“Don’t take this wrong,” he continued, “but I watched you kill several men today, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the first time you’ve done that, either.”
Her hands stilled on the M4, then went back to work, moving with more determination this time. When she didn’t answer, he thought about pushing but changed his mind. He was the last guy to complain about someone keeping secrets. He had his share.
Declan picked up his own weapon. He’d pulled out the rear takedown pin and had the bolt halfway removed before her soft voice stopped him.
“It’s not the first time I’ve killed. The first time I’ve killed a man, yes, but not a hybrid. I’ve killed them before.”
How was that possible? “When? The DCO only learned about hybrids when Ivy and Landon found them out in Washington State.”
“I know,” she said. “I was there.”
Declan was glad it was dark or Kendra would have seen how stupid he looked with his mouth hanging open. He’d seen the reports. Ivy and Landon had taken on more than forty hybrids and lived to tell about it. Except now it turned out that Kendra had been there, too.
It certainly explained a lot. Like how she’d identified the hybrids on sight while the rest of them had been caught staring at the moving blurs. It also explained why she’d been able to calmly fight something out of most people’s nightmares.
“Is that why John sent you with us?” he asked. “Did he know there were hybrids down here?”
Kendra dropped the bolt of the M4 back in the upper receiver, then ran the carbine through a function check, reloaded it, and flipped on the safety before setting it aside.
“He doesn’t know I went to Washington. No one knows. There are people whose lives will be ruined if it comes out, so no one can ever know.” Though it was impossible for her to see in the darkness, she looked right at him anyway. “Promise me that you won’t tell anyone.”
She didn’t say who she was protecting, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out she was talking about Ivy. The two women were as close as sisters. If there was anyone Kendra would keep a secret for, it would be the feline shifter. He could respect that.
“I won’t tell anyone,” Declan assured her. “You didn’t answer my other question. Did John know there were hybrids down here?”
“No. We had no idea there were hybrids.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He took a deep breath. He couldn’t even believe he was thinking this. John had brought him into the DCO. “I don’t think we just stumbled across these things, Kendra. Remember how I said earlier today that it was like we were being run through a search grid?” She nodded. “Well, I think it’s pretty obvious we found what they had us searching for.”
“That’s crazy,” she said. “If you’re right—and someone had us looking for hybrids—they had to know we’d all be killed.”
Declan nodded. “My guess is that they were willing to sacrifice us to find them. Only someone high up in the DCO could have made it happen.”
“It doesn’t mean it was John,” she protested. “It could just as easily have been Dick.”
“How many times has Dick ever gotten involved in a field operation? I don’t think he even knows how to arrange an ambush.”
Kendra didn’t answer.
Declan finished cleaning his weapon in silence. He could hear a lot of animals, but none of them sounded like hybrids.
“What are we going to do?” Kendra asked as he set down his weapon.
“We survive,” he told her.
“I mean about John…or whoever set us up.”
“We’ll worry about that later. Right now, we focus on getting out of this jungle and away from these things.”
She took a deep breath as if composing herself. The same steely resolve he’d seen all day came back into her eyes. “Okay. So, what’s the plan?”
“First, we lie down and get some rest,” he said.
Declan shifted a little to make room for her. She got the idea and crawled in close, her back against his chest. He automatically wrapped her in his arms. Her clothes were drier, but she’d get cold again as the night chill crept in. He needed her fully functional tomorrow. If she stayed close to him, she’d be warm—it was that simple.
“Tomorrow, we head northwest, back across the same general area we spent the last four days covering,” he continued. “It’s the shortest route out of the jungle.”