His hands closed around her waist and he pulled her into his lap, settling her against his chest. One arm wrapped around her waist, anchoring her to him. The other hand came up to rest against her ribs, careful of the bruises but needing the contact.
Rachel didn't protest. She leaned into him, letting his warmth seep into her cold skin. Her head found the hollow of his shoulder, her hand resting against his chest where his heartbeat still hammered too fast.
"Logan," she murmured. "I can sit—"
"No," he said. His arm tightened around her. "You stay right here."
He couldn't let her go. Couldn't put any distance between them. Not yet. Maybe not for a long time.
Rachel's fingers curled into his chest, holding on. "Okay."
The door closed. Torch started the engine. The convoy began to move, gravel crunching beneath the tires.
Ghost's hand moved in slow circles against her back, the same rhythm from before. His face pressed into her hair, breathing her in.
53
Ghost's arms stayed locked around her. She could feel the tension in his muscles, the way his biceps stayed flexed even though they'd been sitting like this for ten minutes already. If he loosened his grip even slightly, she wasn't sure she could hold herself together.
His hand moved along her spine in slow, rhythmic strokes. The same path each time. Down from her shoulders to the small of her back. Up again. Down. Up.
Outside, the road wound through darkness. Torch drove with his eyes fixed ahead, headlights catching fence posts and scrub brush as they passed. His hands gripped the wheel hard enough that the leather creaked under his palms. His jaw kept clenching and unclenching.
In the third row, Carver slumped against the window. His shoulder sat at an awkward angle, braced between the seat and the door frame. His shirt had soaked through with blood, dark andwet across his chest and down his side. The bandage Frost had wrapped around him in the parking lot was already failing, fresh red seeping through the white gauze. He didn't complain. Just stared out the window at nothing.
Reaper sat beside him, watching the wound. "We'll patch you up at the house," he said, voice low.
Carver's lips twitched. "Fantastic. Love a good field surgery."
No one laughed.
Up front, Brick sat in the passenger seat with his rifle across his lap. He hadn't holstered it since the warehouse. His eyes tracked the darkness outside through the side mirror, scanning for headlights that shouldn't be there.
Rachel's fingers moved slightly against Ghost's chest, touching dried blood. Some of it was hers, she recognized the smear pattern from where her wrists had bled. Some wasn't. She didn't want to think about whose it was.
Images flashed through her mind. The chair. The single bulb overhead, bright enough to make her eyes water even when she closed them. Langley's voice, slow and conversational like they were discussing the weather. Her own pulse hammering in her ears so loud she could barely hear his words. The tape being ripped off. The fabric tearing.
She hadn't cried in that warehouse. But now her muscles wouldn't stop their fine tremor.
Ghost's hand kept moving along her back, steady and constant.
The comms crackled.
Torch reached to adjust the volume without taking his eyes off the road. Echo's voice came through from the lead vehicle, flat and clipped. "All teams accounted for. Hale's gonna be pissed when he finds out. We torched his warehouse, killed his partner, and cut off a pipeline they've been using for years."
A pause. Static hissed through the speaker.
"They're gonna retaliate."
No one in the vehicle answered. The words just hung there in the air between them.
Rachel didn't move. Ghost's hand never stopped its slow path along her spine.
She closed her eyes and focused on his heartbeat beneath her palm, still too fast, but starting to slow. Down and up, down and up. The rhythm of his hand on her back matching the rhythm of her breathing.
They had maybe a day. Maybe less. Before Hale came looking for answers.
But right now, wrapped in Ghost's arms with his team around them, she let herself breathe.
