I held her close, keeping her secure as I chanced one look up.
The wall of the house was littered with bullet holes. Since I had been blocking her, pinning her to the surface, it was clear that they’d been aiming atme.
And she’d pushed me to safety.
What the fuck?
She pushed at me, not to break away and use this as a ploy to escape, but for us to move it. Now.
“Get up. Go. Go. Go!” She shoved at me, urging me to snap into action.
I didn’t need her encouragement to move. All I had to manage was keeping her safe and with me. Without another word, I grabbed her with my arm banded around her waist. Hauling her up as she scrambled to her hands and knees, I twisted to stay on her right, giving her cover from the direction of the gunfire that had paused for a second.
“Go,” she urged, not moving without me as we hunched over and crawled away.
Whoever was ambushing us didn’t quit. The second we got on our feet, running like hell, they fired again.
I put my hand at her head, urging her to crouch. I was taller than her, so that alone would hide her from a bullet, but she wasn’t having it. Twisting in an awkward run, both her hands in front of her, she struggled to get a good gait.
While she wasn’t straining to keep up, she wasn’t free to move like she needed to.
We ducked. We wove around trees. We plowed through draping vines.
No matter where we ran, in a blind, zig-zagging sprint into the jungle, we couldn’t lose those assholes.
She slammed her back against a fat tree while I skirted over with her, waiting for a moment to gauge which way would be safest to go.
“Cartel,” she guessed, breathing hard.
I nodded, thinking the same as I grabbed her hands.
“If you stayed near Cozumel, then?—”
“Yeah,” I replied, strangely glad that we were on the same page again. Like partners operating on a similar bandwidth. Not adversaries. After taking my knife out, I slashed at the ropes that prevented her from getting a decent stride.
“Where’s my gun?” she asked sharply.
I narrowed my eyes at her, still focusing on detecting movement in the brush behind her.
“Are you kidding me?” She shoved at my chest. “Two of us being armed is better than?—”
I reached into my pocket and handed her the second gun on me. Nothing was left behind in that house, one we definitely couldn’t return to now.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I warned as I slapped it into her hand.
“Only away from here,” she bit back, taking the safety off and jerking her head to the side when gunfire returned.
I nodded my head in the other direction, ordering her to go first.
If she tried to outrun me, I’d catch her.
If she attempted to hide from me, I’d find her.
She didn’t do either. We ran together, forced on the run like this. Making sure she stayed with me took half of my energy, but it wasn’t only because I wasn’t ready to release her. Her captivity wasn’t done yet, not by my standards.
As we sprinted like a pair, both of us turning to fire at the Cartel thugs chasing us through the jungle, I realized my concern was due to something much deeper than not wanting to lose my captive.
It was because I wanted her.
