Radclyffe - Oath of Honor

When she left at the end of her shift, she’d slide the tube into a fold in her suit beneath her arm and secure it in place with a strip of the special adhesive they kept for emergency repairs if one of the suits should be accidentally torn. Like a tire patch, the instantly self-sealing adhesive would provide enough protection until the lab worker could get to the decontamination chamber. Tonight, the lifesaving material would allow her to secrete out a virus capable of killing thousands. She wasn’t really interested in the deaths of thousands, however, only one.

President Andrew Powell stood for everything she despised—a spokesman for the rich, a defender of the privileged, a champion of those without morals or values. Her father had taught her and her brothers and sisters the right path, raising them to be survivors. He’d encouraged them to excel, schooling them at the camp with the children of other survivalists, setting them on the path to positions where they could someday make a difference. She’d always known she had a mission, and now she was going to fulfill it. She would help him make his message heard—America for Americans—and now that a leader had emerged, they would have a president who would speak for the righteous. She would help make that possible.

The digital clocks at the far end of the room simultaneously projected the time and date in New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Sydney, New Delhi, Berlin, London. Seven p.m. in Atlanta. Twelve more hours and the first stage of her mission would be complete. Soon the reclaiming of America would begin.

Chapter Twenty

Evyn handed Wes the last slice of pizza. “You finish it.”

“I’m stuffed.” Wes sat on the bed with her back propped against the wall. Some of the shadows around her eyes had faded, but her cheeks were still hollow, and her fingers trembled slightly as she reached for a napkin.

“You need the carbs—eat.” She hated seeing Wes hurt. Wes didn’t complain—she wouldn’t, and her attempt to feign normalcy only made Evyn want to punch something. She had to do something, even something mindless, or she’d do something they’d both regret. She stacked the remains of their meal—crumpled paper napkins, a couple of paper plates, the pizza box. “I’ll take the empty box to the trash. The pizza was great, but I’d rather not smell the aftermath all night.”

The room was generous by motel standards—two slightly larger than single beds separated by a two-drawer nightstand with a peeling brown lacquer finish. A goosenecked reading light, dusty shade askew, sat on the water-stained top. The bathroom had been carved out of the closet area—a small toilet jammed in next to the sink, a two-and-a-half square foot shower stall, and a solitary overhead light. The closet held a few bent wire hangers and nothing else. Neither she nor Wes had taken anything from their go bags other than toiletries.

“Need a hand?” Wes asked.

“I got it,” Evyn said, not looking at Wes. She’d sat on the far end of the bed during their takeout dinner, a meal she’d shared a hundred times in a hundred nondescript rooms just like this one. She’d never been as grateful for the pizza box sitting open between them as she had been tonight, though—every time she looked at Wes and remembered the way she had looked slowly spinning deeper underwater, she wanted to touch her. Just to assure herself Wes was warm and safe.

She gathered the trash and stood. “Need anything?”

“Nope. I’m going to grab another shower.”

“Still cold?”

Wes grinned wryly. “I’m not really sure. Feels that way, but it might just be my imagination.”

Evyn checked the thermostat on the wall above the dresser, a vintage fifties maple affair with wooden knobs on the drawers and a rickety mirror. Seventy degrees. The room was toasty. Wes still wasn’t fully recovered. “Take your time—use all the hot water if you need to. I’m good.”

“Okay.” Wes rose, glanced at the door. A frisson of anxiety shot along her nerve endings. She’d never minded being alone, but she didn’t want Evyn to walk out that door. She’d paced the room during the ten minutes Evyn had been gone getting the pizza and hadn’t been able to relax until Evyn appeared again, a spark of triumph in her eyes as she’d held the pizza box aloft like a trophy. She’d looked vibrant and vital and sexy. Wes clamped down on the surge of heat that tingled down her thighs. “So I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Right.” Evyn reached behind her and fumbled for the doorknob, her gaze locked on Wes. “I’ll be here.”

Wes broke eye contact first and disappeared into the bathroom. A second later the water came on in the shower. Evyn imagined Wes sliding out of her clothes and stepping naked into the heat. She’d seen enough of Wes’s body through that thin, damp white towel back in the locker room to have a pretty good idea of exactly what Wes would look like naked. Ordinarily she didn’t have any problem populating her fantasies with women she knew, but she chased the enticing image of Wes’s body from her mind. She didn’t want to fantasize about her. What she wanted to do was kiss her. She almost had—would have, just then, if they’d been any closer. She had quite a lot of practice reading women’s eyes, and she’d read desire in Wes’s. All the same, she hadn’t had such a bad idea in longer than she could remember. Sleeping with Louise when she hadn’t been one hundred percent present didn’t hold a candle to the insanity of kissing Wes.

Wes had had a serious shock just a few hours ago—had almost drowned. She was vulnerable. Physically depleted. Battered and bruised. By her own admission, not really on top of her game. She didn’t need Evyn coming on to her—she needed a solid night’s sleep and probably a talk with someone about what had happened. Evyn wasn’t one of those agents who found psych support to be intrusive or threatening. Her older sister was a psychologist and one of the best listeners she’d ever met. She’d learned when she was struggling with the kinds of identity issues all adolescents face that talking with her sister helped. And when she’d told Chris she was a lesbian, her sister had been cool. Hell, she talked to Gary when things got really hairy—when the stress and the insane schedules and the lack of a personal life started to make her crazy. She wanted Wes to get any help she needed—and making a move on her did not qualify as helping.

Evyn pulled on Wes’s jacket, not so much because she wanted to keep dry in the still-falling snow but because she liked wearing it. An unusual intimacy for her—wearing someone else’s clothes. Silly, but no one needed to know. The jacket was a little big. Wes’s shoulders were a little wider, her arms a little longer, but she wasn’t so much bigger their bodies wouldn’t fit together seamlessly. Wes’s breasts were just the right size for their torsos to meld perfectly, Wes’s thighs just long and tight enough to wrap around hers with no space between them. The fist of want in her belly tightened, and she dashed outside, welcoming the blast of cold wind and icy snow. The storm had picked up. Two inches of wet powder covered the parking lot. No cars passed on the two-lane. The road remained unplowed.

After tossing the detritus into the open maw of the dented blue Dumpster tucked behind the end of the building, she ran back along the row of darkened rooms. She stamped her feet to clear the snow from her boots and jumped inside their room, shutting the cold night outside.

Wes stood in the middle of the room with a towel cinched above her breasts, leaving her upper chest, sculpted shoulders, and a lot of thigh exposed. A sliver of light slanted through the partially open bathroom door behind her, highlighting her strong curves and sinewy planes. The red-green glow of the motel sign flickered through the open slats on the blinds hanging on the single window beside the door, leaving Wes’s face mostly in shadow. Evyn flashed again on the picture of Wes wrapped around her, nothing between them. Her skin tingled and heat flooded her core.