Duke forced himself upright, scanning through smoke and drifting embers. His ears rang, but shapes sharpened.
Ranger rose from a crouch, one sleeve torn, blood dark against his forearm.
Ben staggered back a step, his hand pressed to his side, his face pale but focused.
All of them on their feet.
All of them alive.
Barely.
Duke’s stomach twisted as the realization landed. The blast had been placed to kill.
If Andi hadn’t yelled for them when she did . . .
His gaze snapped to the ground where the trailer had stood. The crater smoked, edges scorched. Wires glinted briefly before melting into blackened nothing.
Someone had set up that device fast. It must have been on a timer.
Duke looked behind him and saw Andi running toward him.
She crossed the distance with no hesitation or fear written across her face. Her breath was ragged and her eyes locked on him as if he were the only thing still standing.
She reached him and grabbed his jacket, hands sliding up his arms, checking, searching. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
She didn’t believe him. She never did.
Her hands pressed against his chest, his shoulders, her touch grounding and fierce.
When she found no blood, no obvious breaks, her breath broke free.
Relief washed over her face.
Her reaction hit Duke harder than the blast.
He saw it then—clear and undeniable. The depth of it. The fear she’d tried to keep locked down. The care she hadn’t meant to show yet.
Despite everything he hadn’t told her.
Despite the things he carried that didn’t belong to this moment.
Andi still loved him.
Her forehead pressed briefly against his chest. Duke didn’t move.
Instead, he scanned the darkness beyond the firelight. The desert stretched wide again, smoke drifting low, the silence returning in broken pieces.
Just then, a sound carried through the night.
A shout, hoarse and distant.
Duke’s head snapped toward it.
The sound came again, thinner this time.
Andi whispered, “Is that?—?”
