He hit the railing on the stairs at an angle, his arm slamming into the bent metal hard enough to break the bone. He yelled around the sharp, piercing pain that radiated through his arm as the bone tore through his skin beneath the uniform he wore. Warm blood seeped through the fabric, and he dazedly touched the injury with his other hand but flinched away from the agony that simple touch produced.
He lay there, eyes closed, and tried to breathe.
The distant sound of emergency sirens wasn’t enough to drown out the sound of the opposite train doors peeling open however long later. Oliver opened his eyes, wishing he had his gun, and half wondered if playing dead would get him out of this mess alive.
The door was finally wrenched open as far as it would go, revealing a jagged square of blue sky before it was blocked out by a black-clad body. “Raven?”
There was a time in his life that Oliver would’ve been happy never to hear Liam’s voice again. Today, staring up as Liam climbed down to where he was sprawled in the train wreckage, Oliver was glad he was alive to answer.
“I’m never taking the train again.”
Liam let out a thick little laugh as he quickly and competently made his way to Oliver’s side. “Medic is on the way.”
“Good.” Oliver closed his eyes, trying to remember his lungs were meant to breathe for him. “Target got away, didn’t he?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
Oliver grimaced, swallowing against the taste of blood on his tongue. “But—”
A gloved hand gently touched his bruised face, stroking over his skin. “Raven. It doesn’t matter. Let’s worry about getting you out of here.”
And maybe it was the knock around he’d received from a metahuman and a train crash that loosened Oliver’s tongue. He’d blame the wounds sustained for the words that came next. “I’m not yours to worry about.”
Because he wasn’t.
He never had been.
8
Sin to Forgive a Broken Promise
“We should probably head backto headquarters.”
Liam looked away from the swarm of first responders working the aftermath of the train derailment to stare at Samaira. Everyone maneuvering through the wreckage wore PPE suits as a precaution against contamination. The explosion that had hit the train might have been a Splice bomb, and no one was taking any chances. Traces had yet to be found of the deadly chemical, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t present.
While it could no longer harm Liam and his team, they knew better than to get in the way of the first responders. There were protocols in place during situations like this, and every UMG team knew to let the professionals handle the aftermath.
“Just making sure everyone remains safe,” Liam said.
Samaira discreetly gestured at the swarm of camera drones hovering in the air down the track beyond the cordoned off area. The media was camped a far distance away, outside the quarantine zone, but that’s what the drones were for. Liam’s gaze skimmed over the machines, glad the hard helmet, tactical goggles, and filtration mask he wore hid his grimace from the media.
“The media knows the Royal Legion responded to the threat, and they know you went into the field with us. You should probably get out of the glare of the spotlight before somebody asks you for a comment,” Samaira said.
“Do you honestly think I can’t figure out how to sayno commentto them? I was trained on how to manipulate the media since birth.”
“I’m well aware of how you deal with the media, but in this instance, it’s not our job. So let’s be off before a reporter tries to corner you for an exclusive sound bite that will end up giving your parents a headache the same way you do me.”
“Purely out of love, Europa.”
“Out of something,” she drawled. “Shall we?”
Liam sighed, hating that she was right. He wasn’t angry at Samaira though, just the situation. Chapman might’ve allowed him to be deployed in the field for this mission, but it didn’t feel the same. His autonomy was gone, and that was something Liam thought he’d been getting used to over the past year or so. It turned out, maybe he hadn’t.
“If you insist.”
“I do. The Union Jacks will remain onsite.”
Under any other circumstances, Liam would’ve argued with her about staying, would’ve tried to stay in the field after fighting so hard to return. But when he closed his eyes, all he saw was Oliver’s twisted body in the mangled wreck of the train car. When he had made it to Oliver’s position, Liam hadn’t known if he would find a live person or a body, and the thought of the other man being dead had gutted him in that moment.
