Jack Wilder - The Missionary

Another turn, this time onto a road so skinny they had to nearly turn sideways to fit. Stone rolled his shoulders, pressing a palm to his side. “I’m fine.”

Wren huffed. “You’ve been shot.”

“And?”

“And you need medical attention.”

“I need to clean it out, and I need bandages. And a shirt.” He wiped sweat from his forehead while suppressing a shiver. “I’m not going to a hospital. Number one, they’ll find us in a hospital. Two, we can’t afford the time, or the money. Three, I’m just not going to a doctor, especially not one around here.” He stopped and looked around, scanning the rooftops, glancing behind them. “Cervantes isn’t going to give up. He’s going to come after us again, and he’s going to bring friends. Lots of friends with lots of guns.”

“But how can he get away with that? We’re American citizens.”

Stone snorted. “This is his turf, babe. We disappear, they’ll look, they won’t find us, and they’ll have a memorial service. We’ll just be two more tourists who vanished into the slums.”

“How did he find us so fast?”

Stone shrugged. “He’s a crime boss. A sex slaver and probably a drug dealer, maybe even small arms dealer. He’s got a huge network of informants, meaning he’s got people all over Manila who do nothing but watch and report back to him.”

Not knowing what to say to that, she just kept walking, trying desperately to ignore the feverish shaking and trembling need inside her, the crawling of her skin and the heavy ache in her soul.

Wren glanced above her head and saw clothes hanging on a line. She gestured. “Can’t you just…borrow a shirt?”

Stone smirked at her. “You mean steal one? From someone who probably can’t afford another one?”

Wren blushed. “I just meant—I mean—”

Stone laughed, then winced. “Relax. I know what you meant. I want to get out of this area first, and then I’ll send you into a store to buy one for me.” He leaned against a shanty, sheened with sweat and taking deep, slow breaths.

“Do you know the way out?”

Stone shrugged. “Out? There is no out. There’s only somewhere else.”

“So no.”

“Not really.” He coughed, and Wren watched the way his body shivered violently. She watched as he visibly forced himself upright.

“How’d you find me?” she asked, trying to distract him.

“I had a…guide.”

Wren wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that meant. There were a lot of things simmering in the back of her head that she couldn’t afford to think about at that moment.

Stone set off at a stiff lope, forcing her to trot to keep up with him. Suddenly her foot slid in a puddle of mud, and she pitched forward. Her face smashed against Stone’s back, and he twisted in place, catching her as she fell. His arms circled around her back, his hands pressing against her spine and shoulder blades. He took a step backward and leaned back against the building, sheltering her in his arms.

She smelled sweat, felt flesh under her cheek, hot and hard and slick. She heard his breathing and the faint thump of his heart, and for the briefest moment, the nightmare of the last few days slipped into the recesses of her mind. She shifted her feet, regaining her balance, but she didn’t push away from Stone, and he didn’t let go.

Wren felt herself drifting in his embrace, tilting and spinning and floating, breathing in his scent.

She’d wanted this for so long, it seemed. She’d spent an hour every Wednesday night for months sitting across from him, barely able to focus on his words, his instructions. She been hypnotized by the way the muscles in his forearms had shifted under his tanned, weathered skin. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off his biceps stretching the sleeves of his T-shirt, or off his fingers flexing on the guitar strings, nimble and sure. She watched his every movement, trying not to stare. Trying not to feel like a little girl with a hopeless crush.

She’d lain in her bed in her dorm room, wondering what it would feel like to have his arms around her, his hands on her. She wasn’t a virgin—she’d had a couple boyfriends in college, but none of them had inspired the kind of feelings in her that Stone did. Jon, her last boyfriend, had been nice enough, attractive in a Virginia country good ole boy sort of way. He was a guy, definitely all-male, well-built, and attentive as a lover, given to wearing camo hats and ripped blue jeans and dirty Timberland boots and Browning T-shirts. He rode dirt bikes and went mudding and fished every Sunday morning, rain or shine. Wren had had a good time with him, but it hadn’t meant anything. They’d been friends, more than anything. Friends who slept together, but friends. She hadn’t felt the kind of… need that she felt for Stone.

She remembered the first time she’d seen him. He’d arrived at LifeBridge just as Nick was getting ready to start his message, had stood in the back with his arms crossed over his chest. He was a huge, dominating presence, even from a distance. She’d been sitting at the far edge of the semi-circular arrangement of padded church chairs, so she’d seen him slip in, and she’d been immediately struck by him. He was six foot four and muscled in the lean, lupine sort of way. He wasn’t classically beautiful, not in the Hollywood way. Taken individually, his facial features were too hard and rough to be classified as “hot” or “handsome”. His nose had been broken more than once, it looked like, and his eyes were deep-set, permanently narrowed and squinting, his jaw square and so hard it looked like you could break rocks on it. He had a white scar on his right cheekbone, a crescent-shaped ridge of puckered flesh. When you put all those features together, you had a person who was masculine in the extreme, the very picture of raw manhood. His beauty was in his brutal power and lethal grace.

“Okay, babe?” Stone’s deep, gravelly voice brought Wren back to the present. The sun was setting, shedding orange light on the city.

She nodded against his chest. “I just slipped.”

“Uh huh.” Something in Stone’s voice told Wren he knew she wasn’t okay. “We should keep moving.”

“Where are we going?”

He sighed. “I’m not sure. A hostel or motel, somewhere cheap that won’t ask any questions. You need food and rest.”

“What about you?”

Stone’s hands were rubbing circles on her back, soothing, comforting. “I’m fine. This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot.”

Wren wasn’t sure what to say. “Thank you for—”

Stone didn’t let her finish. “Not now. Don’t think about it. Don’t say it.” He looked down at her, and Wren tilted her head to meet his brown eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I don’t care what I have to do. I’ll get you home, I promise.”

Her hands had found their way to his shoulders, curled under his armpits to clutch him tightly. “Stone…” She wanted to try to express what was in her head, in her heart, tried to let it out through her eyes.

He wouldn’t let her finish. “I know, okay? But not now. We’re not safe yet.” He shivered, squeezing his eyes shut and shifting his torso. He pushed forward and twisted Wren in place, gently nudging her into a walk. “Come on. Let’s try and find our way out of here.”

Wren felt eyes on her as they wound their way through disorienting maze of ramshackle huts and crudely assembled shelters. She glanced around as frequently as Stone did, the back of her neck tingling. She never saw anyone other than the occasional local peeking through windows, children watching from doorways, or huddled under awnings and overhangs.

A thin, mangy, matted dog trotted past, tongue lolling. It watched them, one bent and drooping ear twitching, the other upright.