Dahlia sank down into the marsh. The island was mostly spongy surface. Even hunters and trappers knew to avoid it. The center had been raised by bringing in soil to build up an area for the sanitarium. Dahlia had never questioned why, but she’d heard Milly and Bernadette talking about the flooding during heavy rains and how ridiculous it was to build on the island when there was enough money to go anywhere and worse, not using stilts. One of the biggest dangers was falling through the thin layer of ground to the waters below. Sinkholes were abundant on the island and the only truly safe places were the narrow path leading to and the actual grounds surrounding her home. She realized that it had been built that way for a specific purpose.
“Did they plan all along on killing me?” She was soaked, but she put his shirt on over her own clothes. It was far too big and she tied the tails around her hips.
“My guess is yes, once you were discovered or you’d outlived your usefulness to them,” he replied honestly. He wasn’t looking at her, but out into the night, his rifle rock steady in his hands.
“It occurred to me a couple of years ago when I started asking Jesse too many questions, and he didn’t want to answer or didn’t know the answers, that maybe I was in trouble.” She tried to hold still and not wince away from Nicolas as he blackened her face with some tube he carried in his pack. She looked up at him with solemn eyes. “Who are they? Why do they want me dead?”
“These men are military-trained, but I think they’re mercenaries. No combat unit would do this. Which agency do you work for?”
Before she could answer, he clapped his hand over her mouth, pressing her body into the trunk of a tree and crouching lower to stay in the shadow of the trunk. He looked directly into her eyes, slowly removed his hand, and held up three fingers. She nodded to indicate she understood, turning her head as slowly as she could in the direction his rifle was aimed. She noted his hands were steady and his eyes like ice. Dahlia was unable to prevent the continual shivering that shook her body. Nicolas was pressed tight against her, dwarfing her, caging her between his hard frame and the tree. She hated that he was so stone cold calm and she was shaking like a leaf.
The vegetation all around them was on fire, red and orange flames reaching to the sky. The fire lit up the areas closest to it and cast macabre shadows over the rest of the shrubbery and trees. The leaping flames were reflected in Nicolas’s eyes. Her heart leapt. She was trusting him, yet she knew nothing about him. She had never met anyone that gave off such a low energy reading and yet was capable of such extreme violence. There seemed to be an endless arc of electricity that leapt from his skin to hers. She could feel a strange tingling in her bloodstream. The heat between them was tremendous . . . and frightening.
Nicolas brought his hand up and pressed her face against his chest, stroking her hair with his palm in an effort to comfort her. If she shook any harder, he feared she might break her little bird bones. He bent his head over hers, holding her there while the world burned and their enemy slipped by. He put his mouth against her ear. “Are you ready for this?”
Dahlia nodded, not certain she was, but knowing she had no other choice if she wanted to live. He put a finger to his lips, indicating the need for silence, and then walked his fingers in the air. Dahlia took a deep breath as he stepped away from her. The respite from the violent energy assaulting her had been so complete, the force of the wave hitting her nearly drove her to her knees. She steadied herself by reaching out to him, the first time she’d ever voluntarily touched him. The moment her fingers touched him, rested on him, the force battering at her lessened.
Nicolas put his hand over hers. He bent his head to hers again. “I can carry you if you think it will help.” Dahlia almost smiled. For the briefest of moments the terrible sorrow weighing her down lifted, and he caught sight of a mischievous Dahlia, but she was gone almost immediately.
“Hold my hand if you can while we make our way out of here.” It cost her to ask him, but she had no choice. “I can take your pack.”
Nicolas didn’t bother to respond. His fingers linked with hers and he took her with him, moving away from the direction the three men had taken, around the wall of fire, weaving their way closer to the reed-choked channel. Nicolas didn’t hesitate at the edge of a stagnant pool, but waded in, pulling Dahlia in after him. Insects, birds, snakes, lizards, and frogs were making a mass exodus into the water right along with them, trying desperately to escape the fire. He kept a wary eye out for alligators.
Somewhere behind them, guns went off.
“AKs,” he identified. “They aren’t close, so they aren’t shooting at us. They’re either spooked or ran into alligators.”
“There are alligators all around this island,” Dahlia confirmed.
The moon crept back behind the clouds. Nicolas suddenly stopped, his head up alertly. Dahlia remained silent, waiting. If there was one thing she was certain of, it was that he knew what he was doing. She was far safer with him than without him. When he abruptly froze, not moving a muscle, she followed his lead. Dahlia found herself holding her breath, her fingers clinging to his. The water soaked into the jeans she was wearing and something live bumped against her leg, but she stood, just waiting, trying to see into the darker shadows of the bayou.
Nicolas bent his head to hers. “We are hunted.” He mouthed the words against her ear, his breath warm, sending butterflies skittering through her stomach.
“Tell me something new.” She whispered it, knowing the night carried sound easily.
“He’s like me.”
She knew what Nicolas meant. She had named him a killer, and he was telling her another of his profession followed them through the swamp. She wanted to ask how he knew but he signaled for silence and pointed to the low strip of embankment leading to the open channel. Her breath caught in her throat. The bank was stripped bare of all shrubbery. A few scattered plants grew low to the ground, but there was no cover to speak of. If they chose that entrance to the channel, anyone following them would see them immediately.
Nicolas touched her face to bring her attention back to him. She was staring in horror at the bank. He flattened his hand and slid it forward, indicating they would creep forward on their bellies simulating an alligator going into the water.
Dahlia peered at the bank as Nicolas began to submerge most of his body, holding his rifle just above the waterline. There was definitely an alligator slide. She wasn’t afraid of alligators, but she was smart enough to have a healthy respect for them. Playing in their territory seemed a drastic solution.