she followed him until her lungs were burning. She tapped his shoulder to signal she needed to go up for air. They were in much deeper water. He signaled that they needed to make it a few more feet ahead.
Flame knew Raoul had a specific spot in mind, somewhere safe, but her body was wearing out. She’d noticed that lately she didn’t have the stamina she usually had. She caught his belt loop, afraid she’d try to surface before they were safe and she’d get him killed. She’d always worked alone and having someone else to worry about was frightening-especially when she liked him so much. Too much.
She gasped as they came up, gulping for air, dragging it into her burning lungs. Gator came up behind her, his arm circling her waist. They were screened from the island by both a rise in the contour of the island as well as plants growing along the edge of the basin they were in.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded, controlling her heartbeat and the adrenaline charging through her system. “Why the hell didn’t we hear them? We should have known they were there. What’s going on?” She hadn’t been afraid of the first hunter, but something about the eerie stillness, the complete silence of the others had given her the willies. It hadn’t even been the same feeling as with the sniper the day before. She’d known he was there. The swamp had known it. But these men had been able to hide their presence not only from Raoul and her, hut also from the swamp itself.
Gator studied the shore surrounding the island. There was only one man he knew of that could be that silent. That scary. That much of a ghost. Kadan Montague could move through the world almost as if he were invisible. No one really knew how he did it-not even the other GhostWalkers. He was quiet and dangerous, a strong telepath and a man few argued with. He had gifts none of them really understood and even Lily wasn’t talking much about them. One of Kadan’s strongest talents was his ability to shield the entire team from detection. Had that talent been duplicated in another man? Gator had the sinking feeling it could be so.
“Do you know them?” Flame asked.
She was shivering in the water. The rain had begun again, a relentless downpour that added to their misery.
“I don’t know. I didn’t catch a glimpse of any of them. Did you?”
She shook her head. “The big one is heading back toward the road. I can hear him. He’s limping.” There was satisfaction in her voice.
It couldn’t be Kadan. Gator was almost certain of that, but the fact remained, whoever was in the swamp was trained in Special Forces, and they were enhanced.
CHAPTER 12
“Come on, Raoul. He’ll get away from us. Let’s get to the airboat.”
His arm clamped her to his side. “He’s bait. The others haven’t left with him. They’re out there, watching the surface of the water for one small change, one shift in the way the reeds wave. The only thing we have going for us is the rain.”
“I can make my way to the airboat and follow the other one to see where he goes. I’ll swim underwater. I’m not losing my chance at finding out who’s behind killing Burrell. You stay and fight the ghost, I’m out of here.”
His arm pressed hard into her side. “You already know that Saunders had Burrell killed. You just want to see who this one reports back to, and we both know it won’t be Saunders. I’m telling you it’s too dangerous to move until we get a direction on his partners.”
For a moment she stiffened against him, then slowly relaxed, letting her breath hiss through her teeth. “Now you believe Whitney’s alive?”
“Maybe. Something’s going on here and it isn’t connected to Burrell or Joy. We’ve stumbled into something on…“ Gator trailed off. Maybe it wasn’t about any of them, not even Flame. He glanced at her. She didn’t look intimidated, she looked determined-and as mad as hell. “If I knew where they were, I could use sound to draw them out, but I have no idea of their direction.” He said it more as a warning to her than as an option.
“I can’t even get them with echolocation, the same as the first sniper. These men have to be enhanced, Raoul.”
There was something in her voice he didn’t like. Rising suspicion perhaps. She had been beginning to trust him. He couldn’t exactly blame her if she suddenly was thinking conspiracy-he was beginning to think it as well. “I’m going to try something.”
Gator wasn’t the strongest telepath in the GhostWalker squad, but, if necessary, he could reach out to someone who was strong. He either believed in Kadan or he didn’t, and the truth was, Kadan was one of the GhostWalkers. He would always be. No one was going to buy him off, blackmail him, or threaten him. Kadan would stand with his own. Flame wouldn’t see it that way, but he knew now she wasn’t ever going to come around voluntarily to the idea of belonging to the GhostWalkers. And he wasn’t going to let her influence him when he knew absolutely his friends were above suspicion.
Kadan . I’m in trouble. We’re pinned down and need help.
He waited, drew Flame’s shivering body a little closer to him. Her arms slipped around his neck and she leaned more of her weight against him. He turned his head to rub his face against her neck. “It takes patience. Most of the time, whoever moves first, dies first.”
“I know. I was just thinking of Burrell. Those three men who came looking were Saunders’s men. I know they were. He’s definitely involved. And poor Joy, I’m really not any closer to finding her than before. I haven’t done very much for anybody and now you’re trapped here with me.” She pulled her head back and looked into his eyes, a small smile curving her mouth. “Don’t worry, baby, I won’t let anything happen to you.”