The afternoon sun was settling into the branches of the trees overhead as evening began to fall when Hannah tripped a few feet in front of him. Finn was there to catch her before she'd even hit the ground. He'd known the moment she started to fall because for the last three hours he'd been watching her a hell of a lot more than he'd been watching the terrain around them. His mistake, he knew. But even still, he was glad of it as he hauled her back up until she was standing.
"You alright?" Finn asked gruffly. Caring didn't exactly come easy to him.
"Yes, I'm fine thank you very much," Hannah shot back tersely and he nearly let her go and turned away in anger at her curt words but then he noticed what she was looking at. His own gray gaze travelled downward until he saw her feet, one scraped by the fallen log she'd tripped on. Her bare feet.
"What the – ." Finn bit out, "You're not wearing shoes."
"And the prize goes to the most observant man in central Texas." Hannah said, her tone just as flat as his, "Turns out being kidnapped and forced out of one's home at gun point doesn't give one a lot of time to stop and put on appropriate footwear."
A pang of unfamiliar guilt hit Finn somewhere near the vicinity of his solar plexus. He glanced around him at the dense forest they'd been trekking through and then up at the sun that was beginning to set.
"Fuck it," Finn growled angrily. He wasn't sure if the emotion was directed at himself or the confounded woman he'd mistakenly kidnapped, "We can't go any further today. Not with the cops on our asses. We'll camp here tonight."
He watched Hannah look around before turning back to him, that damned eyebrow of hers raised in question. "Where exactly?"
Finn snorted, "Right here," He pointed to the leaf covered ground in front of one of the big trees providing their cover, "You got a problem with that princess?"
"No," Hannah said shortly, proving her word as she walked over to the exact spot he'd just pointed at and dropped to the hard ground with a soft huff. Finn winced to himself as he noticed the slight limp in her step but that didn't stop him from kneeling next to her.
He fumbled at the length of rope binding her hands together, trying to ignore her nearness as he reached across her body to secure it to the trunk of the tree she was leaning back against. Damn but she smelled good. Even after hiking across the rough terrain all day, bare foot no less, she still smelled fresh and sweet, like lavender and sunshine.
Finn halted himself mid thought. He had too much at stake to let himself get distracted by a fucking female. He opened his mouth to snarl something but that close, their faces just a few inches apart and for a second he completely forgot what he was going to say. He was so close that he saw the moment her emerald green eyes dilated, filling with something warm and surprising. He could feel the sharp intake of breath as she gasped.
The air between them was suddenly heavy with tension and adrenaline and for a moment he nearly gave in to the electric charge shooting like lighting between them. For a second he nearly forgot the reason he was forced to sleep outside in the middle of a god damned forest in the first place.
He glared down at her as a rush of anger and memories filled him. At himself. At her. But most of all at Jackrabbit and Hatchet, the long familiar rage that had kept his need for revenge burning all these years. Finn's voice hardened as he spoke.
"There's no point in trying to escape." He growled, his gaze locked onto hers as he forced himself to lean back. "If you scream, I'll gag you. If you run, I'll chase you. And you won't like it when I catch you, got it?"
Finn didn't wait to hear her answer before jumping to his feet and stalking to another tree a few feet away. As he laid down, resting his head back against the rough bark, all he could see was Hannah's wide-eyed expression flashing through his mind. It's just the adrenaline, Finn told himself, trying to explain away the vicious desire stabbing through him. That's all it is. It's just the stress getting to you, fucking with your head. You have to stay focused if you're finally going to get your revenge.
Don't worry, Finn answered silently, his resolve firming as he forced himself to remember and the anger that was always just below the surface began to boil even harder, they'll pay. They'll all pay.
Chapter 2
In a far off, distant part of his brain, Finn knew he was dreaming. That didn't make the desert sand coating his mouth until he couldn't swallow or the fear pumping through his veins as gunfire filled the smoky air feel any less real.
Finn could feel his hands shaking and he looked down to see the M4 clutched white-knuckled in his fingers. A blast shook the ground and it was close. Too fucking close. He flicked his gaze back up, wide eyed, trying to take in everything at once.
He was hiding in some sort of make-shift bunker, rusted corrugated steel siding was falling off the crumbling frame. It wasn't much and it sure as hell wouldn't survive another blast but at the moment it was all he had. The only thing keeping him from being riddled with enemy bullets.
Finn shook his head, swiping at his sweat soaked forehead as the beads rolled into his eyes, blinding him. He blinked hard, trying to clear his vision. His thoughts churned chaotically as he tried to figure out just when the fuck their simple, straight forward mission had gone south.
He was pinned down behind a metal barrel that had more holes in it than not. He couldn't move. Couldn't get to the rest of his unit. He was good and fucking trapped.
Panic so thick he could taste the coppery taste of it in his mouth filled him at the thought. A memory rose up from so long ago he was surprised he still remembered but he could see it clearly in his mind.
Finn had grown up in Montana. He'd run around half naked as a child, nearly feral as he wandered the forests and valleys that surrounded his granddad's ranch. He'd lost his mother, Lisa, to cancer when he was just three, too young to remember. And then he'd lost his father a few years later to alcohol, and eventually the bullet he'd used to take his own life.
His granddad Henry always said that his father had just loved Lisa too much and that in the end, he couldn't bear to spend another second in the world without her. It had sounded like bullshit to Finn then, and it still did now.
But Finn remembered. He'd been six years old and uncomfortable in the itchy black suit his granddad had made him wear to the service. He swore it had been so starched he could barely move in it. He had there on the grassy hill as the preacher spoke and the few people who knew William Walker looked solemnly at the hole in the ground where they were going to put his father.
He didn't remember much else about the service, except for the sun that seemed to shine too brightly and the birds that sang too loud. And the anger. He remembered that too. Silently, he'd raged at the sun and the birds. At the stupid suit. He'd gotten so angry that he'd torn all the buttons off the jacket trying to get it off before running off through the cemetery into the trees that surrounded it.
He'd ran and ran until his feet were blistered and bleeding, not noticing the tears streaming down his face or where he was going. He just knew he had to get away. As far away as he could, so he could breathe again.
Six year old Finn had gotten lost in those woods. Afternoon faded into evening, and then twilight and still he couldn't find his way back. The forest grew black and shadow monsters seemed to creep all around him. He'd felt the same paralyzing panic then as he did now.
It had been four more hours before the search party his granddad had put together found him, huddled and terrified against an old tree. Grandpa Henry hadn't said a word. He didn't yell at him or hand him over to a foster home for causing trouble like Finn had thought he would. He just took Finn's hand and led him inside the old, outdated farmhouse and sat him at the kitchen table.
A moment later, his granddad was sliding a plate of warm food in front of him before taking one for himself. They sat there eating in silence and they never talked about the night Finn got lost in the woods.
Another rapid round of gunfire pierced through the memory and Finn shook his head and the vision faded only to be replaced by the blaring sun and clouds of dust rising in the air around the small, shack filled village. His Granddad wasn't going to save him now. The old man had been dead for nearly twelve years. No one was going to save him.
The last time he'd seen anyone from his own unit they'd been so spread out they might as well be on different continents for all the good it would do them. Jackrabbit was stuck behind the armored jeep trying to get a clean shot and Hatchet had been pinned down in a different building.
A sudden noise at his back had the breath backing up in his lungs until it felt like they were about to burst. The enemy was close and getting closer. Finn couldn't move. His arms and legs refused to respond. His heart was beating so hard in his chest he was surprised the enemy soldier creeping closer couldn't hear it.