The Animal Under The Fur Read online

  “It’s me!” he chokes out. “It’s Carter!”

  “Carter,” I whisper, confused, before his features come into focus.

  Black mussed hair, stubble-filled chin, sharp jaw with slightly crooked nose, and that strangely pleasant musk of cinnamon and male under all the other scents from his evening.

  “Yes, Carter,” he wheezes under my vice grip before I let up.

  “Why were you touching me?” I move from the bed.

  He rubs his throat, still dressed in his outfit from earlier tonight, but without the hideous mustache. I glance out the window to the sliver of moon—3:00 a.m.

  “You were having a nightmare and weren’t waking up when I called your name.” He sits up, straightening his white buttoned-down shirt.

  “You called me Nashville,” I accuse.

  “Yeah, well, you weren’t responding to 3.” His eyes flicker up my body, making me realize my tank top is askew, my stomach partially exposed. I quickly fix it.

  “What were you dreaming about?” he asks.

  “Why would I ever tell you that?”

  “Jesus, never mind.” He stands, making his way into the bathroom.

  I follow, the floor tiles cool under my bare feet. “What the hell was that at the bar tonight?” I ask while he bends over the sink, splashing water on his face. “You could have compromised this whole operation.”

  Carter snaps a hand towel off the hook, drying himself. “But I didn’t, did I?” He walks past me, returning to the open room and removing his shirt in one pull. His back muscles shine against the soft night light streaming in through the windows, tiny scars from his past like a splatter of an artist’s paintbrush across his skin. If we were both standing naked, we’d have mirrored history to compare.

  “That’s not the point!”

  “Then what is the point?” He faces me in a challenge.

  “The point,” I seethe, “is that we agreed on something, and you disobeyed that agreement. Went rogue on our mission, because why? Because you felt left out? Because you’re still sorting through your childhood bruised ego from being picked last on the kickball team?”

  Carter folds his shirt and places it neatly on a chair. “Can I ask you something?” He slowly turns back around. “Do you come in any other model besides sandy vagina?”

  I punch him square in the jaw.

  “What the fuck!” he yells before spitting out blood.

  We hold each other’s glares, his furiously annoyed, mine, no doubt, murderously out of patience, and in that moment we both know exactly what’s about to go down.

  But he’s ready for me this time. With my fist aimed for the other side of his face, he grabs it and pins it behind my back, pressing me tightly against his bare chest. I head butt him and spin away, kicking his feet out from under him. He goes down with a grunt and a curse before I throw myself on him, knocking over a low coffee table in the process, but he rolls away, standing.

  We stalk each other, two animals in the small apartment.

  “You know,” he says, “there’s other ways to work through issues than with violence.”

  I cock my head to the side. “But so much less fun.”

  “And here I thought you were allergic to fun.”

  “Not this kind,” I say before going for his throat, but he knocks away my arm. We trade blow after blow, circling and circling. He gets a solid punch to my ribs, knocking the wind out of me and crashing me into a nearby chair. But I spin with the drop, taking out his legs again and jump on top of him. We’re both breathing heavy as I pin him to the floor, my knee to his neck, my other leg draped across his torso, holding him down. My fist pauses midprojection to his left eye when the sound of small footsteps patter toward our room.

  A knock at the door. “Señor? Señorita?” A meek voice calls. “Everything okay?”

  “Si,” we both shout in unison. Well, Carter wheezes more than shouts, given that I’m currently cutting off his air supply.

  “Are you sure?” she asks again.

  Carter gurgles while trying to buck me off. I stand, allowing him to snap to his feet and attempt to straighten himself before going to the door.

  I stop him.

  “What?” He turns with a glower.

  “You have blood on your face.” I look him over. “And some on your chest.”

  “Gee, I wonder how that got there.”

  I ignore his caustic tone and shove past him. “Let me talk to her.” Removing my hair from its braid, I muss it up while stripping off my shirt. Holding it against my chest, I crack open the door.

  Señora Flores stands in the dim hallway in a floor-length linen negligée, wrinkled face pinched with worry.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say in Spanish, hiding a blush while trying to fix my hair. “Were we being too loud?”

  As she takes me in, her concern melts into a knowing grin. “Just a little my dear.”

  I give her a shy smile. “Sorry. We’ll be quieter.”

  “Yes, well…” She tries peeking into the room. “It’s okay if it’s a little loud.”

  I laugh nervously. “Okay.”

  She nods good naturedly before I shut the door.

  Carter is still standing in the middle of the room in his dark jeans and no shirt. His hair is a mess, and his chest rises and falls from our recent exertion. The hazy moonlight coming in plays across his defined abs, and he pins me with a gaze that does weird things to my stomach before it lowers to where my hand presses my shirt against my bare breasts.

  “Do you mind?” I narrow my eyes.

  “Not at all,” he says, staying exactly where he is.

  “Turn around.”

  “Thanks, but I’m good.”

  I grind my teeth and swivel around instead, slipping my tank back on.

  “If that’s what gets you naked,” he says, “I’ll gladly fight with you again.”

  Lord. Does he ever turn it off?

  “You don’t always have to be like that, you know.” I walk toward the bathroom.

  “Like what?” He follows.

  “Sarcastic. Not show that you’re bothered by something.”

  “Oh, so you think it’s better to be a raging lunatic like you?”

  “Sometimes.” I wash the speckles of Carter’s blood from my hands, hoping Señora Flores missed this detail. “At least I don’t keep things bottled inside.”

  Glancing into the mirror’s reflection, I watch Carter snort and lean against the doorframe, crossing his arms. I try not to notice the way his biceps bulge with the movement and instead concentrate on his lower lip, which is already starting to swell from where I got in a right hook. Something in me preens with satisfaction.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t label you the bottling type,” he says. “At least not when it comes to your anger.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I mumble and start to rebraid my hair.

  “Don’t.” Carter steps into the bathroom.

  I frown, glancing at him in the mirror again. He’s right behind me now, his broad shoulders framing my smaller form. Looking at us like this, one wouldn’t believe I had almost double his strength.

  He reaches for my hands paused in my work, but I step forward, bumping into the edge of the sink. He sighs and tries again. “You’ve got beautiful hair,” he says and lets my partial braid fall free. My red locks fan in gentle waves around my shoulders.

  We both gaze at one another in the glass, blue to green, green to blue, the gap from his chest to my back growing way too hot as neither of us speak for a moment.

  And then we both talk at once.

  Him saying he should shower, me saying I should get to bed, and with an awkward sidestep tango, I leave him in the bathroom and climb into the sheets.

  Pulling them up to my neck, it’s not until I close my eyes that I realize I left my hair down.

  36

  Carter

  SIERRA MADRES MOUNTAINS, MEXICO: 0722 HOURS

  The jungle is cool this early in the
morning, and a fine mist teasingly covers the dense green foliage like a bride’s veil. Shrugging my pack more securely onto my back, I wipe dew from my forehead and continue up the dirt path. Jules and Akoni lead the way, their brown and gray-clothed forms blending in, the only sounds our booted feet crunching the fallen debris and the constant buzz from birds and bugs echoing in the trees.

  3 walks behind me and has been uncharacteristically quiet. Not that she’s talkative to begin with, but her silence isn’t filled with the usual cloud of outward hostility. Instead it seems wholly self-reflective this morning. Peering over my shoulder, I watch her graceful body, which moves a lot quieter than any of ours, glide forward as she takes in our surroundings. Her red hair is pulled into a low ponytail and tucked under a black baseball cap, while the rest of her is encased in a forest-green long-sleeve shirt and durable gray yoga pants.

  Because Cuetzalan is within the foothills of the Sierra Madres mountain range, it didn’t take us long to get to our starting location. After driving to the end of a dirt road, we gathered our packs and followed a trail through the jungle toward La Cascada de las Brisas, a waterfall and one of the main attractions outside of town. From there we’ll head northwest into unmarked territory to a spot Jules says is deeper in the mountains and slopes into a hidden valley. If we don’t find anything today, we’ll resort to plan B, and after my tussle with 3 last night, I’m really praying it won’t come to that. Being trapped alone with her in the middle of the wild for a week sounds as enjoyable as taking a nap on top of fire ants.

  Stealing another glance her way, I catch her sniffing the air, and slow my pace. “Got anything?”

  She shakes her head as she walks to my side. “Just that we’ll be the only ones at the waterfall when we get there.”

  “You can really tell that from here?”

  She nods. “Humans give off the loudest scents.”

  “Loudest?”

  “Yeah, not subtle. Like getting smacked in the face. Loud.”

  “Hunh,” I say, watching Akoni gather over Jules’s tablet up ahead before indicating for us to turn right. “So that must have been weird with Ramie then.”

  3’s brows pinch in again, her features sliding into their previously contemplative state. “Yes.”

  Though not a very long debrief, when the four of us regrouped this morning, we each went over our intel from last night. Jules and Akoni learned of a few more potential areas to visit on our jungle trek, and I explained that the bar we visited last night is indeed a place some of the Oculto have been known to visit (thank you, Clara). 3 told us about this Ramie guy, who, much to my surprised annoyance, I watched her leave with.

  “So why do you think that was?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “That he didn’t have a distinguishable scent.”

  She presses her lips together, studying the ground. “I don’t know.”

  Even I know this is big for her to admit. 3 seems like the type who rarely finds herself at a loss for answers or solutions. Just like…well, me.

  “Maybe there are humans that genetically don’t smell,” I suggest. “Kind of like how some people don’t produce body hair or sweat or have their pee smell normal after they’ve eaten asparagus.”

  She gives me a dry glance at my last point.

  “Come on.” I arch a brow. “Even you have to admit those people are weirdos.”

  “Complete circus freaks,” she says with an eye roll.

  Despite last night’s row, and maybe because of it, there’s slightly less hostility that hangs in the air between us now. It’s still charged, but our knives seem momentarily sheathed. Trading hits seems to be our messed-up way to blow off steam, and even though I usually prefer a different, more…grinding way of getting a release, sparring with 3 and having her meet my strength with her own has become a weird sort of foreplay.

  Glancing to my K-Op partner as we crest a hill, I can’t help wondering if there’s any part of her that feels the same.

  “So…” 3’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “Clara said Ramie visits that bar once a week?”

  “At least,” I answer.

  “And she never said if he had a connection to the Oculto?”

  “Well, I couldn’t exactly come out and ask, could I? It’s apparent the townsfolk know better than to blab about the Oculto.”

  “She didn’t seem to mind blabbing other things,” 3 mumbles, and I cock my head while looking down at her.

  “Did Clara’s colorful words bother you?”

  Her cap is hiding her eyes, and while I know she has to keep it on to cover her beacon of red hair, I wish I could tear it off and brighten our surroundings with her flicker of flame. Waking up to it fanned across her pillow this morning was a weird sort of torture. I’ve never wanted to touch and look away from something so badly in my life, the feelings it provoked more confusing than when I glimpsed my first nudie mag handed to me by my brother.

  “I think it bothered everyone in that bar.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I say. “They seemed rather familiar with it.”

  She recoils. “And that turns you on, does it? Being with someone who’s…”

  “Who’s what?”

  “So liberal with their affections.”

  “Why, 3, how archaic of you. There’s nothing wrong with a woman finding pleasure with more than one partner.”

  She snorts. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  I blink. I always painted 3 as someone whose level of intimacy went as far as her sticking pins in her macramé voodoo dolls.

  “But there is something unappealing,” she goes on, “with someone, male or female, that’s so public about it.”

  “Maybe if Ramie was as public with you, you wouldn’t have been jealous.”

  “I was not jealous.” Her blue gaze swings to stab into mine.

  “My mistake.” I raise a hand. “Bitter, then.”

  Her face grows a shade redder.

  “Envious?” I cock a brow.

  Her fingers flash out to pinch my chest, hard.

  “Ow!” I palm my smarting nipple as I stare at her wide eyed. “3…did you just…did you just purple nurple me?”

  “You should be lucky that’s all I did.” She turns away, but I grab her wrist, pulling her back.

  Like silk threading through my fingers, she twists out of my grip, and I suddenly find us both at the ready. Knees bent, weight even, just like last night. Except there’s no old lady to stop us, only the caws of the surrounding jungle cheering us on.

  So much for sheathed knives.

  “I think it’s only fair that I get you back.” I slide her a syrupy grin, not attempting to hide that my eyes are zeroed in on her breasts.

  Her hands fly to cover her cotton-clad chest. “Just try it,” she growls.

  “Everything okay back there?” Akoni calls to us.

  Neither of us answers, holding each other’s death stare before 3 eventually straightens and says “Just peachy” before pointing a finger at me. “If you come within a foot of me today—”

  “With your body odor, I’ll be happy to give you yards.”

  Her lips angle into a sneer before she turns and strides toward our tech assistants.

  And to think I was about to admit that besides paying for a few more of Clara’s drinks, I headed back to the hotel, leaving Clara and all her “liberals” well alone.

  “You good?” Akoni asks, waiting behind for me as the girls walk ahead.

  “Extremely,” I say, rubbing my sore pec again. I’ll definitely have a bruise, which is perfect since it will match the one on my jaw. The one Akoni is currently staring at, that neither he nor Jules asked about this morning. “She did this to me, you know.” I point to my chin.

  He nods, pushing his dark-rimmed glasses up on his nose. “Figured.”

  “Your overwhelming concern is touching.”

  Akoni chuckles. “If I didn’t think you could handle her, I would be. Concerned, that is
.”

  I eye the large man as he keeps step beside me. We’re the same six foot three, but he’s got about thirty more pounds of bulking muscle. How a guy that spends most of his time in front of a computer can be in such shape is beyond me.

  “How can you stand it?”

  “What?”

  “Working with someone so…”

  “Passionate?”

  “Feral.”

  He laughs. “Yes, I suppose she’s that too.”

  “There’s no supposing about it.”

  “She can be pretty wild.” He looks to where 3 and Jules hike ahead, the tall trees swallowing their tiny forms. “But she’s also pretty amazing.”

  “Because she’s an A plus.”

  “That, but also because she’s the most loyal person I know.”

  I snort.

  “It’s true,” he says. “She might be all hard edges and steel skin on the outside, but I’ve never met someone that’s had my back the way she has.” He glances my way. “Even after everything she’s been through, which has given her plenty of reason to be full-on psycho, she still has the capability to…well, care.”

  “We all have our sob stories,” I counter.

  “Sure.” Akoni tugs on his backpack straps. “But I’m surprised she’s as normal as she is with how she was brought into this world…or rather abandoned in it. Her idea of family is a bunch of scientists and weapons trainers, a room full of suits figuring out how to make the most profit from a young girl with a gift and explaining that killing is good before she’s even a teenager. I don’t know about you, but I’d certainly be a little prickly around the edges if that was my beginning.”

  I’m silent at that. Even though I no longer have a family, I know it’s a very different beast to have never known what a parent is in the first place, to be raised and feel the unconditional love that comes with it. Who held her when she had nightmares? When she got scared?

  Anyone?

  “I was terrified of her when we first got partnered,” Akoni admits as we watch her snap off a leaf and taste it. “Still am at times,” he adds with a smile. “And up until Santiago, I would have put all my chips on her hating me.”

  “What happened in Santiago?”