Viper Game (GhostWalkers 11)

Wyatt kept shooting even when his target hit the ground. He stood over the soldier, yanked his weapons away and sent up a silent prayer the man was really dead. It was nearly impossible to tell anymore.

Trap hit the nearest soldier with both feet, driving him back and away from Pepper. He hit him hard, with every bit of enhanced strength he had. The soldier went flying, and he heard an audible, satisfying crack. Still, every bone in his body was jarred on impact, as if he'd kicked a steel wall.

He fell heavily, the breath knocked out of him. Almost immediately the other soldier loomed over him, weapon out, pointed straight at his heart. Trap actually saw him squeezing the trigger. Time slowed so that every small detail was etched into his mind. He knew he'd die that way, seeing it coming without a damned thing he could do about it. He got his hands under him to launch himself in the air, but the finger was already squeezing.

Out of nowhere masses of silk rained down between Trap and the soldier. The silk spun in a tight cocoon, caging the soldier and his gun in the silken threads until the soldier couldn't move. The silk continued, spinning round and round so fast it made Trap dizzy. All the way up the body and neck to the mouth, the nose and eyes. The soldier fell hard, hitting the ground right beside Trap, but still the silk came, tighter and tighter, winding his enemy up until there was no possible way to move or breathe.

She came out of the night. She was more beautiful than he remembered. Her eyes were liquid, her skin perfect. She crouched down beside him and ran her hand over him. Gently. As if it mattered. It never mattered to anyone. Trap blinked at her. She'd killed a man in seconds. Seconds.

"We're even," she said softly.

"No we're not." He heard the words come out of his mouth and he meant them. "We're not even, woman. Don't think for one minute that we are."

Her eyes flashed at him. Liquid. Smoldering. She hissed between her teeth, turned and leapt toward the side of the house, moving up and over it fast, heading around to the other side. He didn't know if spider woman was escaping or going to help Draden. Right then it didn't matter, because the soldier he kicked in the chest was slowly climbing to his feet and his eyes looked angry.

Chapter 20

Pepper felt bile rising in her throat at the sight of the soldier, his eyes locked on her with such hungry need. She'd killed him. She'd done it to save her children and Nonny, but not like this. The knife, the gun, was a far better way to die. She couldn't let him die alone, not when she'd caused this. She'd never killed this way before and she knew, the moment he was gone, when the paralysis hit his lungs and he no longer could breathe, she would vomit.

She'd killed the soldier on the roof to protect Malichai, but she'd done it cleanly. This man looked as if he idolized her. He had to know he was dying. She doubted that he even realized she was the one to kill him. He was enthralled with her. For a moment his face blurred and she felt tears on her face.

He crashed to the ground, still staring at her. Gasping for breath. She couldn't tear her eyes away from his, not even when his adoring gaze began to fog over. He looked so happy. So satisfied. She cursed herself. Hated herself. Hated what she was.

Pepper. Behind you. Damn it, behind you.

She heard Wyatt's voice as if it was far away. Wyatt. Everything good. How could she possibly have ever thought she belonged with him? Something hit her hard from behind and she slammed forward, falling, straight into the body of the soldier. She landed on the soldier, still staring into his eyes. She heard the rattle in his chest. Felt his last breath. She lay there on the man she killed, a weapon Braden and possibly Whitney had made her into. Maybe she killed him for the right reasons, but this was blasphemy.

A hard hand yanked her up. Wyatt stuck his face in hers. "Get movin'. Get back to the girls."

She looked at him. His face was hard. Carved of stone. His eyes flat and cold. A crushing weight descended onto her chest and just sat there. He'd seen this abomination. He knew what she was.

"Now, Pepper. Get to the girls!"

His commanding voice snapped her out of the daze she was in. She saw him turn, saw him meet another soldier, chest to chest, two combatants coming together with terrible force. She did what he said because she was trained as a soldier, and an order was an order.

Wyatt didn't have time to process the look on Pepper's face. He filed it away for the future. Right now he wanted her safe, inside where there were no supersoldiers to fight. The one swinging at his head with his gun was one tough bastard. Wyatt ducked, feeling a little as if his chest had been smashed into pieces when they'd come together. And truly, it might actually be the zombie apocalypse. The soldier he'd shot numerous times was moving, thrashing around, making hideous sounds - a serious Badboy, this one.

Wyatt ducked and made the mistake of trying to plant his fist in Badboy's throat. Badboy moved just enough that Wyatt's fist hit solid bone. He brought up his knee hard, needing room, shoving the soldier off of him. Fortunately, he was enhanced and that extra strength gave him the upper hand when it came to shoving. Badboy was lifted off his feet and sent flying.

I need you now, Wyatt, Ezekiel snapped. Right now. Nonny's setting out your instruments, but you've got to get in here.

Wyatt could have groaned, but he didn't have time. Badboy was charging, floundering a little without the weapons Wyatt had stripped from him.

Go, Draden snapped, firing from behind him. He punched numerous bullets into Badboy, a pattern, high and low, every soft spot and every major artery. Get to Malichai. Ezekiel will get out here to help me.

Watch zombie boy. He's goin' to come at you, Wyatt cautioned.

Draden turned the gun on the zombie, who was trying to get to his knees. He went back down when Draden added more holes to his chest.

Wyatt didn't wait to see what happened next. He raced back toward the front of the house, knowing if Ezekiel was calling for him, Malichai needed attention now. He tore into the house and headed down to the office he'd kept for the locals who needed a doctor. They'd moved his gear into the room and set up a surgery there, just in case.

The lights were blazing and he could see splashes of blood on the floor as he went inside. "Nonny!" She was steady. She'd always been steady, and like him, she was a natural healer. She didn't panic. Not ever.

She was there right away, assessing Malichai's condition as he lay on the operating table, facedown. He already had lines in. Ezekiel had worked fast to keep his brother alive, but he needed surgery.

"Pepper." Wyatt turned his head the moment he sensed her in the doorway. He was already at the sink, scrubbing. "You don' let anyone in the house. You understand me?" She was different. Distant. He couldn't quite reach her, not even through their connection. Her face was very pale, but her answering nod was firm. "Whatever it takes, babe. Just keep them off of us."

She nodded again and turned away, leaving him with Nonny and Malichai. Ezekiel had already raced outside to aid Draden. Wyatt looked at his grandmother. "Let's get it done. Zeke set everything up. Check and make certain Zeke has all my instruments, the gelfoam and coils."

Trap shot the big, burly soldier point-blank, and he didn't go down. The man was half covered in silk, but he'd somehow torn the sticky filament off his arms. The gun had gone flying, but he had Cayenne wrapped in his big, beefy arms. She looked tiny, but Trap could see she was a ha

ndful, much stronger than the soldier first thought. She used her legs and arms to gain wiggle room from his death hold on her.

The big, beefy soldier suddenly grunted, as if she'd scored a hit on him, held her away from him with one hand and punched her repeatedly with the other. That's when Trap shot him. Right in the face. Point-blank.

Trap wasn't a man who displayed emotion often. He often didn't recognize emotion in himself. Rage exploded through him, a rush of such proportions he followed up the bullets by kicking the soldier in the gut with both boots, using his forward momentum to gain even more strength.

He felt the jar through his body as he struck, but the beefy soldier dropped her and staggered back several feet. He turned his one working eye on Trap. There was malevolence there. A kind of distant boiling fury.

"Get up," he ordered Cayenne. The soldier was flying on something. Bullets and a kick that should have broken his insides to pieces hadn't even fazed him. "Damn it, get on your feet."

The malevolent eye hadn't stayed on Trap. It had gone to Cayenne, who was moving slow, groaning, trying to push herself up off the ground. Trap caught her by the back of her shirt and yanked her to her feet, pushing her behind him.

"Get the hell out of here."

The soldier wiped at the blood running down his face, smearing it everywhere. Once more fixing his eye on Trap, he licked his fingers, smirking. Trap shot him again, a straight line of bullets up his body and back down, like a zipper. He heard the bullets thud into the man, but the soldier didn't do more than jerk with each strike.

I'll take him from the trees, see if I can drop silk around his neck like a noose while you distract him.

She was there. Moving in his head. No one moved inside his mind. No one. He spoke to his team telepathically, but they didn't get in his head. It was an invasion of privacy, and he would have broken her neck himself if they weren't in such a dangerous position. He was a man with too many secrets, and no one was allowed to ever get that close - or that intimate.

"Get the hell out of here," he snarled. Shocking himself. He didn't feel fear like the others. He didn't usually feel. Cayenne disturbed him in ways he didn't understand.