VI

“This is a nightmare,” Maddox says. His eyes are wide and he keeps shaking his head no, as if it’ll make it all go away. “How could this have happened?”

Sauda stands outside looking at the plane’s windshield with two fist-sized holes in it, the cockpit wall dripping red behind the dead pilots. Two bodies lay at her feet. One with its head sitting a few inches away from it and the other with its middle ripped clean away. Its spine is glistening under the hangar lights. Maddox stands next to her, looking at their wallets in his hand.

“Nothing special in here,” he says, “at least nothing to explain why’d they come up and shoot our pilots.” He throws their wallets down and they land in the missing stomach with a dud and small splash. He cringes at the noise.

“I doubt these credentials are real. They’d be stupid to be caught with their own things on them. This couldn’t be against the pilots or the company they fly for, they had no affiliates overseas. So this welcoming party is for us,” Sauda says.

Her fingers drip with blood from where she formed her talons, dug them into the enemy’s throat and ripped everything she could grab. She looks up to the cockpit, to Jordan, and he's naked. Blood dripping from his mouth, neck, and chest. The second they landed, shots were fired, and he shifted into a wolf the size of Sauda’s familiar and took out the second guy, shedding his clothes and feeding the way only an animal could. He bends over while picking through the bodies of the pilots for the bullet. And Sauda isn’t surprised that she isn’t disgusted at the fact he ate his target and would blow chucks soon. But in the heat of the moment, his animal takes over, and he has no control. He’s always just as hungry in his shifter forms as he is in his birth form.

“Maybe they only saw a private plane and thought we had money and wanted to rob us,” Maddox guesses.

“I don’t know about that,” Jordan says from the cockpit.

“These bullets are handcrafted, special. These bad boys hit through the glass and as soon as they hit the body, they expanded, doing as much damage as possible. They’re not just mere robbers.” He walks down to show them the pieces he dug out of the bodies.

“Do you have to be naked and covered in blood for this?” Maddox asks. Jordan just smiles at him, does a little hop salute that makes certain parts bounce, and turns around, swishing his ass to where the rest of the team was unloading the plane.

“There’s magic all over this,” Ashleigh says, standing behind Sauda, holding herself and looking down at the bodies.

“Someone’s made us already,” Sauda says, “Shit just got hard.”

Maddox steps around the bodies and stands in front of Sauda. His arms cross his wide chest and he gives a deep sigh. “Well, that’s one way to start a mission. What are you thinking, Captain?”

“Any chance you have enemies in Yemen, you’re not telling me about, Major?”

“Naw,” he says, shaking his head, “my extracurricular activities don’t reach outside of the United States. How about you?”

“Outside of the United States, yes, but usually below the earth’s crust.” Sauda waves her hand around the scene of her team unpacking the plane and picking bone and blood out of their hair. “This isn’t mine, though. I make sure to know where my enemies are, especially the ones that want me dead, and none of them are in Yemen. It seems our target got wind of us, and would rather kill us than have us spy on them.”

“Which means they really don’t want the U.S. Government knowing what they’re doing,” Maddox nods along, “or that they don’t know we’re just here for recon.”

“Either way, they made us, and they’re going to want to keep eyes on us, or try to kill us again.” She turns to the bodies on the ground. “Luckily, the plan doesn’t need to change that much. So first… we get rid of the bodies.”

“And the dead pilots?” Maddox asks. “They weren’t bad guys. We can’t just go out and bury them.”

“The Colonel did a terrible job at briefing you about your new team, Major. We are the bad guys now. The moment we commandeered this plane, and its pilots, the Army had a plan prepared just in case something like this happened. Now, we call our handlers, tell them the pilots are dead, bury the bodies, and destroy the plane. They will handle the pilots' families, and the other loose ends.” She walks closer to her superior and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry you got this punishment. I really am. But now someone is trying to kill us, and we still have a job to do, so there’s no time for morals. Let’s clean this up, and get somewhere less open, so we can figure out our next steps.”

Sauda lets Maddox go, and steps over the bodies at her feet as she goes to help her team unload their stuff from the plane.

“Are we really going to bury the bodies?” Maddox calls out to her.

“Of course not… that’s too much work. We’re going to put them all in the plane, and blow it up,” Sauda says, “Let's hurry, so we can be out of here before the authorities arrive.”

Dix, Shaw, and Malik stare at her as she walks closer to them, no doubt shocked at the news of their job, as the rest of the team—her old team continues to pull their equipment off of the plane. They were used to this; they were pros. Sauda wasn’t going to wait for the rest to catch up. They would have to acclimate on the job.

“Fingers, how’s your Arabic?”

Ashleigh stands straight and looks at her Captain, eyes wide and trying to avoid the dead bodies and the blood. “Perfect, Captain.”

“We need vehicles and a safe spot to regroup. You arrange that for us and we’ll handle the rest of this.”

“Roger, Captain!”

Sauda watches her sprint off, noticing her hand resting on the butt of a gun at her waist. Though sometimes it seemed like Ashleigh was fragile and too gentle to be in the group, she still knew how to take care of herself. She was military trained, just like the rest of them, and knew her way around a gun. She just avoided the bodies and the bloodshed when she could. Where Sauda, a half Demon, was used to getting blood on her talons.

“All right. Let’s move quickly. Comb through everything, and leave no trace behind.”