Viper Game (GhostWalkers 11)

The soldier walked toward him. Walked. Not ran. He didn't stop to pick up the weapon he'd dropped, he just came at Trap as if he was out for a Sunday stroll. Trap swore between clenched teeth. He studied his opponent as the man came toward him, using the eye of scientist. He was good at finding weaknesses in everything around him - especially people. He catalogued and filed away the shambling walk. The blood draining from each hole in the man. The way he moved his arms and opened and closed his fists.

Trap's mind reduced the hulk to numbers, a stack of them shuffling through the dirt toward him. He calculated and calibrated and waited until the last possible moment, right before those big, beefy hands swung at him. He'd already figured the odds of the attack and exactly how the soldier would come at him. He had a few vulnerable spots, but not too many.

As the supersoldier reached with his large, ham-like hands, Trap ducked inside those arms and hit him full on the Adam's apple. It should have stunned him if not killed him. Trap had immense strength. It rocked the soldier, but those huge arms closed around him like a vise and began to squeeze. The thick skull slammed down into Trap's head. Stars burst behind his eyes.

Silken thread rained down, spinning fast around the soldier's head, covering his mouth and nose and eyes like a white mummy's hood. The soldier coughed, but he didn't let go.

Cayenne dropped from the tree above them, landing on the soldier's shoulders, wrapping her arm around his neck and sinking her teeth into the artery there. Instantly, the soldier flung Trap from him, reached back and ripped Cayenne off his back. Again he rained punches on her body while he held her in the air, fury and something close to hatred and revulsion in his eyes.

She didn't make a sound. Not a single one. As if she'd been punched like that before. Trap dragged himself up just as the soldier dropped her, aimed a kick and sent her flying. Trap was on him instantly, this time, ducking inside, but going for the kill, slamming his knife under the raised arm, directly into the armpit. He shoved it in, using every bit of strength he possessed.

The soldier didn't have any armor there. He screamed and went down, taking Trap with him. Trap ripped the blade loose and plunged it in a second time, this time, twisting it hard for maximum damage. The moment he had the blade out, he went for the throat, slicing through arteries to ensure this one wouldn't rise again.

He crawled backward like a crab away from the man and turned his head to find Cayenne. She was moving. Slow. Again there was no sound. He hated that. Rage was there all over again.

"We can't stay down," he said, making his way to her. He wiped the blood from his blade on the grass and shoved the knife back down into his boot. "Can you walk?"

She lifted her head and looked at him. Looked at the hand he held out to get her on her feet. She made no move to take his hand. He actually felt the blast of distrust. No fear. Only that disdain. Contempt even.

"How bad is it? Can you get on your feet? I'm a medic, I can help."

He started to move his hands over her body and she rolled away fast, kicking out at him. Something wild crept into her eyes.

"Fine. Get the hell up." Trap was out of patience. "I've got men fighting these things and they need help. You like it better on your own, you've got it."

He stalked away from her, letting the fury have him for just a moment. Letting it consume him when he was always still inside. Always quiet. Emotions didn't figure in his world. They couldn't. He jogged. Then sprinted. Straight for hell. He knew hell and he belonged there. It was a world of kill or be killed. Black-and-white rules. He understood those rules and accepted them.

By the time he'd rounded the corner of the house, his mind was still again. She was gone as if she'd never been. Draden was down, under the weight of a sandy-haired soldier who would have looked more at home lifting weights on the beach than he did fighting. The muscles in his arms and back were so big, his head looked a little like a pin sitting atop a giant marshmallow.

Go for his armpit, Draden, Trap advised as he ran toward the two struggling men.

Draden's face was nearly purple as the soldier relentlessly clamped his hands around Draden's neck and squeezed.

Shoot, Mordichai. Take the shot, Draden ordered.

Still not clear, he's throwing you all around, Mordichai said.

Draden's boot heel smashed into his opponent's thigh repeatedly, but the soldier didn't so much as flinch.

Trap pulled a gun as he sprinted toward Draden. He knew Mordichai's approximate position and kept out of the line of fire, just in case, but truthfully, he was wholly focused on the soldier strangling Draden.

He shot him through the back of the neck, which should have instantly paralyzed the soldier, but Trap wasn't taking chances. He shot him again twice, and then as he got on top of him, he shoved the gun into the man's ear and squeezed the trigger. Blood sprayed over Draden's face and body. The grip seemed to tighten for a moment, and then the soldier slumped over. Trap tore his fingers from around Draden's throat.

Draden dragged air into his lungs. "Wyatt's right. Braden started the zombie apocalypse," he wheezed.

Trap shoved the soldier off his friend. "It's going to be a hell of a long night getting rid of bodies. We'll take them back to the crematorium when we go to visit Braden."

Draden nodded and allowed Trap to bring him to his feet. He wiped off the blood, spit, drew in more air and looked around.

Anyone left to fight, Mordichai?

Zeke's got two on him at the front door. I'm moving position to try to help him.

We'll come around.

One might have slipped inside, Mordichai advised. Was three. Now two.

Someone's in the house, Wyatt said, keeping his curses to himself. Pepper, tell me you've got this.

Both he and Nonny had weapons at hand, but killing any of the soldiers was clearly a difficult task. It took time he didn't have. Worse, stopping the bleeding and saving Malichai's kidney was proving to be more complicated than he wanted it to be. The knife had done considerable damage. He felt the presence of the soldier as he moved inside, a stealthy stalk, straight toward the operating room, drawn, Wyatt was certain, by the blazing lights.

Pepper braced herself. She didn't have the right angle on the soldier for a bullet to take him down. She had no choice. She knew that. She also knew what it meant for her. For Wyatt. Still, she wasn't about to let him kill Wyatt or take her children. Sacrificing her happiness for them was a no-brainer.

As the soldier yanked open the door to the operating room and thrust his gun inside, she flung herself at him, her hands sliding under his shirt, allowing the maximum of the biochemical to penetrate. His finger stilled on the trigger, just as she'd known it would. Just as she'd practiced a million times.

She moved around him, sliding her body against his so that he dropped the weapon and reached for her, ripping at the front of her shirt. That just exposed more skin, and she ripped at his shirt, allowing skin-to-skin contact. His mouth came down and she turned her head up, blocking out everything but what she had to do - what it would take to save her family. The very thing that would destroy her.

She kissed him. She kissed him and killed him, all in one bittersweet moment. She wasn't such a failure as a weapon as they'd thought her. Their weapon had worked perfectly twice now in a combat situation. Her heart beat fast as she stepped back from the man, knowing the cobra venom was fast acting. Was fatal.

The soldier's eyes clung to her as if she was his everything. As if she hadn't just injected him with enough venom to kill an elephant. Absolute adulation. Her heart stuttered in her chest. Bile rose in her throat. She didn't allow herself to look away from him, giving him that much, knowing he would die thinking she was his.

She despised herself. She couldn't look away from him, away from the blasphemy of biochemical love. She'd used something precious to kill. She'd been turned into such an abomination there was no saving her. She saw the knowledge in the soldier's eyes and it killed something in her.

She steppe

d closer to him, fighting tears. Her hand cupped the side of his face. He couldn't help being what he was any more than she could. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "So sorry."

His adoring gaze still clung to her. The venom was taking hold, his face drooping, but he still managed to turn his face toward her palm. She felt his tongue lick at her skin, seeking more of the addicting drug.

His knees gave out abruptly and she went to the floor with him, on her own knees, arm around his back, pushing the gun away from him, deeper into the room so if another came they had more protection.

Pepper was careful not to look at Wyatt or Nonny. The scent of blood and death permeated the air so that with every breath she drew into her lungs she brought the knowledge of who and what she was - what she would always be. There was no cure for a woman like her. And no living with a woman like her.

She watched him die slowly, his lungs paralyzed so that his death came inch by terrible inch, and she refused to look away from what she was.

"Pepper."

Wyatt's voice penetrated, but she didn't take her eyes off the dying soldier's eyes.

"Pepper, you're done. Get away from there."

She shook her head.