Flames
Flames
A round-robin novel by the authors of the Mansion, in honor of the heroes of September 11th, 2001.
Chapter Eight
A butterfly bandage across the bridge of his swollen nose, Jack dominated
the tent opening. Marisol glanced from him to Dinah to Marcus, unsure how to
respond. The only thing she knew for sure was that she needed an ally.
Dinah made her instincts flash red alert.
Marcus had been demoted in the lifelong-trust department by association.
And Jack, Jack, the man she'd only known for a few short hours but who
already haunted her dreams with sweet temptation, stood ominously in the
night shadows.
Part of that dream flickered into her memory--flames engulfing their
passion. A hidden meaning that being with him meant certain combustion? Or a
sign that in his arms she'd be shielded from danger? Until she knew for sure
whether Dinah's undercover FBI story was true . . .
Marisol went to Jack. His strong, sure arms wrapped around her, brought
her head against his chest. The tattoo of his heart beat a calm into her
frazzled nerves and soothed her confusion.
"I was just leaving," Marcus said.
"I don't think so. Not until you tell me what you're doing here," said
Jack.
"It's been a long night," Dinah drawled. "Marcus stopped by to make sure
Marisol and I were settled."
Marisol inched away from Jack, tilted her chin up. "I was going to bunk
here, but I'm a little shaken from the fire and everything." She dug the pads
of her fingers into Jack's back, a silent message she prayed he'd catch. "If
it's not too forward, I'd like to bunk with you."
"Marisol, perhaps you should think about our conversation before you make
any decisions," Dinah said, her voice laced with sugar-sweetness.
"I've thought about it, and I assure you I won't pop anyone's bubble."
"See that you don't."
"Someone had better tell me what the hell is going on," Jack announced,
on the edge of fury.
Marisol tugged him out of the tent by the elbow, praying he'd come along
quietly.
Jack allowed himself to be pulled outside, but he had questions--and if
Marisol didn't answer them, he'd go back for Dinah and Marcus. "Talk," he
ordered.
"Not here," she whispered, and hurried her steps.
Feet planted firmly in the damp grass, he didn't budge. "Yes, here. Much
as I'd like to believe you want to come to my cot, I know there's something
you're not telling me."
She let go of him and swung her arm through the air, exaggerating the
gesture. "Can't you just trust me?"
"That's a tall order coming from--"
"From what, Jack? A woman?"
He scrubbed his hand across his sore face. "Hell, no, Marisol. From a
woman I barely know and who seems to be tracked by trouble."
She planted her hands on slim hips, cocked her beautiful chin. "Right
here, right now. Decide whether we trust each other or not."
He'd always relied on his instincts, lived by the feeling in his gut, and
at that moment, there came no doubt. This was somewhat amazing, since she was
about as abrasive as an SOS pad. "Yes, Marisol. I trust you."
"Bueno. We've got work to do." She started off, talking as she went.
"First, we need access to the FBI data base."
"You don't ask much of a guy, do you?"
"Do you have a connection or not?"
"Wyn."
"I should have figured. You trust him?"
He laughed bitterly. "The man sleeps with my girl, fights me over
another, and is pretty much a thorn in my side on a regular basis. But yeah,
I trust him."
"Let's go."
He snatched her arm. She whirled around, her eyes flashing determination
and anger? "We'll go after you tell me what else is going on here. And I'm
not talking about Dinah."
"I don't know what you mean."
"If you're going to feed me B.S. answers, then we've got a problem."
"Hah! Me, feed you B.S. answers? How about you forgetting to tell me
you're engaged?"
"Wh--"
"Oh, let me guess: It slipped your mind. Amazing how little details like
that become forgettable when the fiance is out of sight." She tapped her
bottom lip with a finger. "Hmm, I wonder if Jan know she's so dispensable."
"Whoa, just a minute. One, I'm not engaged to Jan. We've dated for a long
time, but marriage has never been part of the equation. Two, I called Jan
after I got my lights punched out for you tonight and told her it was off.
Not very chivalrous, I admit, breaking up on the phone, but there's this
little pistol I've run across who's made me see what I really want in a
woman."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"And what would that be?"
"A challenge. A feisty determination to be all she can be."
"You make me sound like an Army recruit." She clamped her hand over her
mouth, eyes widening. "I mean, her. You make her sound like--"
"Oh, it's you, Marisol. You know it's you." He wrapped his hand around
her neck, massaged as he urged her forward. "God, you're beautiful," he said,
words crushing against her lips.
She parted for him, granting entrance to the soft hollows of her mouth.
His tongue explored the contours, textures, for one heavenly moment. Then he
forced himself away, knowing it wasn't the time.
She lifted her hand and gently swiped the dew of their kiss from him, her
thumb running over his bottom lip. He longed like hell to pull her back into
his arms.
"What I said before, about keeping this professional," she began.
Damn, here it comes, Jack thought. A spiel about being colleagues and
friends, how they could never be lovers.
Instead she snaked her arm around his waist, pressed against him like a
cat in a patch of sunshine. Womanly curves defined with sleek muscle
emancipated heat at every point of their connection. "Let's talk about it
after we get this situation figured out."
Before he could reply, a sudden sharp jolt between his shoulder blades
sent out a million rods of pain. Nerve endings shattering, he began to slump
to the ground. Aware that Marisol was trying to hold him up, he opened his
mouth to tell her to let go. An inhumane wail was all he managed as the
electrical surge passed through him.
As Jack folded toward the earth, she glimpsed the woman standing behind
him, holding a stun gun. Before she could react, Dinah thrust the weapon
against Marisol's chest. "No!" she started to cry, just as the current jolted
her. Starbursts shot through her vision like meteors, and then blackness
pitched in.
With great effort, Marisol managed to get her eyelids open, stared
myopically through a black tunnel toward a halo of light. Madre de Dios, had
she died?
No, she hurt too much to be dead. With great effort she struggled to sit,
aware that her hands were bound behind her. The ground felt hard, cold,
unfamiliar. A slant of daylight fell against granite walls. A cave?
She tried to focus, keep her eyes open, orient herself in time and place.
Couldn't. The struggle was too great, and she gave into overwhelming defeat.
Chin drooping, she allowed herself to slump back into the bliss of
nothingness.
But even as she did, the thought of Jack seeped into her clouded mind.
Jack. Jack. His name echoed in her void. She struggled to remember what had
happened. Against her eyelids, she saw a slow-motion replay of him standing
before her, his mouth opening in surprise that yielded to a scream of pain ...
He needed her. The realization jolted her into sluggish awareness. She
had to fight her way out of her self-encumbered prison, had to help Jack.
She worked a finger, another. Numbness turned to stinging nettles as she
flexed her hand.
A soft murmur of voices came from somewhere. She craned her aching neck,
trying to take in her surroundings. Blood pounded at the base of her skull.
The stun gun would only have affected her temporarily. Someone had whacked
the back of her head, maybe even drugged her. The light coming through the
narrow opening to the cave, it was a cave, she was sure it was -- suggested
that much time had lapsed. How much? Hours? Days?
"Congratulations. You survived," came a female voice.
Marisol squinted. "Di--inah."
The blonde stepped forward and kicked her in the chest, sending her
sprawling backward. "I do hate it when someone interferes with my plans. I
actually thought maybe you were smart enough to keep quiet. After all, Marcus
had so many fond memories of your Good Samaritan childhood."
"Where's Jack?" Her throat was dry; it hurt to speak.
"Oh, how heartwarming--your display of puppy love." She nodded toward a
heaped figure on the cave floor behind Marisol. "He'll be awake soon, though
I must admit he was harder to keep down than you were."
Marisol's brows furrowed. "Why would you hurt us?"
Dinah threw her head back and laughed. "Oh, that's unique. Let me guess.
You expect me to tell you all my motives and plans because I'm getting ready
to kill you, right? And then you make a heroic comeback, kick my ass and save
the day. Nice try, but wrong script. That only works for Hollywood."
Jack moaned, stirred. Dinah stepped toward him. "No!" Marisol rolled
across the cave floor to shield his body. "Don't you dare touch him."
Dinah cocked her head to the side and smiled. "Care to stop me?"
Marisol needed a plan to keep Jack safe, to get them both out of wherever
the hell they were. She had to find out what Dinah was up to and why, and
then prevent it. "Yeah." She fought to swallow. "I do."
"Give it your best shot."
Tied up, no gun, no way to signal backup--Marisol needed a moment to
think. Dios, she needed a drink of water, a fistful of Tylenol, and much more
than a moment to get herself pulled together. Still, she wouldn't just lie
there and give up. All those years on the force, fighting, clawing for
respect, to be considered an equal--she refused to be taken out by a crazed
woman. There had to be a way. She began to work her wrists in an attempt to
loosen the ropes, though she knew that only worked in the movies as well.
"I see your wheels spinning, Mari. Gonna give it your best shot or not?"
"Tempting, but I'm a little indisposed at the moment." She used her
elbows to prop her body up, regained a sitting position.
"I like a woman with a sense of humor," Dinah said, and lit a cigarette.
Smoke curled in the cave; the acrid tobacco scent mingled with the smell of
decay.
"Those things will kill you," Marisol told her.
"I like living on the edge."
"Obviously. Funny thing about EMTs -- they usually prefer saving lives."
"Funny thing about little bitches is that they usually know when to shut
up."
"Nah, you should know we always have something more to say."
Dinah flicked ash on Marisol's leg. "Well, I guess it's time."
"For what, your psychiatric appointment?"
"Cute, but no. Phase two."
"What--setting fire to my tent, kidnapping me and trying to murder me
aren't enough to satisfy your homicidal tendencies?"
"Now, now." Dinah clucked her tongue. "You seem to be taking all of this
a bit too personally."
"Gee, you think?" Marisol knew opportunity was quickly getting away from
her. Survival was at the top of her priority list. If Dinah planned to leave
the cave, it was a safe bet she wouldn't do so while her victims were
conscious. "Dead" really didn't have a nice ring to it.
Dinah squatted on her haunches, her cold eyes focused like poisoned
arrows. "What I think is, a little girl like you shouldn't be playing in the
big leagues."
"And just what is the big league, Dinah? Hmm?" Dinah's hand connected
sharply with Marisol's cheek, whipping her head to one side. Slowly she
recovered from the sting, jutted her jaw. "Oh, I get it. You can't handle
playing with the boys and want to show them who's boss. Typical angry,
embittered woman."
"No, Marisol, that's your wolf cry. I want to show them that danger is
present all the time. That no one is safe."
"How--by terrorizing those spend their lives protecting others? There
seems to be something fundamentally wrong with your thinking."
Dinah stood up again, glowered down at her. "No. By making those who
didn't fight hard enough to save innocent lives pay."
The beginning of understanding settled in. "Who did you lose, Dinah?"
The woman turned away; her shoulders began to shake. "Besides my partner?
People I'd trained with? Myself. I lost myself trying to save the victims."
She balanced herself with a hand pressed against the stone wall, her knuckles
as white as the pads of her clenched fingers. "So many of them. Men, women
innocent children!" Her voice hitched, and Marisol knew she was crying. "We
should have been more prepared."
"How?"
Dinah's tone hardened again. "They should have trained us better." She
whirled around, jabbed her chest. "But I--I'll make them understand we have
to be prepared for fear, for the man or woman standing next to you at any
given time to be a killer."
Marisol shook her head slowly. "No. God, no. We live in America! Our
history is built on freedom, on justice. Evil may sometimes follow us here,
break into our lives and shatter our sense of safety. We've got to do what we
can to protect ourselves from that evil, but we must not live in fear."
"We already do."
"No, we don't! There's no guarantee we can be safe all the time. We know
now that we need to strengthen our defenses. But that's what we're doing
here--that's what we all have in common. We're willing to give our lives to
protect America, to stand up for her."
"It's a little late," Dinah said with a snort. "And I hardly call wienie
roasts and quickies in the woods 'training.'"
"What happened in September will touch our lives forever. But it's never
too late," Marisol said earnestly. "We can prepare, be more alert, hold onto
each moment and treasure each tomorrow we're given, but we must not live in
fear. We can't forget what it is to be American--to live free."
Dinah's sigh gave her hope that her words had touched the wounded place
inside the woman that tainted her faith and had obviously affected her
sanity. But the sigh turned to a sardonic laugh. "Such a heartfelt lecture.
But it's not enough. It's not nearly enough. Until you've lived through the
things I have, you can't know. I have to show everyone. They have to live the
fear to understand it." She started for the cave opening.
Faced with deciding whether to try and stop her or let her leave and be
grateful she wasn't knocked unconscious again, Marisol mumbled a quick prayer
for guidance.
"Dinah," came Jack's groggy voice. "Stop. Don't ..."
"Jack!" Marisol was so grateful he'd awakened that she nearly sobbed.
Dinah stepped out of the cave, into the light, and was gone.
It was then that Marisol remembered she'd heard voices when she woke.
"Jack," she whispered. "I don't think we're alone."
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