Conspiracy Game

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 and the smooth throw that would end a life.

The soldier abruptly turned and walked back down the narrow alley, leaving them alone in the shadows. For a moment she sagged against him, the relief making her legs rubbery. “That was so close. Thank God.”

He didn’t tell her that God had left him a long time ago; instead he buried his face in the softness of her neck and inhaled her scent, wishing he could keep her. She fit in his arms and in his mind, but she would never fit into his life. He would hold on too tight, keep her too close, so close she wouldn’t be able to breathe. She couldn’t possibly understand a man like him, his sins so black there was no redemption, his rules his own, and his code one beyond civilization.

“Jack?”

Her voice pulled him out of his semistupor-or maybe it was a dream; he honestly couldn’t tell anymore. He put her away from him and looked up at the window. “I can make it, and I’ll cover you.”

Briony didn’t protest. He’d be lucky to make the leap, let alone try to protect her, but pointing out his rapidly deteriorating condition wouldn’t get him into the room faster. She simply nodded and sent up a silent prayer that he make it on the first try. She wasn’t altogether certain she was strong enough to jump the distance with him on her shoulder. Briony stood back to give him room, all the while keeping an eye on the entrance to the alley. “Go now,” she encouraged, afraid the soldier might return.

Jack leapt, catching the windowsill and pulling himself into the room. Briony let out the breath she’d been holding and followed him up, sliding through the window and crouching on the floor, wanting to cry with relief. Now that she had the man in her room, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do with him, but she calmly closed the window and hurried to get a bottle of cold water before turning on the light.

“Drink. You’re dehydrated and burning up with fever. I’m going to clean your wounds and give you a shot of antibiotics. We carry medical supplies with us and I’m not bad at stitching when I have to do it.”

“You give me the supplies and I can handle it,” he assured her, sitting on the edge of the bed. The room was small and the bed looked inviting. “Nothing ever tastes quite so good as water.” He trickled the fluid down his throat, resisting the urge to gulp it. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Briony dipped a cloth in cool water and held it to the back of his neck. “You’ve got a really bad infection, Jack. I know you could sew the wounds yourself, but why don’t you rest and just let me take care of you for now.”

Jack took another, longer drink, his parched body greedy for the cool liquid. He took the cool cloth and bathed his face while he watched her mix up a solution in a bowl. “Get me tweezers.”

“What?” She looked startled.

“I’m going to take care of your face and arm. You’ll get an infection if we leave it. I won’t be in any shape to do it after, so get me the tweezers now.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“I don’t joke.” His voice was grim and he swayed, reaching for the wall to steady himself. “I mean it. You’re not touching me until I fix you up. And if I pass out and someone comes, you get the hell out of here. Go through the window, up to the rooftops, not the alley, they’ll trap you in the alley. Use the rooftops as long as you can and head back to the forest. You can hide out there.”

“Do you boss everyone around?” She pulled the tweezers from her medical kit and handed them to him. “I feel like an idiot having you get splinters out of me when you’re sliced to pieces.”

He caught her chin and began to pull the largest splinters from her skin. “You saved my life. Thanks. I don’t owe very many people, but I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.” He cleaned her chin with the antiseptic and held out his hand for the antibiotic ointment.

“I don’t want to talk about that.” Her stomach lurched uncomfortably. She closed her eyes against the memory of the man lying dead in the forest.

“He would have killed me.”

“I know. Are you finished?”

“I don’t like the way your arm looks. It was fairly deep. Keep putting the cream on it.” He handed her the tweezers. “Yes, I boss everyone. It works better for me that way.”

“I see. And does everyone do what you say?”

“The smart ones.”

She couldn’t help but look at his ravaged body, sliced into pieces. His obviously muscled belly, his thick chest and broad shoulders and arms had taken the brunt of the torture. He had two odd tattoos. She realized she wasn’t seeing them with her normal vision, but rather with enhanced vision, as if seeing them under a UV light. She touched one. “These aren’t normal. The ink is different.”

“No one can see them other than one of us.”

She wanted to know more, but instead of questioning him, she knelt down on the floor in front of him. Cleaning his wounds was imperative if he was going to survive. “This is going to hurt.”

“Just get it done.”

“You want to put down the rifle?”

Jack blinked down at her, surprised that he still had the rifle slung around his neck. He placed it beside his hand on the mattress and added the handgun and two knives alongside of it before taking another drink. He leaned back until his head was resting against the wall. “Go ahead.”

Briony braced herself. She didn’t like hurting anyone, and washing the wounds with antiseptic was going to torture Jack all over again, but it couldn’t be helped. “I could get one of my brothers if you’d be more comfortable.”

“Briony.” He said her name with a slight note of exasperation.

She just heard the weariness. His eyes were glazed with fever and he desperately needed to lie down. Pressing her lips together, she began the arduous task of cleaning him up. The knife wounds in his chest were hideous, blackened and crusted with bugs and infection. His body shuddered and broke out into a sweat, as she washed and applied topical antibiotics, but he stoically took it, occasionally drinking from the bottle of water.