Ghostwalker 04 - Conspiracy Game

sliding away from her, coming to his feet, the rifle coming up. He shook his head. “Sorry. I’ll keep it. It belongs to my brother.” He sagged back against the wall. “Where the hell are we?”
    “My room is right up there, Jack. Can you make the jump? I don’t want to bring you through the hall where someone might see you. This is safer for both of us.” Safer for her brothers as well. She still had lingering fears that Jack might be in Kinshasa for reasons to do with her oldest brother.
    Jack wiped sweat from his face. “I think so.” But he didn’t move. He closed his eyes, allowing the rifle to hang by the sling around his neck, his hands dropping to his sides as if his arms were too heavy.
    Briony heard a slight noise and turned to see a soldier entering the alleyway. She clenched her teeth. This had to be the night from hell. They were never going to get into the safety of her room at this rate, and how could she possibly keep the soldier from seeing Jack’s tortured body or the gun slung around his neck?
    Desperate, Briony shoved Jack against the wall, her arms sliding around his neck. She leaned her body into his and lifted her mouth. The darkness surrounded them, enfolded them, so they became a shadowy silhouette the soldier could barely make out. She heard his footsteps approaching. If he saw the rifle now hidden between them, or saw the condition Jack was in, they were both in terrible trouble.
    Jack. She whispered his name intimately, needing to rouse him, to make him more aware of the danger they were in. His name came out soft in her mind. An ache. Her lips feathered over his, tiny kisses along his bottom lip.
    Jack’s heart seemed to drop away. He felt her rising fear, but she stuck it out, stood with him, in front of him, protecting him, just as she had in the forest. Somewhere deep inside, that small spark of humanity he had left yawned wider, stretched, and the longing he rarely allowed himself to think about now had a name. Briony .
    He breathed her into his mind, inhaled her into his lungs. One arm came up around her, drew her even closer, hand sliding down her spine, although he never opened his eyes. The other hand went between them to the knife at his waist. There was nothing sexual in the way he touched her, he wanted only to comfort her, but somehow the shape and texture of her body still managed to find its way through his fingertips and imprint the memory on his brain.
    His hand settled in the wet strands of her hair and he pushed her face against his shoulder, wincing as she came into contact with his wounds. Don’t look. Just stay still. He slowly withdrew the knife from his belt.
    Wait . Her fingers curled around his neck. Please, just another moment. He might walk away. She willed the soldier to walk away. A lone guard curious in the middle of the night, not knowing death was only a breath away. There was no doubt in her mind that Jack, as ill as he was, would kill the man. Weak, his body ravaged by fever, he acted on instinct, on his extensive training. He was a killing machine, and anyone in his way was going to die. It had to be such a terrible way to live.
    She closed her eyes tight, praying the soldier would shift directions. Please, please, please don’t let Jack have to kill him. For the first time in her life, she deliberately tried to implant a suggestion in another’s brain. She “pushed” at the soldier to return to the street.
    She forgot that Jack could read her thoughts until his fingers bunched in her hair. She looked up at him. I’m sorry. I don’t want you to have to feel like that, taking a life.
    He opened his eyes to meet her gaze. She had the biggest, softest, most compassionate eyes he’d ever encountered. His expression hardened. He didn’t feel anything anymore.
    That was the trouble. Not until now. This moment. Looking down at her too-innocent face.
    He was a rough, hard man, capable of great cruelty and unrelenting, swift retaliation. He could shoot a man a mile or more away. He could rise up out of a stream and cut someone down without them ever having known he was near. He was a ghost in the forest or the desert. Some called him death and most avoided him. Here she was, looking up at him with compassion and even caring on her transparent face. He wanted to crush her sinfully sweet mouth under his, and yet, all the while, a part of his brain knew exactly where the soldier was, planned his every move, the step to take him away from Briony