signature look. She reminds me of a pixie who sprinkles fairy dust everywhere she goes.
“Hey, guys.” She gives a little flap of her hand, then joins CJ and Sam.
Where CJ is the commander of the Guardians, overseeing Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta teams, she commands the technical and intelligence teams.
Mitzy would rip me a new one if I ever said that out loud. She and her techies don’t like being compared to the military side of our operation. Their idea of command structure is loose as a goose, which makes no sense to me.
Alpha team take our seats at the table while Sam, CJ, and Mitzy carry on their conversation, a conversation that comes to a dead halt the moment Doc Summers and her foster brother, Forest, enter the room.
I’d say our sudden silence is due to the formidable presence of Forest. Guardians are big men. We’re all well over six feet in height and in prime physical condition, but Forest towers over us all. His glacial gaze and shock-white hair remind me of a Norse god or Viking King, but the diminutive woman standing in front of him is no less ferocious. Her power comes from a silent strength imbued in every cell in her body and the sharp intelligence sparking in her eyes.
Those two founded Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists. They survived incredible abuse at the hands of their foster father, who rented them out for sexual favors. One of those monsters was Forest’s nemesis, John Snowden, who took great pleasure in the pain he inflicted on them both. Neither of those men remain among the living.
Forest waits for his sister, Skye, to take a seat, pulling out a chair for her at the other end of the table. He scoots her in, then folds his towering frame into the chair beside her. His glacial gaze sweeps down the table, taking in his Guardians, then returns to Mitzy.
“Tell me you found her.” His deep voice vibrates the air, felt more than heard.
Mitzy presses her lips together and turns toward the screen. She takes the remote from on top of the table and aims it at the control panel for the AV equipment. A map of the world pops up on the far wall and quickly zooms in on the Gulf of Mexico.
“I did.” She bites her lower lip, then turns to Forest. “Or at least I think it’s her, but I lost her again.”
A rush of adrenaline spikes, and the urge to run out of here and hop on a plane to get Moira overcomes me. Axel grips my arm and gives a sharp shake of his head. He gets me. Not too long ago, he was in the same place, rushing out to save his girl. With the muscles of my entire body locked tight, I grit my teeth and wait for this damn briefing to run its course.
“What do you mean you think you found her?” My voice might be deep, but it’s not like Forest’s, which rolls like thunder through the room.
“She activated the emergency alert.”
“And how was that unclear?” Forest leans forward, fingers pressing against the polished wood of the conference table. Skye places her hand on his arm and gives a shake of her head. She’s the only one on the planet capable of calming that man. Well, perhaps not the only person. There are two others now. “And what do you mean by ‘you lost her’?”
“As we all know, 4-E-S-T is the emergency alert all our rescuees are taught to text if they find themselves in trouble. I got an alert, but she never sent her personal code. That leaves me to make assumptions, and you know how I feel about that.” Her eyes spark and flare with what she leaves unsaid.
Mitzy is a stickler for facts. She lives and breathes information, making inferences all the time, based on what that information says. What she doesn’t do is guess. Mitzy either knows, or she doesn’t. When the facts don’t line up into a pretty package, she presents them to the Guardians, and we’re the ones who connect the dots, making whatever guesses we must.
Since our asses are the ones on the line, it’s a compromise which works for us well. Mitzy’s said time and time again that she will never be the one to send a Guardian to his death because of faulty intelligence. She’s also a stickler for following protocol. The woman obsesses, and her borderline OCD doesn’t help.
I’m guessing something is