Free Of Alliance and Rebellion by Micah Persell Page B

wanted to say something more but after a few moments held out placating hands. “Okay, you’re fine.”
    A derisive sound escaped the Humvee, and Max jerked around to find Luke staring at him, not even trying to hide the fact that he’d made the noise. Max frowned at him and spoke to Eli and Jericho without looking. “Get us out of here,” Max commanded. “The guards could stumble upon us at any moment.”
    “Actually,” Jericho said, “there’s really no rush.”
    Max froze. “No rush?” Had he somehow mistaken the definition of those words? “They’ll capture us again!”
    “There are, maybe, five guards left,” Eli said. “I think that’s what our intel said. We don’t know for sure why you three were separated from us, but we think you were hidden here in case shit hit the fan back in the States. If the military didn’t know you existed, they couldn’t take you away. But now Taylor’s dead, and they won’t have the manpower to locate us and come after us. Funding got cut; everyone left. Operation: Middle of the Garden, as we knew it, is done.”
    Max’s mouth went dry. “Taylor’s dead?” After the five of them—Eli, Jericho, Oliver, Luke, and Max—had found the Garden of Eden while on tour in Afghanistan, Major Taylor had coerced them into testing the fruit from the Tree of Eternal Life for the army so their families would be told they were dead and then be compensated rather than
just
told they were dead.
    Eli nodded. “Killed him myself.”
    Max tilted his head to the side, dreading the understanding that was beginning to dawn. “Taylor’s dead and no one’s left?” His revenge. God, what would his purpose be now?
    The smile on Eli’s face slipped. “Uh—”
    “Forget it,” Max said quickly, wiping all emotion away before he could collapse under the pressure behind his heart. “I don’t want to be here a second more.” Without another word, Max crawled into the back of the Humvee with his men and slammed the door behind him. Jericho and Eli hopped into the front along with a male angel Max had never seen before. Max did a double take, viewing the new angel’s long, dark hair, broad shoulders, and vicious countenance before forcing himself to act as though this new angel were no big deal. As though Max saw fucking
angels
every day. As they drove away, abandoning the blind, Max knew he did not need to look back for
his
angel.
    Though he couldn’t see her because she sat on the side of his good eye, he could feel her right beside him.

Chapter Seven
    Operation: Middle of the Garden Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
    She could not leave him. She couldn’t leave him right after he’d squeezed her tight for comfort upon gaining his freedom. She couldn’t leave him when he saw his friends for the first time in nine years and his attention was directed away from her. She couldn’t leave him when they drove off, and he did not even look back to see if she was still there. She couldn’t leave him when they boarded a plane and flew to the States. And she could not leave him now that he was safe and sound inside the Operation: Middle of the Garden military compound that housed the Trees that had been supplanted from the Garden of Eden.
    More than anything, Anahita wished she could leave him. And more than anything, she was glad that she couldn’t. She had felt many forbidden emotions over the centuries of her existence, but she had rarely felt confusion. She could safely say she did
not
care for it.
    She stood, now in the center of an enormous, domed room, watching with hesitant fascination as the sunlight filtering in through the glass of the dome picked up red highlights in her Temptation’s hair. He stared, with a stiff back, at the Tree of Eternal Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil where they grew in the center of the room.
    The Trees were gorgeous. Their branches stretched upwards and outwards, nearly brushing the glass of the dome. They grew on a much larger