Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, much like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.
~Thomas Paine
CHAPTER ONE
Weston watched her target through narrowed eyes as she leaned back against the tree, pretending to be sketching in the notebook propped against her bent knees. He had been sitting on the concrete bench in front of the school for over an hour now and she was not sure how much longer she could sit there without looking overly suspicious. She shifted uncomfortably. Not to mention her poor bottom was starting to go numb.
He looked the same. But then again, it had only been a few months. He was tall – probably about as tall as Cormac, but he was built a lot bigger than Mac, who was more on the lean side. His chestnut brown hair was a bit shaggier than it had been. He needed a hair cut. And Weston was sure he had the same hazel eyes. He had no reason or need to change his eye color. Unlike some people.
Glancing at her watch, Weston saw that it was 3:11. Hm, maybe he had kids. School would be out soon, he could be waiting for them. It was weird to think of Halloway – or any of the other guards for that matter – as having a real life outside of the Delta Project. It was even weirder to think of them having kids – especially with the way they treated her and the other Deltas. How could they act that way with them and then go home to their own kids? But anything was possible she supposed.
At least, out of all of them, Halloway she could most see as being a father. He had always been nicer to them than the other guards. Which, of course, was why she was here, tracking him down instead of one of the others.
The school bell suddenly rang through the air, drawing Weston’s gaze to the doors at the front of the building. She watched as kids began pouring out – their noise canceling out the silence that had been there before. She watched – slightly envious as they gathered in groups with their friends, talking excitedly.
Weston bit down on her lip, and then stopped as she heard Cormac’s voice in her head, telling her to knock it off before she chewed the damn thing right off. She blew out a frustrated breath. There was no point wishing for what she could not have right now. There were things she needed to do first.
Namely, she thought as her gaze landed back on Halloway, follow him, get him alone and get him to help her. By whatever means necessary.
Weston was not sure what those means were exactly yet. The thought of hurting him, even though he worked for them or anyone else for that matter, made her feel sick to her stomach. Hopefully it would not come to anything like that. But if it did come to that, she would do what she needed to do Weston told herself. She needed to get the other Deltas out.
They should be out, in the real world, living their lives like normal teenagers. Free. Not locked away in some compound, being trained for who the hell knew what and being treated like dirt. If Weston succeeded, then they would be free.
But, first things first, Weston thought as she saw two girls approaching Halloway. He stood up, a broad smile on his face as he embraced both girls at once and then tucked one under each of his arms and set off down the sidewalk in her direction. Well, look at that, Halloway is a daddy.
One of the girls looked to be her age – well, what Weston assumed her age was. Birthdays were not exactly celebrated at the compound, so she could not say for sure how old she was. She assumed she was seventeen, maybe eighteen. But she really did not know. Come to think of it, she thought as she narrowed her eyes, the man heading her way might actually know how old she was. When her birthday was. Halloway had been a guard at the compound for as long as Weston could remember.
Her pulse sped up slightly as the trio came within a few feet of her. Relax Weston. Forcing herself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly, Weston reminded herself that Halloway would not recognize her anyway.
Not only was she no longer pale-skinned, but a golden tan from time spent outdoors at the ranch and her time on the run, but she had also changed her hair and eye color. Her hair was now a chocolate brown instead of her natural honey blonde and her normally unusual violet colored eyes were now amber thanks to colored contacts. This hadn’t been the first change in hair and eye color in her month and a half on the run either.
In fact, it was the third. It had become necessary after Weston had spotted Agent Jackson Farleigh, Mac’s friend, in one of the first towns she had stopped in. Luckily, she had seen him and had time to hide out of view before he had the chance to see her. She really should have known that Mac would not listen to her when she told him in the note she left to not try to find her. And Weston knew that was what Jackson had been in that town doing too since she had tailed for the rest of the day and saw him showing a picture to a bunch of people and asking if they had seen that girl. Unless there was another girl he had been looking for, but she doubted it.
After that, Weston had gone out and bought her first hair coloring kit and colored contacts. A few hours later she had been a grey eyed platinum blonde. She had also chopped her hair to just a couple of inches above her shoulders to giver her even more of a different look.
Then, before high-tailing it out of town Weston had gone to Jackson’s motel in the middle of the night, broke in via the bathroom window and left a very short note on his nightstand while he was sleeping. In the note she told him to stop looking for her and that she did not want him or anyone else involved with what was going on.
Weston’s lips twitched slightly thinking about the look that would have been on Jackson’s face when he found the note the next morning and realized that she had snuck right past him. It wasn’t his fault really. Stealth had been something that had been drilled into her – probably more than it would have been in his training as an FBI agent.
Weston had also copied down his phone number out of his cell while she was there. Just in case. One never knew when an FBI agent might come in hand for back up or something.
Weston had got the heck out of Dodge that night and had not seen Jackson since. That did not necessarily mean anything. He could still be trying to hunt her down for all she knew. But at least now Weston knew that he would most likely not recognize her. As was evident by the fact that Halloway was now walking right past her – a mere few feet away. And he had known her forever.
Weston kept her cool, even as he glanced over in her direction, pretending to continue sketching away on her notebook. Nope, no recognition there. Halloway did not even hesitate – just kept walking. Good, that is the way it is supposed to be. Weston kept them in her sight while she waited a few minutes before stuffing her notebook and pencil in her bag, getting up and following after them.
She strolled casually several yards behind them. Keeping her eyes on them without appearing to be paying attention, Weston also kept an eye out for any suspicious behavior from anyone walking past, from any of the cars on the road next to them, or from the storefronts bustling with activity that they passed in front of. Halloway was a guard working for those who ran the Delta Project after all. Weston was not sure just how close of a watch they kept on their employees.
Really, it was kind of sad that with as smart as Weston was, two of the tings she knew next to nothing about were also two of the most important things that she needed to know about right now. The Delta Project itself and those who ran it.
What she knew about the Delta Project was only those things that pertained to her experiences growing up. The training, the testing. They trained nearly all day, every day. But she did not know what they were training for. They were tested and any of them deemed too weak – even though by normal standards, they would not be considered anywhere near weak – were disposed of.
But why? And how could they justify killing a child like that? Because that is what the Deltas really were. They were just children, who had never been allowed to act like it. And the few of them that were left were rapidly running out of their childhood years.
They did not even know how to act like children. Any and all child-like behavior had been beaten out of them until they all slowly turned into well-trained machines. Every bit of humanity in them being tucked further and further away. Always obeying. Never questioning. Those were the words they lived by. The words Weston herself had lived by, when she had been D005. then something inside her had snapped, breaking through the years of training, of discipline. Through to a tiny shred of her that yearned for her humanity back.
Why were the people in charge of the Delta Project stripping the Deltas of their humanity, bit by bit? And what was it that made Weston and the other Deltas stronger, faster, smarter and able to heal faster than others? Was it just all of the training they had gone through? Or had something been done to them to make them that way? And who was in charge of Delta Project anyway? Who did Commander take his orders from? Even more importantly, what would it take to take them down?
Weston hoped that Halloway would be able to answer some, if not all those questions for her. The trio had exited the small business area and was now walking down residential streets with cute little houses lining them, with their white picket fences around the yards. Kids running home from school. Parents coming home from work. Families greeted each other after a day apart. Life went on all around her
This is what Weston wanted. What she craved with every fiber of her being. Unfortunately, it was also what she would never have. Not exactly, anyway.
She would never be greeted by her mother or father after she got home from school or after they got home from work. She would never be able to tell them about her day. About the boy she had a crush on. She would never have shopping trips with her mother. She would never bond with her father over driving lessons or car shopping. And although most people would not find them things to be lamented, she would also never need to sneak out of the house because of curfew, would never have to try and hide bad grades, would never have chores that needed completing and would never be grounded.
But still, she wished for these things. Would cherish them if she had them. For the normalcy. For the love it displayed.
No, Weston would never have these things. But maybe she could have some semblance of it. A happy, normal life. Not that there was such a thing as a normal life. She would take more normal than her life had been so far. But only after she also ensured that same thing for the other Deltas.
As Halloway and his daughters began to slow down, Weston copied them by slowing her own pace. The trio turned into one of the yards, walking up the sidewalk and into the house. It was a fairly large Victorian home. Gingerbread style. Butter cream yellow in color with black trim and white accents. An elaborate, colorful garden framed the outside of the house. Either Halloway had a green thumb or that was his wife’s doing. Weston would bet on the wife. And, oh, there it was. A white picket fence lined the yard.
And, damn. A dog came bounding around the house. A Golden Retriever. It followed her along the fence line as she walked past, yipping for attention. Weston kept her gaze on the sidewalk ahead of her, pretending to ignore the dog. That could prove to be a problem later. Thankfully, she was at least not scared of dogs anymore.
When Bri, Reid and Cormac had found her, she had no memory of who she was except a recurring nightmare of vicious dogs chasing after her through the woods. Then Mac had forced a little fur ball on her. Weston chuckled to herself as she remembered how he had just shut her in the room with the puppy. Mac always knew just what to do. Sighing, she mentally shook her head at herself. Now was not the time for that.
Weston continued past the house and on down the sidewalk. She would spend some time surveying the neighborhood and then hide out until later when it was dark out and hopefully Halloway’s daughters at least would be asleep. Then it would be time to pay a visit to Halloway.
CHAPTER TWO
It had taken her a long time to find Halloway. Or at least it seemed that way to Weston. Traveling on foot by herself, she had followed along the Missouri River, searching for anything that looked familiar or an area that looked like it could house the compound where Delta Project went on and looking up Halloways to make sure they weren’t the Halloway.
Spending her nights camping out in the woods, or in a field somewhere. Which usually meant just propping herself up against a tree at night and getting one to three hours of sleep each night. If that. Over the last month and a half, Weston had actually often gone without any sleep at all and would instead stay awake working on her plans. Or just remembering.
It was too different. Too difficult. Sleeping without him. Without Cormac. Weston felt empty without him. All the time. But she felt it more at night. Night time had been their time. Now it was just more time spent without him.
Weston actually tried not to think about Mac too much – it caused too much of a distraction. But try as she might, she could not stop the empty feeling. She had been sleeping so little, she was actually starting to feel it.
Imagine. Her. Tired. None of the other Deltas would believe it. Of course, they also would not understand why. Not yet anyway.
After a month and a half on the road and exhaustive searching, she had finally at least found Halloway. And now she was creeping silently across his now dark backyard toward the back door. People really needed to learn to close their blinds. Weston had seen Halloway’s two daughters in their respective bedrooms and saw their lights go off for the night and the same went for who she assumed was his wife in what must have been the master bedroom. Halloway himself, however, still sat on the couch in the living room watching television. Perfect. Everyone was just where she wanted them. Kind of. Even the dog was locked up in a dog run for the night. So, he would not prove to be a problem – in fact, Weston would be using him to her advantage.
Weston could pick the lock on the back door or jimmy open a window or something, but she had a better idea that meant her making less noise that would alert Halloway. Besides, she had no idea if the home had an alarm system or not, which was bad planning on her part. But she was getting too restless to sit around for days finding out every single minute detail of the lives of the Halloway family members. Commander would have had her flogged for being so careless. But she had a way around her problem anyway.
Weston crept soundlessly through the shadows of the night and up the wooden porch steps. Then, crossing the porch, she knelt next to the grill sitting on the right side of the back door. Working her arm in between it and the siding of the house, Weston nudged it forward about an inch. Then, she focused on the two items she had picked up at the neighborhood park earlier. A stick and a rock. Taking the rock up in her right hand, she turned to the backyard.
Weston had watched Halloway come out and lock the dog up in the dog run a couple hours before. She could not see it now, but knew it was twenty-five feet away from her crouched position in the north east corner of the yard. Taking aim, Weston lobbed the rock in that direction and cocked her head, listening for some sound of contact. Success. There was a quiet thud and slight rattling sound as the rock connected with the chain link fence. It was not very loud, but it didn’t have to be. It just had to be loud enough to wake the Halloways’ dog up. And it was.
Seconds after the rock hit, the dog’s deep bark sliced through the night, breaking the silence. Quickly turning, so she was again facing the grill, Weston took up the stick and held it so it was hidden between the grill and the house. And she waited. She only had to wait a matter of seconds. The back door, followed by the screen door, popped open.
Light from inside spilled out onto the porch. From her vantage point Weston could see one bare foot and red and black checked flannel pajama bottoms sticking out between the open screen door and the door frame.
“Riley!” Halloway called to his dog softly. God, she sincerely hoped that did not actually calm the dog down. She needed Halloway out of the house, even for just a minute or two, for this to work. Weston was in luck. If anything, hearing Halloway’s voice made the dog bark louder. Halloway sighed heavily and muttered, “Damn dog.” under his breath.
Pushing the door open further, he stepped the rest of the way out the door and padded across the wooden planks. In his wake, the screen door swung closed. But, before it was successful, Weston thrust the stick she held forward so it stopped the door from fully closing.
Waiting a few heartbeats, Weston cocked her head towards the backyard for any sounds from Halloway, before making her move. There. He was talking to the dog now. He must have reached the dog run. Taking a deep breath, Weston scooted out from her hiding place and then, staying crouched down, she slunk around the grill to the door.
Sliding her fingers in the space left by the stick, Weston picked the stick up and slid it back behind the grill, out of sight. Very carefully, she then inched the door open just enough for her to squeeze through, which she then did. Keeping her palm flat against the screen door as she eased it closed, Weston prevented it from slamming and making too much noise. After it closed with a soft click, Weston pressed up against the hallway wall and made her way in the direction she knew the living room lay.
She did not focus on the décor – rather on listening for sounds from outside and from further within the house. Weston flicked her eyes to the right as she passed an open doorway. Kitchen. Flicking her eyes forward again, she took note of the hallway off the one she was in, leading to the left. Not what she was looking for. No, what she was looking for was straight ahead, through a wide, arched doorway.
Reaching her destination, Weston glanced around, taking in the Halloway’s home front. His lair, as it was. She blinked rapidly. It looked so – homey. First, he has children, now this. Taken out of context, Halloway seemed so normal. So un-Delta Project-like. So – like Cormac, and Chief Johnston and Bri and Reid and everyone else. Her brow furrowed as she frowned. How was she supposed to do this if she kept comparing Halloway to her friends? But, looking around the room, Weston gnawed on her lower lip as a vein of doubt began working its way into her thought processes.
The room was dark, the only light coming from a single lamp on top of an end table sitting next to the soft-looking grey couch that lay in the center of the room. A patchwork quilt was flung over one arm and the back of it. The large television on the wall directly across from the couch flickered silently in the dark. A large armchair made of the same grey fabric as the couch sat on each side of the couch, tilted slightly into the center of the room, so the sitting arrangement formed an arc. Between the couch and television sat a rectangular glass-topped coffee table with a few books with a few books and magazines strewn haphazardly across it.
Weston flinched at the sight of the framed family photos displayed on the room’s walls. A broadly grinning Halloway beamed out at her from many of the frames. In most of the images, one or both the girls Weston had seen earlier were tucked into his side. Their smiles, so similar to Halloway’s, joined his. Their smiles mocked her. Mocked her and the reason she was there.
Lowering her gaze from the pictures, Weston stepped between the couch and one of the chairs, then strode the short distance to the other chair and shrugging off her backpack, sat down so she was facing the arched doorway. Shortly after, she could hear the screen door open. Weston’s heart beat picked up. And it clicked closed, followed by the actual back door. She took a deep breath. She could do this. She needed to do this. Right. Game face on.
Forcing her expression into a neutral – bored, even – territory, Weston reached down to her backpack. Unzipping it, she pulled out her gun without looking, her gaze trained on the doorway.
Footsteps edged closer to the room. Leaning back, Weston propped her feet up on the coffee table, crossing her ankles. She then placed her gun flat on her stomach – although she kept her hand on top of it. Her other elbow went on the arm of the chair and she rested her head against her palm. She looked comfortable. At ease.
A human-male-shaped shadow moved onto the living room wall. And in he stepped. Halloway froze, his eyes going wide as his gaze locked with Weston’s. One side of Weston’s mouth turned up into a sneer. “Good evening Guard Halloway.”
~Thomas Paine
CHAPTER ONE
Weston watched her target through narrowed eyes as she leaned back against the tree, pretending to be sketching in the notebook propped against her bent knees. He had been sitting on the concrete bench in front of the school for over an hour now and she was not sure how much longer she could sit there without looking overly suspicious. She shifted uncomfortably. Not to mention her poor bottom was starting to go numb.
He looked the same. But then again, it had only been a few months. He was tall – probably about as tall as Cormac, but he was built a lot bigger than Mac, who was more on the lean side. His chestnut brown hair was a bit shaggier than it had been. He needed a hair cut. And Weston was sure he had the same hazel eyes. He had no reason or need to change his eye color. Unlike some people.
Glancing at her watch, Weston saw that it was 3:11. Hm, maybe he had kids. School would be out soon, he could be waiting for them. It was weird to think of Halloway – or any of the other guards for that matter – as having a real life outside of the Delta Project. It was even weirder to think of them having kids – especially with the way they treated her and the other Deltas. How could they act that way with them and then go home to their own kids? But anything was possible she supposed.
At least, out of all of them, Halloway she could most see as being a father. He had always been nicer to them than the other guards. Which, of course, was why she was here, tracking him down instead of one of the others.
The school bell suddenly rang through the air, drawing Weston’s gaze to the doors at the front of the building. She watched as kids began pouring out – their noise canceling out the silence that had been there before. She watched – slightly envious as they gathered in groups with their friends, talking excitedly.
Weston bit down on her lip, and then stopped as she heard Cormac’s voice in her head, telling her to knock it off before she chewed the damn thing right off. She blew out a frustrated breath. There was no point wishing for what she could not have right now. There were things she needed to do first.
Namely, she thought as her gaze landed back on Halloway, follow him, get him alone and get him to help her. By whatever means necessary.
Weston was not sure what those means were exactly yet. The thought of hurting him, even though he worked for them or anyone else for that matter, made her feel sick to her stomach. Hopefully it would not come to anything like that. But if it did come to that, she would do what she needed to do Weston told herself. She needed to get the other Deltas out.
They should be out, in the real world, living their lives like normal teenagers. Free. Not locked away in some compound, being trained for who the hell knew what and being treated like dirt. If Weston succeeded, then they would be free.
But, first things first, Weston thought as she saw two girls approaching Halloway. He stood up, a broad smile on his face as he embraced both girls at once and then tucked one under each of his arms and set off down the sidewalk in her direction. Well, look at that, Halloway is a daddy.
One of the girls looked to be her age – well, what Weston assumed her age was. Birthdays were not exactly celebrated at the compound, so she could not say for sure how old she was. She assumed she was seventeen, maybe eighteen. But she really did not know. Come to think of it, she thought as she narrowed her eyes, the man heading her way might actually know how old she was. When her birthday was. Halloway had been a guard at the compound for as long as Weston could remember.
Her pulse sped up slightly as the trio came within a few feet of her. Relax Weston. Forcing herself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly, Weston reminded herself that Halloway would not recognize her anyway.
Not only was she no longer pale-skinned, but a golden tan from time spent outdoors at the ranch and her time on the run, but she had also changed her hair and eye color. Her hair was now a chocolate brown instead of her natural honey blonde and her normally unusual violet colored eyes were now amber thanks to colored contacts. This hadn’t been the first change in hair and eye color in her month and a half on the run either.
In fact, it was the third. It had become necessary after Weston had spotted Agent Jackson Farleigh, Mac’s friend, in one of the first towns she had stopped in. Luckily, she had seen him and had time to hide out of view before he had the chance to see her. She really should have known that Mac would not listen to her when she told him in the note she left to not try to find her. And Weston knew that was what Jackson had been in that town doing too since she had tailed for the rest of the day and saw him showing a picture to a bunch of people and asking if they had seen that girl. Unless there was another girl he had been looking for, but she doubted it.
After that, Weston had gone out and bought her first hair coloring kit and colored contacts. A few hours later she had been a grey eyed platinum blonde. She had also chopped her hair to just a couple of inches above her shoulders to giver her even more of a different look.
Then, before high-tailing it out of town Weston had gone to Jackson’s motel in the middle of the night, broke in via the bathroom window and left a very short note on his nightstand while he was sleeping. In the note she told him to stop looking for her and that she did not want him or anyone else involved with what was going on.
Weston’s lips twitched slightly thinking about the look that would have been on Jackson’s face when he found the note the next morning and realized that she had snuck right past him. It wasn’t his fault really. Stealth had been something that had been drilled into her – probably more than it would have been in his training as an FBI agent.
Weston had also copied down his phone number out of his cell while she was there. Just in case. One never knew when an FBI agent might come in hand for back up or something.
Weston had got the heck out of Dodge that night and had not seen Jackson since. That did not necessarily mean anything. He could still be trying to hunt her down for all she knew. But at least now Weston knew that he would most likely not recognize her. As was evident by the fact that Halloway was now walking right past her – a mere few feet away. And he had known her forever.
Weston kept her cool, even as he glanced over in her direction, pretending to continue sketching away on her notebook. Nope, no recognition there. Halloway did not even hesitate – just kept walking. Good, that is the way it is supposed to be. Weston kept them in her sight while she waited a few minutes before stuffing her notebook and pencil in her bag, getting up and following after them.
She strolled casually several yards behind them. Keeping her eyes on them without appearing to be paying attention, Weston also kept an eye out for any suspicious behavior from anyone walking past, from any of the cars on the road next to them, or from the storefronts bustling with activity that they passed in front of. Halloway was a guard working for those who ran the Delta Project after all. Weston was not sure just how close of a watch they kept on their employees.
Really, it was kind of sad that with as smart as Weston was, two of the tings she knew next to nothing about were also two of the most important things that she needed to know about right now. The Delta Project itself and those who ran it.
What she knew about the Delta Project was only those things that pertained to her experiences growing up. The training, the testing. They trained nearly all day, every day. But she did not know what they were training for. They were tested and any of them deemed too weak – even though by normal standards, they would not be considered anywhere near weak – were disposed of.
But why? And how could they justify killing a child like that? Because that is what the Deltas really were. They were just children, who had never been allowed to act like it. And the few of them that were left were rapidly running out of their childhood years.
They did not even know how to act like children. Any and all child-like behavior had been beaten out of them until they all slowly turned into well-trained machines. Every bit of humanity in them being tucked further and further away. Always obeying. Never questioning. Those were the words they lived by. The words Weston herself had lived by, when she had been D005. then something inside her had snapped, breaking through the years of training, of discipline. Through to a tiny shred of her that yearned for her humanity back.
Why were the people in charge of the Delta Project stripping the Deltas of their humanity, bit by bit? And what was it that made Weston and the other Deltas stronger, faster, smarter and able to heal faster than others? Was it just all of the training they had gone through? Or had something been done to them to make them that way? And who was in charge of Delta Project anyway? Who did Commander take his orders from? Even more importantly, what would it take to take them down?
Weston hoped that Halloway would be able to answer some, if not all those questions for her. The trio had exited the small business area and was now walking down residential streets with cute little houses lining them, with their white picket fences around the yards. Kids running home from school. Parents coming home from work. Families greeted each other after a day apart. Life went on all around her
This is what Weston wanted. What she craved with every fiber of her being. Unfortunately, it was also what she would never have. Not exactly, anyway.
She would never be greeted by her mother or father after she got home from school or after they got home from work. She would never be able to tell them about her day. About the boy she had a crush on. She would never have shopping trips with her mother. She would never bond with her father over driving lessons or car shopping. And although most people would not find them things to be lamented, she would also never need to sneak out of the house because of curfew, would never have to try and hide bad grades, would never have chores that needed completing and would never be grounded.
But still, she wished for these things. Would cherish them if she had them. For the normalcy. For the love it displayed.
No, Weston would never have these things. But maybe she could have some semblance of it. A happy, normal life. Not that there was such a thing as a normal life. She would take more normal than her life had been so far. But only after she also ensured that same thing for the other Deltas.
As Halloway and his daughters began to slow down, Weston copied them by slowing her own pace. The trio turned into one of the yards, walking up the sidewalk and into the house. It was a fairly large Victorian home. Gingerbread style. Butter cream yellow in color with black trim and white accents. An elaborate, colorful garden framed the outside of the house. Either Halloway had a green thumb or that was his wife’s doing. Weston would bet on the wife. And, oh, there it was. A white picket fence lined the yard.
And, damn. A dog came bounding around the house. A Golden Retriever. It followed her along the fence line as she walked past, yipping for attention. Weston kept her gaze on the sidewalk ahead of her, pretending to ignore the dog. That could prove to be a problem later. Thankfully, she was at least not scared of dogs anymore.
When Bri, Reid and Cormac had found her, she had no memory of who she was except a recurring nightmare of vicious dogs chasing after her through the woods. Then Mac had forced a little fur ball on her. Weston chuckled to herself as she remembered how he had just shut her in the room with the puppy. Mac always knew just what to do. Sighing, she mentally shook her head at herself. Now was not the time for that.
Weston continued past the house and on down the sidewalk. She would spend some time surveying the neighborhood and then hide out until later when it was dark out and hopefully Halloway’s daughters at least would be asleep. Then it would be time to pay a visit to Halloway.
CHAPTER TWO
It had taken her a long time to find Halloway. Or at least it seemed that way to Weston. Traveling on foot by herself, she had followed along the Missouri River, searching for anything that looked familiar or an area that looked like it could house the compound where Delta Project went on and looking up Halloways to make sure they weren’t the Halloway.
Spending her nights camping out in the woods, or in a field somewhere. Which usually meant just propping herself up against a tree at night and getting one to three hours of sleep each night. If that. Over the last month and a half, Weston had actually often gone without any sleep at all and would instead stay awake working on her plans. Or just remembering.
It was too different. Too difficult. Sleeping without him. Without Cormac. Weston felt empty without him. All the time. But she felt it more at night. Night time had been their time. Now it was just more time spent without him.
Weston actually tried not to think about Mac too much – it caused too much of a distraction. But try as she might, she could not stop the empty feeling. She had been sleeping so little, she was actually starting to feel it.
Imagine. Her. Tired. None of the other Deltas would believe it. Of course, they also would not understand why. Not yet anyway.
After a month and a half on the road and exhaustive searching, she had finally at least found Halloway. And now she was creeping silently across his now dark backyard toward the back door. People really needed to learn to close their blinds. Weston had seen Halloway’s two daughters in their respective bedrooms and saw their lights go off for the night and the same went for who she assumed was his wife in what must have been the master bedroom. Halloway himself, however, still sat on the couch in the living room watching television. Perfect. Everyone was just where she wanted them. Kind of. Even the dog was locked up in a dog run for the night. So, he would not prove to be a problem – in fact, Weston would be using him to her advantage.
Weston could pick the lock on the back door or jimmy open a window or something, but she had a better idea that meant her making less noise that would alert Halloway. Besides, she had no idea if the home had an alarm system or not, which was bad planning on her part. But she was getting too restless to sit around for days finding out every single minute detail of the lives of the Halloway family members. Commander would have had her flogged for being so careless. But she had a way around her problem anyway.
Weston crept soundlessly through the shadows of the night and up the wooden porch steps. Then, crossing the porch, she knelt next to the grill sitting on the right side of the back door. Working her arm in between it and the siding of the house, Weston nudged it forward about an inch. Then, she focused on the two items she had picked up at the neighborhood park earlier. A stick and a rock. Taking the rock up in her right hand, she turned to the backyard.
Weston had watched Halloway come out and lock the dog up in the dog run a couple hours before. She could not see it now, but knew it was twenty-five feet away from her crouched position in the north east corner of the yard. Taking aim, Weston lobbed the rock in that direction and cocked her head, listening for some sound of contact. Success. There was a quiet thud and slight rattling sound as the rock connected with the chain link fence. It was not very loud, but it didn’t have to be. It just had to be loud enough to wake the Halloways’ dog up. And it was.
Seconds after the rock hit, the dog’s deep bark sliced through the night, breaking the silence. Quickly turning, so she was again facing the grill, Weston took up the stick and held it so it was hidden between the grill and the house. And she waited. She only had to wait a matter of seconds. The back door, followed by the screen door, popped open.
Light from inside spilled out onto the porch. From her vantage point Weston could see one bare foot and red and black checked flannel pajama bottoms sticking out between the open screen door and the door frame.
“Riley!” Halloway called to his dog softly. God, she sincerely hoped that did not actually calm the dog down. She needed Halloway out of the house, even for just a minute or two, for this to work. Weston was in luck. If anything, hearing Halloway’s voice made the dog bark louder. Halloway sighed heavily and muttered, “Damn dog.” under his breath.
Pushing the door open further, he stepped the rest of the way out the door and padded across the wooden planks. In his wake, the screen door swung closed. But, before it was successful, Weston thrust the stick she held forward so it stopped the door from fully closing.
Waiting a few heartbeats, Weston cocked her head towards the backyard for any sounds from Halloway, before making her move. There. He was talking to the dog now. He must have reached the dog run. Taking a deep breath, Weston scooted out from her hiding place and then, staying crouched down, she slunk around the grill to the door.
Sliding her fingers in the space left by the stick, Weston picked the stick up and slid it back behind the grill, out of sight. Very carefully, she then inched the door open just enough for her to squeeze through, which she then did. Keeping her palm flat against the screen door as she eased it closed, Weston prevented it from slamming and making too much noise. After it closed with a soft click, Weston pressed up against the hallway wall and made her way in the direction she knew the living room lay.
She did not focus on the décor – rather on listening for sounds from outside and from further within the house. Weston flicked her eyes to the right as she passed an open doorway. Kitchen. Flicking her eyes forward again, she took note of the hallway off the one she was in, leading to the left. Not what she was looking for. No, what she was looking for was straight ahead, through a wide, arched doorway.
Reaching her destination, Weston glanced around, taking in the Halloway’s home front. His lair, as it was. She blinked rapidly. It looked so – homey. First, he has children, now this. Taken out of context, Halloway seemed so normal. So un-Delta Project-like. So – like Cormac, and Chief Johnston and Bri and Reid and everyone else. Her brow furrowed as she frowned. How was she supposed to do this if she kept comparing Halloway to her friends? But, looking around the room, Weston gnawed on her lower lip as a vein of doubt began working its way into her thought processes.
The room was dark, the only light coming from a single lamp on top of an end table sitting next to the soft-looking grey couch that lay in the center of the room. A patchwork quilt was flung over one arm and the back of it. The large television on the wall directly across from the couch flickered silently in the dark. A large armchair made of the same grey fabric as the couch sat on each side of the couch, tilted slightly into the center of the room, so the sitting arrangement formed an arc. Between the couch and television sat a rectangular glass-topped coffee table with a few books with a few books and magazines strewn haphazardly across it.
Weston flinched at the sight of the framed family photos displayed on the room’s walls. A broadly grinning Halloway beamed out at her from many of the frames. In most of the images, one or both the girls Weston had seen earlier were tucked into his side. Their smiles, so similar to Halloway’s, joined his. Their smiles mocked her. Mocked her and the reason she was there.
Lowering her gaze from the pictures, Weston stepped between the couch and one of the chairs, then strode the short distance to the other chair and shrugging off her backpack, sat down so she was facing the arched doorway. Shortly after, she could hear the screen door open. Weston’s heart beat picked up. And it clicked closed, followed by the actual back door. She took a deep breath. She could do this. She needed to do this. Right. Game face on.
Forcing her expression into a neutral – bored, even – territory, Weston reached down to her backpack. Unzipping it, she pulled out her gun without looking, her gaze trained on the doorway.
Footsteps edged closer to the room. Leaning back, Weston propped her feet up on the coffee table, crossing her ankles. She then placed her gun flat on her stomach – although she kept her hand on top of it. Her other elbow went on the arm of the chair and she rested her head against her palm. She looked comfortable. At ease.
A human-male-shaped shadow moved onto the living room wall. And in he stepped. Halloway froze, his eyes going wide as his gaze locked with Weston’s. One side of Weston’s mouth turned up into a sneer. “Good evening Guard Halloway.”