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Sean
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Reckless.
The word just keeps flashing in my head like a neon sign as I book it away from the lodge, away from Bale and whomever else he brought with him to “take care of the situation” because I know how those guys take care of a situation—kill whatever’s causing it. They want to permanently plug the leak about UFOs and aliens in Algonquin Park to prevent Shag Lake from becoming the next Roswell tourist destination.
And I get it. I do. Hordes of people coming to Shag Lake looking for aliens will effectively shut down our program, so I understand why the EUC is taking Geri’s posts seriously. However, I tried to explain that they didn’t need to go to the extremes of killing her because I can easily buffer her memories enough that she’ll be mystified as to why she made the claims in the first place. Unfortunately, the EUC has always been a bit sketchy on the organic technology behind mind alteration, even though it has been proven time and time again. The one time it apparently didn’t work—Bethany Moulton—seems to be the case that has proven beyond a doubt that they were right to distrust it. It didn’t matter to them that the Saurian reversed my work on Moulton; the fact that the Saurian could even do that only strengthened their belief that the only way to effectively stop a leak is to kill it.
But they won’t be killing Geri McKenna. Not while I’m alive.
I keep running until we are at least an hour and a half human jogging distance away from the lodge on the north side of Shag Lake. The one advantage I have is that Bale doesn’t know what I am or what I’m capable of, so if he figures out I’m involved in Geri’s disappearance, he’ll be judging me by human abilities and casting his search net short.
I finally slow to a stop right in the middle of a particularly dense copse of evergreens for the canopy cover. Not only is it protecting us from the near-freezing rain that’s being whipped by an increasingly gusty wind, but it will also shield us if Bale decides to use the helicopter to search.
I set Geri on her feet, and she grabs hold of my forearms as the dizzying effects of being upside-down recede.
I hold her steady. “Are you okay?”
Her wet black hair is plastered across her face, and the moment she’s able to let go of my forearms, she angrily swipes it away to reveal blazing eyes.
I take a step back and hold up my hands to defend myself because she’s coming at me. “Okay, take it easy.”
She shoves me and demands, “Who the hell are you?”
“You know who I am. You’ve known me since we were kids.”
“Oh no, no, no.” She waves her index finger in my face. “The Sean I knew couldn’t catch me on the ice, so you were either faking it back then or... or”—she jabs me in the chest with that finger—“or body snatchers have replaced you.”
I roll my eyes. “Body snatchers? Seriously, Geri?”
“Then explain that,” she demands as her arm flies straight out and points back the way we came. “You carried me and that ridiculously large backpack while running at Mach speed!”
“It was hardly Mach,” I say with a snort. “We would’ve made a sonic boom.”
She curls her hands into fists as she draws in a long, slow breath and blows it back out. Then she asks with dead calm, “Are you just going to keep repeating everything I say and not answer my questions?”
“Is that an option?” Because in all honesty, if I can actually get out of telling her anything, it would be a huge bonus. But by the look on her face, that was the wrong answer.
“No, Eastman. It’s not a fucking option.”
My hands are out, motioning for her to take it down a notch, and I’m wondering when she started using the f-bomb. “Geri, you really need to stop yelling.”
“I’ll stop yelling when you start answering,” she says in a lower voice. She’s spooked, though. I can tell by the way her eyes are darting in every direction, scanning the perimeter.
“First of all, I was in the middle of something when I got Bale’s call, and I need to finish what I was doing.” I shrug my pack off my shoulders and let it slide to the ground.
“Who’s Bale?” she asks.
“One of the men who wants to talk to you.”
“Talk?” Her eyebrows slam together, sarcasm giving a hard edge to her tone. “Back at the lodge, you said kill.”
I hunch my shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “I’m trying to use non-aggravating words because you’re obviously upset enough. Can I continue?”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “Go ahead.”
I squat down next to my backpack and unzip it. “As I was saying, I was in the middle of something that I have to finish, so I need you to hide.” Reaching into my pack, I grab the handle of the only weapon I have at my disposal—a machete I forged from a tungsten-chromium-iron alloy with a nanoscale microstructure that’s strong enough to pierce Saurian armor. It’s this experimental alloy that won me the grant to develop it further.
Geri’s furrowed eyebrows shoot straight up as I slide the sheathed blade out of the pack. “What the hell is that?”
“Protection.” I sling the strap over my chest as I stand up. “I’d give it to you, but I don’t think you know how to use it.” I eyeball her. “Or do you? You’ve been full of surprises.”
“I’m the one full of surprises?”
I chuckle at that one because, yeah, I see her point. “Do you mind pine needles? Because if you don’t, that tall bushy tree over there will provide excellent cover.”
“I’m not hiding, Eastman. I’m coming with you. Especially since you’re the only one with a weapon.”
I shake my head because there’s no way she’s coming. “It’s too risky.”
She lets out a strangled, frustrated noise that sounds like a wounded animal. I instinctively yank her close and put a hand over her mouth, because the Bigfoot hunters could be on the prowl. Startled, she struggles against me, and if it weren’t for the look of fear in her eyes, I would’ve let her struggle a bit longer because despite the layers of wool she’s wearing, she feels soft against me. But I ease my hold on her, feeling a little guilty for enjoying it so much given the situation.
“Ssshhh.” I lay one finger against her lips. “I saw the hunters this morning when I went for a jog, and they were set up about two and a half kilometers from here.”
A gleam of excitement lights up her eyes, which I translate to mean the reporter in her just woke up. “You know where the hunters are?”
Would letting her know that I’m sabotaging the hunt really tip the scale of too much information? I mean, she’s already made the Shag Harbour-Shag Lake UFO connection, come face-to-face with a Saurian, and is now on the run from real-life men-in-black. I’m thinking that me breaking a few cameras really won’t be that shocking.
“I need to disable their cameras.” I brace myself for the barrage of questions, but she’s pensively silent.
“I think I can help,” she says.
“I told you, it’s too risky. I don’t know where they got them, but they have three hunting rifles.”
“More risky than me staying alone in the woods with killers looking for me and a reptile man on the loose?”
“Ergo the reason I need you to hide. I won’t be long.”
“Look, they’re not going to shoot me,” she says confidently. “I’m a defenseless—what did they call me? Catin? A girl who should not be in the woods all by her little ol’ self. They’ll protect me.”
“Sure, if they’re the kinda guys who wait to get a visual before pulling the trigger, but my gut feeling is they’ll shoot at anything that moves. So if you wouldn’t mind climbing up that tree and staying out of sight until I’m finished, you’d make this a lot less complicated.”
She strikes an akimbo pose and says, “No.” Just like that. No explanation, no negotiation.
I run a hand down my rain-soaked face because I’ve seen this side of Geri before—the fifteen-year-old steeling herself for a confrontation, her skates firmly planted on the ice and facing off against her brother, determined to get her own way. And she usually did. Only now, she’s had eight more years to perfect it.
My patience is eroding with every valuable second that ticks by. “This is really not the time to be stubborn.”
She flashes her eyes at me. “Stubborn?” she repeats, throwing her hands up in the air. “How many people would trust their old high school cr—friend when he shows up after being AWOL for eight years, tells you men are coming to kill you, throws you over his shoulder, runs like a cheetah on steroids to deposit you in the middle of the woods, and then says ‘don’t ask questions’? Yet here I am”—she points to herself with both hands—“not asking questions.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “But I will not climb up a tree and hang around in the freezing rain with my fingers crossed that you’ll come back before the alleged killers or Reptile Man find me.”
I don’t interrupt her tirade because I’m thinking I would feel the same way. I’m also thinking that she almost said high school crush instead of friend, and I’m fighting to keep the smirk off my face.
“Okay.” I accept the fact that this will have to be a negotiation. “What do you propose?”
She takes a deep breath as she drops her arms to her sides, a signal that her battle cry is over and she’s ready to deal. “I’ll put my cards on the table, Sean. I know there’s something big going on here, and my guess is aliens. I thought you were involved somehow, but after your display of superhuman speed, I’m beginning to think you are the alien.”
I open my mouth to stop her there and feed her a cover story about bionic limbs or something, but she shakes her head and talks over me. “But I would never expose you. We’re friends.” She gives me a doe-eyed look, either for emphasis or to make sure I’m on board with that; I’m not sure which. “So even though I know something else is going on, I’m content to pursue just the story on the Bigfoot hunters. That’s it.” There’s a pause when she finishes as I try to weigh the risks of taking her to the hunters, but she quickly fills in the silence. “And if possible, Lisa Hornsby, although I’m pretty sure her disappearance is tangled up with the alien mystery. Like maybe she was abducted or something.”
Her eyes are beseeching, hopeful that I’ll give her the answers she’s looking for, and it’s kind of cute. I really admire her for trying because most people would be cutting their losses and finding a bush to cower under right now. But not Geri. She’s going to get her story no matter what, and knowing this helps me to understand her better. Now I get exactly what she means when she says she doesn’t want to be a fashion reporter, because where’s the thrill for a woman like her in tracking down the season’s best colors?
It’s going to tear me apart when I have to alter her memory about all of this.
“Cards on the table,” I say, nodding. “I can’t give you Lisa Hornsby because I don’t know anything about her disappearance,” I lie. “But I’ll take you to the hunters.” Her eyes light up as soon as I say the words, and a warm fuzzy settles in my chest. It makes me happy to be the one who can give her something she so desperately wants.
“Here’s the deal,” I continue. “It’s been almost thirty minutes since Bale landed, and I haven’t heard the helicopter go back up in the air. Either Mary is doing an excellent job of stalling them, or they won’t risk the attention a civilian helicopter search will attract in the middle of a missing persons case. Bale’s in excellent shape, but even if he knew our exact location and hit the ground running the second he landed, he’d still have over an hour jog before he reached us. The weather’s going to slow him down too. So I’m going to give us one hour to do this. That’s it.”
She’s nodding her agreement. “And I’ll need my phone.”
“I thought we went over this. You can’t turn on your phone.”
“Without pictures, my story is nothing but fiction, and my phone is the only camera I have.”
I feel a frustrated sigh coming on and stifle it. “I don’t know what to tell you, Geri. I can’t let you turn it on.”
“Can I use your phone?”
My automatic response is a resounding no, but on second thought, it might be a brilliant idea. If I give her my personal phone and she turns it on when she’s with the hunters, it will give me an alibi. I can tell Bale I’ve been out all morning breaking the hunters’ cameras and that I have no knowledge of Geri McKenna’s whereabouts.
I pull it out of my pocket. “Okay.”
She looks at the phone in my hand then up at me with narrowed eyes. “Just like that? No argument?”
“Just like that.” I step forward and tuck my phone into her jacket pocket. She doesn’t tilt her head to look at me, just turns her big green eyes upward, giving me that heart-melting doe look again.
“What’s the catch?” she asks.
My fingers are still inside her pocket, and I know I should withdraw them, put some space between us, and break the intimacy that’s building, but our close contact has given me the insight that she’s trembling. She’s scared.
“Hey.” I shift my hands to encircle her arms. “I’m really sorry you got mixed up in this. I should’ve told you to go home the minute I saw you up here.”
“You did, Sean. I stayed because I wanted to, and that was my decision to make.”
I gather her against me and wrap my arms around her like steel bands, wishing we could just stay here until all of this blows over. But a few seconds into the embrace, she’s pushing against me.
“If we keep this up, Eastman, I’m going to lose my cool.” She steps away from me, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. “So what’s the deal on the phone? Do I need a password?”
“Right, the phone,” I say. She’s biting her lower lip, getting herself together. That’s good. She needs to be strong. “You don’t need a password to access the camera, and I’m trusting you not to answer any incoming calls.” She nods her acceptance of my terms. I lean forward and start undoing my sweatshirt tied around her neck. “The deal is that you can’t turn it on until you’re with the hunters, and you have to turn it off before you leave them. Got it? On when you’re with them, off before you leave them.”
“Got it.”
I bend down and jam the sweatshirt into the backpack, which is full of camping gear, then zip it back up and check my watch. “We’ve already used up five minutes of the one hour I’m giving us.” I grab the top strap of the pack. “Let me stash this, and we’ll get going.”
I spy a good-sized tree stump and head toward it.
“And what happens...” she begins. I look over my shoulder at her and see her rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. The stress she’s under is leaking through. “What happens after our hour is up? Where do we go?”
“My ridiculously large backpack is full of camping supplies, including a two-person tent small enough to easily camouflage.” I begin the task of scooping litter and compost out of the hollowed stump so I can fit in the pack. “Once we’re in hiding, we get to work on damage control.”
Geri moves to help me. “How?” she asks, digging into the rotting compost without hesitation.
“Well, I’ve already posted ‘#AprilFools LOL! The #Shagharbour and #Shaglake coincidence was just too funny to pass up. Sorree!’ on your social media before we left the hotel.”
She stops digging to glare at me. “You what?”
“It’s going to be damn difficult for them to frame you as a suicidal lunatic if you’ve already publicly admitted that it was all just a big joke,” I say, and her features slowly relax as the information seeps in. “You need to get your followers focused back on the hunters and let the alien connection fall by the wayside.”
She takes in a deep breath and blows it back out. “Okay,” she nods. “But how do I do that? I’m guessing there’s no Wi-Fi out here, and I’m not allowed to turn on my phone.”
I pick up the backpack and ease it into the hollowed-out stump. “One step at a time, Geri.” I begin the task of putting the compost and deadfall on top of the pack. Truth is, the signal from the Pleiadian ship is stronger than Wi-Fi.
“So we only have one hour to get to the hunters,” she says when we’ve finished hiding the pack. “You break their cameras while I get pictures and their story. Then back here to set up a tent?”
“We’ll move location to set up camp, but yeah, something like that,” I say.
“Sounds like a lot to do in so little time.”
“Except, as you pointed out, I can run like a cheetah.” It’s kind of a cocky thing to say, but it’s true, and I’m hoping it will reassure her that she’s safe with me. I want her to know I’m capable of protecting her, even if it’s against a giant reptile.
“That’s right. You’re Superman,” she says, and I think I catch a note of appreciation in her voice that does amazing things for my ego.
“I’ll drop you off close to the hunters, and I’ll sneak in from the back while you approach them with as much noise as you can make. Seriously, Geri, sing a song or something to let them know you’re not a Sasquatch so that they don’t shoot you.”
She gives me a hard stare. “I got it, Eastman.”
Her hair is wet and curling like crazy, her cheeks are rosy from the cold, her lips are red with chap, and her eyes look like two emerald pools. I’ve never wanted to kiss her more than I do right now.
And before I even know what I’m doing, I’m reaching for her. The feel of running my hands over her taut, naked body is still fresh from last night, and all I’ve been thinking about is touching her again. I need to touch her again, feel her against me.
Then I see how she’s looking at me. Her eyes are big and searching mine...
What the hell am I doing? She was already royally pissed at me last night for initiating something I refused to go through with, and it took a lot of effort to get back in her good graces, a lot of effort to convince her she can still trust me. I can’t afford to screw up again and lose her confidence.
I reroute my hands to her collar, pull it to a standing position, and tuck the red wool around her neck. “Make sure they see the red hunting jacket,” I say lamely.
She immediately drops her gaze and tucks a damp tendril of hair behind her ear. “Right,” she says curtly, her rosy cheeks burning brighter.
She knew I was thinking about kissing her. I am such an ass.
“I won’t throw you over my shoulder this time,” I say, offering her a piggyback.
She hops onto my back, wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. Her soft cheek grazes the side of my neck, and I’m suddenly gripped by a wave of protective instinct unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I have to fight against setting her down and forcing her to hide. It’s a struggle to make my feet move, to pick up speed, and to take her to the hunters. But I know it’s the right course of action. I know that in the long run, putting to rest whatever she started online will save her life.
And if I weren’t so damned in love with her, this wouldn’t be hard at all.