A Nature of Conflict (The Redemption Saga Book 3), page 26
“No. I trust your judgement. You’re right. If I had known, I would have been focusing on the group and not what’s out there.” Quinn pointed out to the darkness of the rainforest.
“What did Shade and Scout find?” Vincent asked carefully.
“Something I hadn’t been expecting. But she’s not ready yet.”
“What?” He coughed as he tried to exhale. Quinn was getting cryptic on him again. Vincent knew how people worked. He knew how Quinn worked on the surface. But sometimes, Quinn threw him for a loop. He went somewhere that Vincent couldn’t follow. He knew that the mind of his wild teammate and friend was full of things he couldn’t begin to understand. Quinn just showed him a tiny piece and he couldn’t unravel it. He could at least cross off a Druid. Quinn wouldn’t have been calm if it was one of those.
“You’ll see. I’m going back on patrol. I’ve let the females out.” A pause. “Women. I let Sawyer and the other woman out.”
“Make sure you get some sleep tonight,” Vincent told him, hoping he listened. He had no idea when the last time Quinn had slept was. A couple of days?
“I will,” he answered, and Vincent heard a creeping note of exhaustion in his voice. “It took too much energy to pull them both down like that. Energy I didn’t want to expend.” With that, Quinn disappeared into the night.
This mission was going to drive him mad. Hazing, fights, Druids in the night, Quinn with secrets. The heat, the rain. Vincent just wanted it over with. He wanted to go back to a place where he had any sort of control over the situation. He didn’t in the Amazon. He didn’t have a single shred of control.
It terrified him.
20
Sawyer
The earth was dark and cold. Sawyer hit it hard, ignoring the pale blonde in the hole with her. She was pissed. She couldn’t believe Quinn would toss her down here and lock her up. Couldn’t fucking believe it.
“Quinn!” she roared. “Let me out, you ass!”
She knew he could hear her. She knew he was keeping an eye on them. He wouldn’t throw them in a hole without knowing exactly what was going on in it. She wasn’t stupid enough to try and phase out. He would just pull her back in if she could, and she didn’t know how deep they were, so she probably couldn’t.
“Does he always do this?” Petrov asked, wrapping her arms around herself.
“No. I’ve never seen this before.” Sawyer growled. She looked over to the sergeant and noted she had really done a number on the woman’s face. There was just enough light to see her. Sawyer looked down and saw that Petrov had a small flashlight.
“I’m not sorry for any of that.” She pointed at the woman’s face as she spoke.
Sawyer was still riding her temper from the fight. Well, the temper from Jasper getting hurt. That little fucking prick of a soldier thought he could fuck with her team. He got Jasper hurt, that motherfucker. The need to hurt him back was like the need to breath for her at that moment.
“It’s fine. We have healers, and I jumped in knowing it would be a hard fight.” Sawyer noted the healthy amount of respect in the soldier’s voice. “I wasn’t planning to break up the fight,” Petrov told her. Sawyer raised an eyebrow. “I had reprimanded him. Told him to knock it off, and that if he did it again and you caught him, I wasn’t going to save him. Hazing is against the IMAS Code. He knew better. He knew I would bust his ass back a rank if it kept up.”
“But?” Sawyer crossed her own arms and leaned against an earthy wall of their tomb. She wanted to know why this bitch jumped into her fight.
“You pulled a dagger. He fucked with you and I expected you to fuck with him. I wasn’t going to let you kill him. He’s one of my soldiers, and I take that seriously.”
Sawyer nodded slowly. The temper drained. The anger faded, only a little, but it left just enough for her to really consider what she had been about to do.
She couldn’t kill a guy for that. It would get her taken away from the team.
“Thank you,” she told the blonde.
“What?” Petrov sounded confused and wary.
“Thanks. For stopping me.” Sawyer shrugged, looking away. She ran a hand over her face and could feel the hot blood trickling out of her nose. The chick had done a number on her too. Her nose and one of her cheeks ached with a pulsing pain that told Sawyer something might be fractured. “I…I don’t like killing people.”
“Then why did you?” Petrov sounded purely curious. No disdain. No disgust. Just professional curiosity. It made Sawyer curious in return, and her anger faded a little more. It hadn’t been a reaction she expected.
“That’s a long story,” Sawyer said. “This time? I lost my temper. I needed to beat on him for fucking with Jasper. Jasper lost that leg for me. I won’t…I won’t have someone consider him less than perfect because of it. He got hurt for me. That set me off pretty hard.”
“I’m sorry. I had hoped you would be wrong about them getting retaliation. That my men would listen to me without finding it insulting - but I overestimated their respect for the rank on my arm.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I’m a woman in IMAS.” Petrov laughed bitterly. “It’s a man’s world. No matter how high I climb or how hard I fight, I’ll always be not good enough. I should have known they would take being reprimanded by me as an insult. I laid into him hard for hazing your agent when we were making camp.”
“I had no idea it was like that,” Sawyer replied. “I was told something about you passing the trials or something? I thought that meant something.”
“It does. I’ve passed the trials every six months for three years to join Spec Ops. Our version of Special Agents, I guess. Advanced, highly trained teams. Missions in hostile countries, or against hostile organizations. Basically, you, the IMPO, finds the bad guy, but Spec Ops is normally called in to clean up, with backup teams of Cavalry and general foot soldiers.”
“Good to know. Why aren’t you Spec Ops? Why in Cavalry?”
“I’m a woman,” Petrov bitterly answered.
Sawyer frowned. There was a surety to the answer that made her a little pissed off. “Seriously?” She furrowed her brow.
“Yes.”
“Wow.” Sawyer huffed and slid down to sit in their hole. “So, Petrov, any other cool things I should know?”
“My name is Varya,” she answered. “Use that. Nothing cool about me. I joined the IMAS at eighteen.”
“Why not the IMPO? From what I’ve seen, women aren’t hated on. Well, I am, but I’m also the very thing they want to catch.”
“The IMAS took me out of Russia,” Varya answered softly. Sawyer knew the importance of that. Russia was a bad place to be a Magi. “I idolized them. Joined the moment I could, then got a reality check. But I am good at my job and I follow the rules. They have no reason to force me out, but they have no reason to help me advance into better positions either. They just rank me up when they are required to, because they can’t argue against it.” Varya sighed, shaking her head. “How does an assassin join the organization that would see her hang?”
“Just say it. How does an assassin become an imp?” Sawyer chuckled. “Long story. There’s a lot of dead people in it. It’s a mess and it’s complicated, but here I am. In the fucking rainforest with a team I would die for.”
“That doesn’t explain anything,” Varya replied. “How does a criminal turn into a good guy?”
Sawyer thought about that, watching Varya sit opposite of her. They maintained eye contact.
“I never wanted to be the bad guy,” Sawyer admitted to her. “I never wanted to be the monster.”
“How did it happen?” Varya’s curiosity should have pissed her off, but down in the dark hole that Quinn dropped them in, Sawyer couldn’t summon the energy to get angry. There was no reason to not tell Varya.
“I fell in love with a madman.”
“So you survived by killing for him until you could get out,” Varya guessed.
“You are nearly entirely right. I couldn’t save those I killed for, not really. He blackmailed me into it by threatening the lives of my animal bond…then his own son.”
“You have an animal bond? I haven’t…”
“I don’t have an animal bond anymore.”
“Oh.” Varya paled in the dark. Sawyer knew where the soldier’s mind went. She was imagining losing her bear. The big thing called Anya. “You must be strong to have survived the loss of that bond.”
“That’s what I’ve been told.”
“We’re both survivors then. I’m sorry for disliking you,” Varya whispered in the dark. She flicked the flashlight off. “I want to conserve the battery.”
“What did you survive?” Sawyer was getting curious in return.
“Russia.”
“The burnings or the labs?” Sawyer had heard what Russia was like. The WMC didn’t have political relations with them. Some countries would never accept Magi. Most of their kind were pulled out, protected in other countries, but there were always some that couldn’t be saved. Some places, like Iran, only burned them. Other places, like Russia, worked with awful companies and scientists to study them. Sawyer didn’t know much past that.
“The labs. I survived the labs from age five to age ten. I lived the longest of any of the children there. Spec Ops raided one night and took me out. Spent the rest of my youth in America, under the watchful eye of an adoptive family. Learned English and joined the IMAS as fast as I could.”
“You know what? I’m sorry for disliking you too,” Sawyer told her. She leaned over and extended a hand to the blonde. Varya looked down at it and nodded slowly. They shook. “You need someone dead, come find me.”
“You need someone to put you in your place, likewise,” Varya responded. It caused them both to laugh until Varya groaned. “Oh, my face hurts.”
“Sorry. Mine kind of does too.” Sawyer gently touched her nose and winced. Yeah, that might be broken. “Thank god for healers.”
“Are we good?”
“We’re good. Well, you know, we were never bad. You just rub me the wrong way. You’re a stick in the mud that is always throwing the rulebook at people.”
“And you have no respect for authority or the rulebook, which I’m sure you would set on fire,” Varya retorted.
“I’ll give you that.” Sawyer couldn’t find a way to argue with it. “We’ll just stay out of each other’s ways.”
“Good plan.”
Sawyer still didn’t want to like the blonde, but she respected her now. Understood her a little more.
As if on cue, the earth above them opened and they were pushed to the surface.
“That ass,” Sawyer groaned.
“What?” Varya frowned at her.
“Nothing,” she mumbled. Quinn had let her out because she and Varya had worked things out and cooled off. He had been listening.
Sawyer stood up slowly and growled at soldiers staring, wide-eyed, at her and Varya. Most went back to what they were doing, and those that didn’t got yelled at by the Russian. Sawyer even got a chuckle out of it. She limped back to her guys, where most of them were huddled in chairs, talking.
“She did a number on you,” Zander pointed out immediately. Jasper and Elijah were both staring at her as well, but were smart enough not to say anything.
“Fix it, please,” Sawyer pleaded, sitting next to him. She pulled out a cigarette but didn’t light it as Zander gently took her face in his hands. She felt them grow hot and hissed in pain as everything healed. Bones were moving. That wasn’t comfortable.
“Done. You’ll have some light bruising. I can’t fix everything, but that should make sure you have no permanent damage.” Zander pulled his hands away. “Does she need someone?”
“She’d going to their healers,” Sawyer informed him, standing back up. “Vincent is…”
“That way, having a cigarette too,” Elijah told her, pointing off into the dark jungle.
“Thanks,” she said quietly, walking off to go apologize. She had to. He’d wanted to take care of things, and while he probably thought she was justified in the fight with the soldiers, she’d heard him screaming to not kill the guy. She’d been about to anyway.
“Vincent?” she called out, walking further out. She saw his back and sighed. “Vin-”
“You’re sorry. I know. Come smoke. You’ve probably already figured out my feelings, and I’ve probably figured out yours.”
She walked beside him and reached to run her hands through his dark curls. He looked over to her and she didn’t like how exhausted his dark olive-green eyes were.
“He hurt Jasper,” she whispered.
“I know. I don’t blame you. I just didn’t want you carrying around a kill you did in temper.”
“They would have taken me away from you guys if I had gone through with it. I’d be in a cell the moment we got home.”
“Yes. That too.” Vincent nodded slowly.
They smoked in silence after that. He surprised her by sneaking in a kiss, a long one, before they went back to camp. It had been desperate and tired, needy and wanting.
For both of them.
She wanted to go home with them. She was tired of the jungle.
21
Quinn
It was close to midnight when Quinn decided to leave his patrol. It was another peaceful night, another peaceful day - discounting the fight in camp.
He didn’t have the focus to deal with that. He knew the team would manage it. He’d broken up the fight because no one else could, but he wasn’t going to get more involved. He couldn’t. Vincent’s point about Sawyer killing the soldiers was valid. Past that, Quinn needed them all, needed as many Magi as he could get for this.
He needed to sleep, he knew, as he rubbed his face, hoping to stop the exhaustion. His body was physically tired, which made his magic harder to use and control. He still had plenty of energy, but he needed to be able to focus, or he would hurt teammates if a fight broke out.
“Quinn, right?” a soldier on patrol asked. Quinn looked over at the pair. They were required to stay together, only leaving camp for patrols in pairs or more. They knew why, since he had told them. One of them would probably die, but the other could get word back to camp.
“Yes.” He didn’t know why it was a question. He frowned at the soldier, Lance Corporal Peters.
“Just wanted to say hi. You seem lonely,” he explained, smiling. “You’re always out here. Why don’t you hang out with your team and take a break? Get some sleep?”
“Leave him alone,” the other whispered. “He probably doesn’t want us bothering him.”
“You’re fine,” Quinn interrupted the second one. “I’m not…” He growled, looking for the words. He was fine having a conversation with some of the lower soldiers, those that didn’t whisper about him. Some were good males and these two were ones he included in that. “I’m fine talking for a moment. I’m actually headed back to camp right now to get some rest before we begin travelling again.”
“Good, you work too hard,” Peters told him, grinning. “This mission fucking blows, ya know? No reason for you to run yourself ragged. We have watch.”
“Thank you,” Quinn murmured honestly. In another life, Peters, a young dark-skinned man probably Sawyer’s age, would be someone Quinn liked. “Be safe. If anything happens, you know what to do.”
“Of course.” Peters nodded. “We got this.”
“I trust you.” Quinn couldn’t resist giving the young man a smile. Something about him was good.
He left them to their watch and went to his shared tent with Vincent and Elijah. Elijah wasn’t in there, but Sawyer was, curled in a ball on the opposite side of Vincent, leaving a space for him in the middle. He saw Shade laying near her head and Scout by her feet.
Protecting her, like he’d told them to. She had to live through this. She was priority, then the team, then himself. The soldiers, Quinn would try to save, but he couldn’t protect everyone. His pack came first, starting with the female that had to survive.
He felt momentarily bad for Peters. He’d been kind. Most didn’t approach Quinn like that. He felt guilty that the soldier was his lowest priority. Him and his brothers, the others. None of them mattered like her. None of them, not even himself.
He slid between her and Vincent and closed his eyes. Shade sent him images and feelings from the time when they had been separated. Just her, sleeping after being healed by Zander. Just his team being short-tempered and annoyed with each other. He couldn’t blame them. This was not their environment or their home.
This place was calling to him, though, and he couldn’t bring himself to get angry with it. He felt an undying need to just walk away from the camp and never come back. Leave them to the mission and go find a place where none of the Druids had claimed and live away from it all. Away from the metal cities, overcrowded streets, and dirty air. The people who acted in ways that he didn’t understand.
He was tired, but he also loved it. So far from everything. So deep in nature that if he wanted, he could leave, and no one would find him.
The earth beneath them was clean. The life around them was untouched.
Pure. It was all so pure.
Sawyer stirred next him, and he held his breath as she rolled onto her back. He saw her hair fall over her face, beautiful even with the sweat causing it to stick to her forehead.
Would she stay with him if he wanted? She could survive in these wilds. She was strong enough.
No, he knew she hated this sort of area. She hated ‘playing in the dirt,’ as she called it. She would want to go home. To her metal cities and crowded streets.
Quinn wondered if that was why she wasn’t ready.
He reached out and touched the assassin’s face. So strong and resilient. She’d changed so much about them and she continued to change them, to change him. She opened her mouth and he listened, for she always had some wisdom he didn’t know or understand. Elijah had probably told him some of these things before, or Vincent, Zander, or Jasper, but something, when she spoke, made him listen and made him think.
