Leather & Lace- THE SPECTER SERIES [book five]

Chapter TWELVE

Ace Greyson

It had taken some doing, but I had finally managed to convince Lacey to stay in hiding while I went out in search of a signal.. She sure as shit hadn't made it easy on me though.. The way her starry grey eyes had pleaded with me, her shaky dulcet tone as she begged me not to go, the zap of static energy that buzzed through me when she grabbed me..

I didn't want to leave her, not at all..

"Fucking Iris.. Fucking Hunter Paxton.. How the hell am I back in this shit.. Fuck me.." I grunt and grumble under my breath as I haul myself up the vertical rock face to the peak of the sandstone mountain..

My biceps burn from the steep half days climb as I crouch down to catch my breath, pulling out my communication device and powering it on..
The signal is weak, barely enough to send a ping but it will have to do.. I can't keep going, any farther and I won't make it back to Lacey before dark...

"Fuck!" I quickly tap out the digits, sending off the coordinates of the rendezvous point just before the battery calls it quits and the screen blacks out.. I peer back down in the direction Lacey and I had come from last night, in the distance I can see the smoke rising from the burning medical camp.. Somebody is cleaning up down there..

Uh.. Rebels don't generally clean up after they make a mess?..
That would kind of defeat the purpose..

My worst suspicions are confirmed at that moment.. Whoever is down there is trained to remove all traces of their existence.. Exactly the same way as me..

See, when I had taken out those two fuckers back at my camp, I had recognised way too much about them.. The way they fought, the way they talked.. Their weapons..
Nah.. They weren't rebels at all..

With a frustrated sigh I begin the long treacherous climb back down to where Lacey is hiding in the caves below.. Caught between two minds about whether or not I should tell her what I know.. On the one hand, I really don't want her thinking she can trust people she can't..and the Marines involvement is going to make her extraction extremely difficult, considering they are the very people who would be called in to perform support..

But on the other, the woman is already terrified.. I can see it in her every movement and hear it in her trembling mousy voice.. I don't know that piling on the information that she has stumbled into something much bigger than I had thought would do her mental state all that much good..
There is no saying how deep this goes..

That being said, Lacey had told me herself, she would rather know than not and I have come this far.. I've already broken all the rules not to mention, completely disregarded the bro-code.. Let's be honest, I was never one to follow the codes of conduct..
And even though I have spent the last few years of my life in reform, working on controlling my temper and staying out of trouble.. It makes no difference.. Everybody still sees me the same way.. A hot head with a shitty attitude..

....

Its late afternoon by the time I make it back to the cave entry.. I whistle and call out to her before going inside.. "Its me Doc, I'm comin in.. Don't shoot.."

Her softly-spoken, unsure reply has me a little hesitant.. "Um.. Okay.."
I step into the cave to see her sitting against the back wall, her knees pulled up to her chest, the pistol on the ground beside her and her hand resting next to it.. In her other hand she holds the weird vial of violet liquid, tilting it back and forth absentmindedly between her fingers.. "Hey.. D-did you get the message out?.." She asks, hopefully while I glance at the pistol, wondering if she even picked it up..
It doesn't look like she has..