Page 49 of Breaking Danger (Ghost Ops #3)

“How did we not see them on scanners?” Sophie’s voice was tight.

“How could they get past us?” She’d carried the scanner out with her from the car wreck.

She checked it, moving it over the four dead bodies, but the scanner was blank.

“God, they must have been freshly infected. They’d turned before their body temperature rose.

Are there any more around?” She tapped frantically on the scanner, bringing the temperature threshold down to 97°, where even uninfected would show up.

She extended the range of the scan and there were no sources of life within a radius of 500 meters, and after she extended the range even further, they were clear out to a kilometer.

She turned to Jon. “Man, that was close. It’s a good thing you were so fast?—”

She stopped. Brought a hand to her mouth.

“What, honey?” Jon asked, holstering the gun. He wouldn’t have used the stunner for fear of hurting her. Something about her stillness caught his attention. His gaze sharpened. “Honey? What’s wrong?”

Sophie lifted her shaking hand and pointed.

He looked down at himself and froze. Right there, on the back of his hand, was a bite mark. Unmistakeably human.

He was infected.

Jon’s face turned to stone. He handed his gun to her, butt first.

“Here,” he said, tapping the bridge of his nose. “Aim here. Take the cortex out. Do it now.”

Sophie was white as the scattered snow on the ground. Crazily, when he handed his gun to her, she put her hands behind her back and shook her head.

No? She was saying fucking no ?

Jon hardened his heart. He had to. Because not half an hour ago he’d been daydreaming about him and Sophie, working hard the rest of their lives to build up Haven, raising their kids in a tight circle of people who were dedicated to creating a community.

Every single objection he’d had to even thinking of settling down was gone. Sophie was his future and he’d embraced it.

Now all that was gone, gone. Due to a bite he hadn’t even felt.

He looked down at his hand, at the elliptical oval marks the human mouth left. Whichever monster had bitten him had broken skin and now he was a heartbeat away from becoming a monster himself.

“Take the gun, goddamit.” His voice was harsh, angry.

Ghost Ops soldiers always had a discreet method of suicide on them. His had been a vial of dimethylmercury in a chain around his neck. Which was in his bedroom back in Haven, of no use to him whatsoever.

Sophie had to do it. Now .

But she was shaking her head.

Now he was really mad. “Fuck this, Sophie. I don’t know how long I’ve got. I’ll bet you don’t know either. Take me out before I turn.”

“No,” she pleaded. “Listen to me. I?—”

“No, goddammit! You listen to me! ” He was furious, and the feeling of being angry at Sophie—at lovely, gentle Sophie—was so strange he wondered if he was already turning.

“I will not be responsible for your death. You’ve seen these creatures, Sophie.

If you think that somehow I’ll turn but recognize you, that you’re you , and not hurt you—you’re wrong.

You’ve seen them—you’ve seen mothers kill their kids, children kill their grandparents.

In I don’t know how many minutes I’m going to turn into a homicidal maniac and I will rip you to shreds and I can’t live with the thought.

Not for one second.” He tapped the bridge of his nose again.

“So do it. Right now. Because death is nothing. We all die. At least let me die knowing I won’t hurt you. ”

His voice broke. It was pointless pretending to be mad at her when his heart was pounding with fear. Fear that he’d hurt her.

He’d spent all his adult life training to kill. He was good at it. He had killed often and he knew precisely what to do. Though he wouldn’t be aware of tearing Sophie to pieces, he’d do it. He could see it clearly, what he’d do to her. Death was a precious gift in comparison, if it could stop him.

If she shot him now, someone from Haven would be coming soon.

They’d see the bite marks, his dead body, and understand completely.

And he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that for the rest of her life, Mac and Nick would look after Sophie as if she were their own.

She’d be safe. That was all that counted.

“Sophie,” he said evenly. “Now. Please.”

She took the gun from his hand, watching him out of those beautiful eyes, sad and sober.

Jon braced.

And Sophie threw the gun into the bushes.

Before Jon could run to see if he could find it, she leaped forward and put her hand on his forearm. Even through his clothes he could feel the warmth.

“Jon,” she said urgently, “listen to me.”

The anger was back. “Fuck that. We don’t have time for farewells, Sophie. I might be turning right now.”

“I’m a healer,” she answered and he frowned.

“You’re a what?”

“A healer. I didn’t tell you because—because I don’t tell people. It’s complicated and I can’t use it to clear up colds but I can heal people who are really sick.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it.

She gently closed her good hand around his and led him to the foot of a huge pine tree.

“Sit.” And just like that, he sat. Nervous energy was humming in him, he knew he had to find a way to kill himself fast, but somehow Sophie was overriding his system.

He sat and she sat next to him, close enough for him to feel the warmth radiating off her.

She lifted the sleeve of the arm that had been bitten, pulling it up over his elbows, and put both hands on his hand, right above the bite.

One hand was already becoming purple and swollen from the broken wrist but she paid no attention to that at all.

Where she curled her hands around his forearm there was an enormous sensation of heat. Painless, enveloping.

“I’ve healed you already.” She absorbed the jolt his hand made.

“What?”

Sophie nodded. “Do you remember feeling heat when you landed on me? You’d just made a run for your life and you’d seen the horrors on the street and you were heartsick.

And when—when you told me about your parents.

It was like a grievous wound, I could tell.

I don’t know exactly how it works—it’s actually scary to me—but you felt better afterward, didn’t you? ”

Jon kept his stone face on, though he mind was whirling.

Sophie shook his arm. “Answer me, damn it! You felt better afterward, didn’t you?”

He felt like his lips were made of stone. He had trouble formulating the words. “Everyone feels better after talking about something painful. Psychology 101.”

She looked him in the eyes. “I am absolutely convinced I can cure this, Jon. I wouldn’t be playing with my safety like this if I weren’t.

I can do this and I will. I am not going to go back to Haven with your dead body.

We are going to go back together, we are going to work hard with the others to heal the world, and we are going to get married and have wonderful children who will be brought up to be smart, loving and kind.

That is not a wish, that is the truth. Do you believe me? ”

No, of course not . The words were there, on his lips, but somehow they wouldn’t come out.

She looked smart and strong and very capable. Not crazy at all. The farthest thing from crazy, as a matter of fact.

And—he’d seen this before. Catherine and Elle. Both scientists, both women of reason, with unusual gifts. Catherine could feel emotions—and lately thoughts—through touch. And Elle—Elle could project herself out of her body thousands and thousands of miles away.

He’d have scoffed at even the hint of any of this before last year, but he’d seen it with his own eyes. Catherine had found them in their secret lair, where the entire US military had failed to find them, simply because she’d touched Lucius Ward.

She’d touched him and uncovered secrets he’d never told another human being. And Elle—Elle’s body had been back at Haven but she’d been with him and Nick when they broke into Arka’s headquarters in San Francisco. There was no doubt about that.

So…maybe…

Sophie’s good hand clutched his arm more tightly and the heat was like a painless fire. She leaned forward toward him, toward a man who could be becoming a monster right now. “Give me a chance, Jon. Give us a chance. Please. I don’t want to live without you.”

It was nuts. It went against every single instinct he had.

Jon reached to his boot, pulled out his combat knife, placed it in her lap. One good thing—if he turned, he wouldn’t know what it was for.

“At the first sign, and I mean the very first sign, that I am turning, you slash me across the throat with that, Sophie, and jump away. If we’re going to try this, I need your promise.”

“I promise,” she said, her voice low, gaze unwavering.

Nail it down. “Promise what? Say it out loud.”

“I promise that if I can’t heal you, if you show signs of turning, that I will take the knife, slash you across the throat, and run.”

He nodded. “They’re coming for you from Haven. They’ll find you. And they’ll protect you. If I go, I want to know you’ll live.”

She swallowed heavily. “I know.”

Jon couldn’t believe he was doing this, but he was. “Ok. What do we do?”

“I touch you. And I heal you.”

Jon frowned. “That’s it? That’s your strategy? You touch me? You’re touching me now.”

She nodded. “Do you trust me?”

“Well…yeah. But?—”

“Close your eyes.”