“Copy.”
“Other survivors?”
“Hold,” she murmured, her gut tightening.
Her training kicked in hard. Memories of the Farm snapped into place. She cut her harness, hit the deck hard, the cabin groaning above her like an animal that knew it was dying. Heat licked through a torn panel. She felt the weight of her Glock before she saw it and holstered on instinct. The carbine was wedged under a seat. She yanked it free, pain ripping her vision into gray for a second. She forced it clear.
Left shoulder pounding with the beat of her heart. Her right wrist burned, and her head spun a bit, in a way that made the edges of the world shorten and black. She tested the right hand on the weapon. She could close. She could press. She could shoot. Good. Sprained, probably. Useless, no.
Every shift of her body was agony, but she crawled to the pilots, touched each neck, and sighed softly. “Pilots are gone.” She crawled out through a crack where the fuselage had peeled like a tin can. The night hit her skin like a wet animal, hot and heavy, the smell of jet fuel knifing through the green. One of her guys was beside the chopper. The other not far from him, both motionless. Their faces and chests were still. She checked them anyway and swore. Both of them had been with her for years. Good men.
“I’m the only survivor,” she said, dazed. For a second, grief clawed at her throat, but training took over. Feel later. Move now.
“Copy,” Joker responded, his voice heavy. “Move away from the wreckage. Team is inbound. ETA forty minutes.”
Her breath shook, just once. “Affirm. Moving.”
The jungle took a long breath.
Then came the voices.
Men.
Far away. Too many. Moving toward her.
She staggered into darkness, weapon up along the left wall of trunk and vine, using roots for cover, breath shallow to spare the rib and her injured shoulder.
She put twenty paces between herself and the fire before her body refused to keep pretending. The left arm was painful, and the right wrist sore and stiff. She dropped to a knee behind a buttressed ceiba, set the carbine in a fork of root, and took stock fast and cruel.
With her injuries, it wasn’t ideal to keep using them, but she had no choice.
The ache in her skull reminded her of what she’d taken to get here. Every heartbeat drummed behind her eyes, sharp and heavy, the kind of pain that made the edges of the world shimmer. She blinked hard, forcing the blur to clear. No time to go down now.
The air smelled of sage and burnt pine. For a moment, she saw firelight flicker in the undergrowth, and figures circling it, indistinct, their faces luminous with paint and shadow.
Her head had dropped, her vision blurring. She forced it up.
She looped her belt to sling it tight to her torso. The right wrist pulsed with pain, but she used it, fingers white around the carbine. Focus. She ordered.
Every step drove fire through her shoulders, but she kept moving, ducking low through vines and thorns until she reached a small clearing.
The heat grew unbearable. Her arms pulsed with swelling. She needed water, the colder, the better, to keep the damage down.
Following the sound of rushing water, she pushed through dense undergrowth until moonlight broke ahead. A waterfall spilled down a rock face into a clear pool, mist rising in the humid air.
She stripped off her vest and waded in, the cold hitting like a shock. Her breath caught. Pain flared, then dulled. The current wrapped around her, pulling heat and blood and fear out with it. She ducked under the pouring water, hidden, bracing her back, half-submerged, until her shaking eased.
The roar of the falls drowned out every other sound, a wall between her and whoever was still searching.
Her pulse slowed. Her breathing evened out. For the first time since the crash, she let herself feel the stillness.
A whisper slid through the back of her mind. You could die here without ever knowing what life is really like. Do you want that after you’ve tasted his lips, held his body, saw his gorgeous spirit, ached for him with every beat of your heart? Is it worth it? This isolation, this torment?
Dakota Locklear. Her Bear…
She missed him so much, it was like her body was nothing but pain. How they parted gnawed at her. She had been so harsh, so dismissive. Having him leave was far from her mind, but it was as if someone took her over, or had that just her fear?
Coward.
