Storm Surge (Cyborg Shifters Book 2) Page 5

  Her eyes shot open sometime later at the sound of gunfire. Norah gripped the branch and looked down but couldn’t see anything. She had left her flashlight behind in her pack at the base.

  Something screamed its dying breath just as another shot rang out into the wind.

  “Stryker?” she screamed with a rush of hope, having nothing left to lose. Norah leaned further out over the ledge. “Stryker I’m up here. Up in the tree!” She hoped it was him, but who else would fire a shot in the dark?

  She strained to hear him call back out to her but only heard the rustle of damp leaves and crackle of thin branches slapping together. A movement caught her eye, followed by a grunt. She lifted up and begged the stars for her Cyborg to be okay.

  An opportune bolt flashed, but only for a second, and to her horror she saw the creature from the water, muddied and disfigured, climbing up from between the leaves. Norah grabbed her boots and scrambled up just as a hand closed around her ankle.

  Her mouth opened, teeth bared, into an unfinished scream. Her leg kicked out to dislodge herself when it spoke.

  “Norah, it’s me. Calm down.” She heard the words but fumbled anyway, and jerked her foot free. She lifted herself to the next branch. “Norah, stop,” the voice bellowed.

  Distance cleared her mind and she stopped.

  “Stryker?”

  Another grunt and a huff answered her. She stopped her ascent and looked down into the darkness.

  “Come down, we need to talk.”

  The wind howled. “It’s you, it’s you, right?” She hated that her voice shook, that she was so damn tired it hurt.

  “It’s me, Norah.” A hand, big and warm rounded over her thigh and held her in place. “Let me help you down.”

  Her breath hitched and she let him lead her down, her boots hanging from her palm. His hands caught her in the darkness, wrapping around her weakened frame until she was captured between his strong arms and pressed into an even stronger chest.

  It didn’t lift with each breath but shifted with each beat of life. On any other occasion she would never have let a strange man enfold her in such an intimate embrace but right now...right now, any amount of comfort was gratefully accepted.

  Norah sniffled. She reached up and rubbed her brow to lessen the spinning in her head.

  Stryker’s chin settled on top of her head and his mechanical heat took the shiver out of her body. It was the best feeling in the universe.

  Norah mumbled, “You wanted to talk?” So tired she couldn’t remember her fear. There was a point, she knew, when exhaustion settles in and trumps everything else. It blurs it out to grey, an eraser to even the threat of encroaching death. She used to have to recite the periodic table to get to sleep but now, now all she had to do was breathe. And remain still.

  The Cyborg seemed to know her needs better than she did. “I lied,” he said, his heat penetrating her clothes. “Just rest, we’ll talk tomorrow.”

  They were the last words she heard as she gave into the protection he so freely gave.

  ***

  He held Norah tight, as tight as possible against his chest, and increased his internal heating technology to dangerous, uncomfortable levels. Just to make sure her soggy clothing remained warm.

  Her exhaustion was evident. She couldn’t go on much longer without rest and Stryker didn’t have the heart to keep pushing her forward, out of the danger, out of the weather, when her willpower was down to its last straw.

  He knew she would fight it against her own health even in just the short amount of time he had known her.

  The wind and rain remained steady as the night deepened into a hard darkness around them. He kept his night vision on.

  Stryker surveyed their surroundings: the giant leaves that provided them protection, the lightning that shot off as curses in the distance, and the water that continued to rise below them. He saw it all, he heard it all. The world blared his senses.

  The creatures, many and unknown to them, the ones that dwelled in the jungle that hunkered around their tree in wait...he had seen them, and still saw them. Waiting, wanting, and not-quite-right. His shots had startled the haggish monsters but it had not hurt them.

  And then there were the bugs, which he could do nothing about.

  Their numbers continued to grow as he stood sentinel. His eyes searched everywhere, everything, but his mind was on the girl.

  She shivered in her sleep and it worried him.

  Stryker had never held a woman so close before, had never hugged the lush curves of the opposite sex. He relished it. This was his purpose. But he knew better, he was a machine, a malformation made by men to be used by men. He wasn’t made for women. Especially beautiful ones like his scientist.

  He pulled her closer.

  I’m going to keep you safe. I’m going to keep you alive.

  I never fail. Stryker wanted to tell her. He wanted to see relief in her eyes, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t make promises he wasn’t sure he could keep. It would hurt his record. His perfection.

  His frenzy to be something he’s not. The metal band over his mouth felt heavy and hot.

  He rested his head back against the trunk and made up promises in his mind where no one could hear him, where his record meant nothing.

  And nothing was error.

  Chapter Five:

  ***

  Norah woke up uncomfortably warm, warm and dry.

  She processed the lack of water sliding along her skin before she acknowledged anything else. Not even her existence or the events that had led her to think, being dry, could be taken for granted.

  Her toes wiggled and the fresh air over her bare feet felt like heaven.

  Heaven because they weren’t wet.

  Norah’s eyes snapped open. A band of arms held her up, tight and secure, and she stiffened as she realized how high up she was. Her eyesight blurred.

  “Calm down.”

  Norah gasped and jerked against the familiar voice.

  “Calm down, I’ve got you. You won’t fall. Not while I’m around. You'll never fall. Not while I'm here.”

  She took those words in as everything returned to her with a horrible clarity.

  “Stryker?” she slumped back into his arms.

  “Yeah.”

  Norah twisted in his arms as the mist touched her skin. She leaned back and took in the Cyborg, as was necessary for a man who had sacrificed himself for her. For nothing at all. Her body ached but she was warm, dry, and the patter of rain was as low as a crinkle compared to the drums of the night before.

  “You’re alive,” she said lamely.

  His hold on her loosened. “Yeah,” he said again.

  Norah tried to read him by only his eyes and she couldn’t be sure her assessment was correct. The metal glistened with condensation and she tried to imagine the mouth underneath. But she couldn’t.

  She shivered. “I–I missed you.” She shook her head as almost dried coils of hair moved in soft waves over her shoulder. “What happened?”

  Stryker looked at her, holding her in place with his gaze alone. “The flyer is gone.”

  Her face fell.

  “I couldn’t lift it back up. By the time I managed to get underneath the vessel, it had sunk too deep, and my strength has its limitations. I’m sorry but we’ll need to go back to your base.” His words sounded clipped and heavy behind the metal.

  “I never really thought that you could.” Norah leaned over the side and looked below.

  “Thought that I could what?” His voice hardened into sharpened, edged steel.

  “Lift the flyer.”

  Stryker’s hands grasped her, one found her chin and tilted it to meet his masked face and metal eyes. “You don’t trust me?”

  She didn’t know if it was a question or statement.

  “No one could lift it,” she breathed.

  His hands peeled off her skin and the silence that followed was uncomfortable and made her feel a little guilty. She looked awa
y again and back down at the water below. It was hidden but for a few small slivers between the foliage. The patter of rainfall upon the surface was like a muted symphony.

  It would’ve been calming if it weren’t for their dire situation.

  The contours of the man’s muscles moved against her body as his long, strong arms reached out to bring a pack into view. Stryker’s eyes drew her gaze and were as hard as obsidian, but they weren’t looking at her.

  She felt a strange wave of butterflies fill her belly.

  The Cyborg lifted out rations and unwrapped them. The flutters turned into growls as he handed her the food, which she scarfed down within minutes. She had rations in her emergency supplies but she hadn’t eaten since the day before and now that her nerves had softened, she felt the needle of hunger again.

  She looked up. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  He remained motionless, alert. “I don’t need to.”

  Oh no. “Don’t be a martyr on my account.” She lifted the second half of her ration and pressed it against the man’s metal band. “Everyone needs to eat.”

  He didn’t move, neither did she, she wasn’t going to back down until he submitted to one request from her. She also wanted to see the rest of his face. If his eyes were any indication, her savior was handsome.

  Norah looked away. What am I thinking?

  The rain fell into a veil around them.

  He didn’t lift the metal mask, even at her coercion. Am I being… Wrong?

  Stryker took her hand, took the bar out of her fingers, and held it between them.

  “I,” his voice hoarse and low behind his mask, “don’t need to eat.” He pressed it into her lips.

  She took the rest of it in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed it. She didn’t know why but it felt oddly erotic in an oh-so-wrong way.

  Norah finished her food as he watched. Every curve and edge of his frame pressed into her side. A lone peal of thunder sounded somewhere far in the distance. Heat, humidity, and unease sizzled between them. We may be the only two people alive on this entire world.

  “No saving then?” she whispered.

  His countenance stiffened further. “I never said that.”

  “I don’t understand? The flyer is gone.”

  Stryker’s hard body drifted away. He dislodged himself and stood up. She watched as he dressed himself back into his buckles, weapons, and armor.

  Norah didn’t know why her mouth had dried up. But it had. And she felt like a creep looking up at the powerful man that stood beside her.

  He placed every article of clothing, every barrier between them back into place, all taken out of his pack until he was the same being who saved her from her hole.

  He reached out his hand and she took it without thinking. I don’t want to be alone.

  It was just a hand.

  Norah stood up on the branch before him, straight and unburdened by the worries of every other moment. She decided to be as strong as him, as hardened as his internal shell.

  I’m going to save us. I think that I could save us.

  “We need to see if the vehicle is still at the lab,” she shot out, trying to gain some ground.

  He lifted his finger and twirled a loose tendril back behind her ear. Damn you. She tried to ignore it and to ignore the tingling feeling that overcame her every time she looked at him. She realized that she only felt weak when standing next to him.

  I’m strong too, I am. Norah grasped his arm and sneezed. Her eyes remained closed in misery.

  “I know, that’s why we’ll go back,” he conceded. Norah opened her eyes and narrowed them. He continued, “My vessel is gone.” It hurt to hear it but he said it aloud, again.

  “I guess we should start now, then.” She looked around. “While the rain isn’t so bad,” she muttered, “when there’s less water in the air.” Her hold on the Cyborg tightened as she listened for a scream, a screech, a wail. But she could only hear the wind and rain, and sometimes the buzz and hiss of the other beasts in the forest. “I think it’s safe,” she said after several minutes. Her eyes lifted back to his, where he waited for her return. “Is it safe?” Norah reached down and grabbed her boots.

  Stryker took them out of her hand and kneeled down. She clutched the nearby branches to steady herself as he lifted her feet and slipped the wet shoes back on them.

  “No, it’s not safe,” he said at last. “Nothing about this is safe.”

  “Did you see the fingers in the water?” she blurted out.

  He opened his mouth then paused, “Fingers?”

  “I saw, well, I don’t know what I saw but it looked like fingers, partially decayed coming out of the water at the base of the tree, it’s why I climbed up. They reached for me.”

  “I didn’t see...fingers,” he said as he re-tied her boot.

  “But did you see anything? Anything at all? Human or the like?” Norah added, “I heard gunshots.”

  Stryker unhooked their packs and shrugged them over his shoulder.

  “There were beasts but nothing human. And they’re gone now, scared away,” he answered and looked at her. She glared back.

  “I’m not going crazy.” Norah placed her hand back atop her gun. “I saw fingers.”

  “I believe you.”

  No, you don’t. But she sighed and let the subject drop.

  They climbed down the tree. Stryker went first and had his hand emptied every time she lowered herself down, waiting to catch her, but it only cracked what remained of her heart.

  He could have been the ugliest man in the universe just then, the worst man she had ever met in her entire life. He could have been a pirate, a murderer, a rapist, and she would have stayed with him. If she had learned anything in her life, it was that survivability went up within groups, and she was determined to keep going.

  So she let his hands slide across her, ensuring her safety with each wavering branch.

  The sound of rushing water increased as they got closer to the ground. Second-hand rain dripped from the leaves and over their heads. They settled on a branch above the water. Norah looked down with a prayer but saw no elongated fingers reaching up to grab them.

  Unfortunately, something more unsettling revealed itself.

  “The water level has risen.”

  Stryker looked at her with his unreadable eyes. “Several feet overnight.”

  The rain kept falling.

  “How is that possible? There are no large bodies of water nearby, only bogs and swamps.”

  “We’re under sea level.” He shrugged. “Shouldn’t you know this?”

  Norah prickled. “I was sent here after the research lab was built. It doesn’t matter if you’re under sea level if there’s no sea within hundreds of miles.” She looked out at the falling rain. “We need to find a place to wait out the storm.”

  His eyes flashed at her, drawing her attention. They were blue now when before they were brown. I know his eye color? Norah had never paid attention to human detail before.

  “We can’t.”

  Her body shivered. “Why?” she whispered.

  “My ship is due to leave without us in a day and a half, Earthian time. It’s stationed above the clouds.” His voice bellowed under the metal band. “The storm was covering a third of the planet when I dropped in. It’s not going to end, not anytime soon. We could wait it out but it could take months or years. How long have you and your fellows been here?”

  Years. It felt like.

  “A little over six months. The research lab has been here for three years,” she added, licking the dew off of her lips.

  “No known storms?”

  “Nothing like this.”

  “Hmm.” The Cyborg pulled the bags off his back and dug out a receiver, handing it to her. Norah took it. “Keep that on you, in your pistol holder if you need. If we get separated you can use it to call me. I can track it when it’s powered on.” He nodded at it. “It’s solar powered.” He looked up. “Doesn’t mean much with this
weather.”

  “Thanks.” Norah attached it to her belt. Stryker loaded on both their packs and made to jump down. “Wait!” He stopped. “There’s something in the water.” Norah gripped his arm. “Those fingers, those creatures were in the water.”

  “Alright. Let me go first and clear the way. Wait here while I check it out.”

  He jumped into the water with a splash.

  ***

  The water came up to his hips. He looked up at the girl, catching her dark eyes with a reassuring nod before scoping out the area. He could still connect to his flyer, but when he did, the pressure of thick mud and water pressed down on him from every side.

  Stryker couldn’t save it. He had shifted into his form and burrowed his way deep within the moist terra, he wouldn’t have been able to do it otherwise. But his horrible beast allowed it and so it had come in use for something.

  He adjusted the metal on his face.

  It’s not like I’m a fucking worm. He felt himself snapping at the air, at nothing at all.

  He looked back at Norah once again, wanting to sink his teeth into her caramel skin. His armor had never come so in handy before. Stryker would die before he took his muzzle off around her.

  He examined the area, finding nothing but alien life-forms.

  He analyzed the monsters from the night before but didn’t sense them anywhere nearby. The fingers must have come from them. Which was strange…

  Human-shaped heat sources surrounded their tree and the nearby areas. He waded through the quagmire towards them.

  The same heat signatures from the facility. His monstrous blood ran cold. We’re being followed. Stryker unstrapped a gun from his bicep and aimed it at the red shape and fired.

  The bullet whistled into the water. The signature remained the same.

  “What’s wrong!? What’re you shooting at?” Norah yelled behind him.

  His jaw ticked. His wanted to strike out but subdued the need. Stryker made his way back to the girl.

  “Nothing,” he said, frustrated. “Thought I saw something.” Norah sat directly above him, her now-booted feet dangling from the branch. His fingers rounded her supple calf, shielded within cotton, and cupped it. “You can come down now. I’ve got you.”