Please let her be okay.
The pressure in her chest coiled tight. She reached down and snapped the rubber band around her wrist.
Eli glanced at her. “Panic attacks?”
“Not recently,” she said, eyes still on the tree line ahead. “Don’t worry. I won’t have one now.” She hoped.
The drone feed stayed dark, and the trees grew thicker around them. Delaney kept her eyes ahead and her breath steady, doing everything she could to push down the fear curling under her ribs.
They reached the mouth of the trail, tires skidding slightly as Eli turned the wheel hard and pushed the SUV onto the uneven path. The trees swallowed them quickly, their branches scraping the roof like claws. The deeper they drove, the narrower it became, ruts and rocks shaking through the frame.
Then Delaney saw it.
“There,” she said, pointing ahead. “The van.”
It was parked crooked beneath a dense cluster of trees, maybe fifty yards off the road, the back doors closed and no movement around it. Too quiet.
Eli brought the SUV to a hard stop, already reaching for his weapon. Delaney did the same, adrenaline pulsing sharp and fast in her veins.
They jumped out, boots hitting the ground in unison.
“Eyes up,” Eli reminded her, sweeping the woods with his intense gaze. “This could be a trap.”
Delaney kept her weapon raised as she moved beside him, her senses alert to every sound. Leaves rustled faintly. A bird cried out overhead. But no voices. No footsteps. No movement.
They crept closer, the van now just a few feet away. Then Eli stopped suddenly and threw his arm across her path.
“Back,” he said sharply. “Take cover.”
Delaney didn’t argue. She darted behind a tree just as a deep, hollowboomshattered the air.
The van exploded in a roar of fire and smoke, the shockwave knocking her back a step and pelting the ground with debris. Heat rushed past her face, and the trees lit orange from the blast.
Delaney ducked lower, heart pounding. And her only thought was a silent, furious question—had they just watched Ava die?
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Chapter Six
----- ? ----
Eli stood in the living room of Delaney’s cabin and listened to the sound of the shower running in the back room. The water masked most everything else, but he could still hear the occasional creak of pipes and the low thump of movement.
They’d made it back to Crossfire Ops headquarters less than thirty minutes ago, riding in near silence. Neither of them had wanted to be the first to say what they were both thinking.
That explosion was meant to erase someone. The explosion that might have killed Ava. Or hell, maybe she hadn’t even been inside the van. They just didn’t know and wouldn’t until an explosives team had had a chance to go through the wreckage.
That wreckage had left Delaney covered in mud and smoke and ash. That’s why she hadn’t argued when he suggested she shower and regroup. He’d gotten hit with the same mess, but he wasn’t ready to disappear into his own cabin just yet. Not until he made sure she was all right.
So he stayed.
The inside of her place was exactly what he’d expected. Neat. Ordered. Everything in its place. No clutter, no mess, nothing out of line. Not like his, even though their floor plans were identical.
She’d chosen soothing neutral colors for the furniture and décor. Soft grays, warm creams, pale woods. It had the quiet calm of a space meant for recharging, for keeping chaos at bay.
His place, on the other hand, was a mishmash of things he liked the look of. A too-large leather armchair, a rustic coffee table he found at a flea market, a painting of a desert canyon someone had given him after a mission in Arizona. It didn’t all match, and it definitely didn’t look like it had a design plan. But it was his.
Delaney’s cabin felt… deliberate. Like every item had earned its spot. Just like everything else about her.
