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With her breaths levelling out, she was struck by what she had done. She had improvised an ambush, executed it and snuffed out two lives right in the middle of suburbia.
Shit.
All those hours of therapy – all that psychological reconditioning – had done absolutely nothing to curb her instincts. Because when push came to shove, she had reverted back to her old persona.
The huntress.
Cold. Calculative. Remorseless.
Is that what I am? Is that all that I am?
Kendra performed a surveillance-detection run through the park, twisting, turning, just to be sure that she was no longer being shadowed.
But was she running away from the enemy?
Or was she running away from herself?
Ever since she got back from Baghdad, she’d been caught up in a mental haze, just drifting through life, the days blurring into each other. At one point, she even became a cutter – slicing into her skin with a razor in a desperate attempt to seek relief.
But now... now she felt alive. Yeah, more alive than she’d ever been. Endowed with the singularity of purpose – tracking Ryan down.
Kendra couldn’t explain it, but she was consumed by a reckless hunger. A need to reconcile the past and the present. Make things right. And, yes, she would kill anyone who stood in her way.
But at what cost?
Kendra felt the memories of Baghdad blossoming just then, like the stitches of a wound tearing open.
A car bomb detonating like thunder.
Kendra losing her nerve and firing blindly in a dust storm.
A child lying broken and bloodied.
A mother wailing, her eyes accusing Kendra.
The flashback left her mouth shrivelled and dry as dust, and she was suddenly afraid of who she was; of what she was capable of.
But – no – she didn’t want to think about that right now. She couldn’t afford the mindfuck. She had to focus on what was in front of her. Focus on the objective. She had to get to Jim Braddock.
So Kendra exited the park, and eyes darting, emotions raw, she hailed down a passing taxi. ‘Can you take me to Mount Albert?’
The taxi driver gave her the once over and nodded. ‘Sure thing.’
Kendra got into the back seat.
As they pulled away from Remuera, she checked the traffic behind them. And – hell – that’s when she realised that she was being followed again.