Christian wrapped his arms around her like he was afraid she’d vanish. One hand splayed across her back; the other cradled her head.
His voice was rough when it came. “I’ve got you, Gem. I’ve got you.”
The dam inside her split wide, all the terror and rage and disbelief pouring out in shallow sobs that barely made a sound. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to fall apart. But her body had other ideas.
Her whole frame trembled as Christian held her tighter.
“Comms and rings off,” Imara said, tossing hers out the window. Hawk went next, then Christian reached around Gemma, ripping his off and chucking them into the wind.
“Route?” Hawk asked.
“South, past the city,” Nadine answered. “I’ll let you know when to touch down. There’s a place we can hide until they find the skimmer and think we’ve run.”
“Got it,” Imara answered.
“Karma?” Christian asked.
“She’ll catch up to us in a bit.”
Gemma had so many questions, but the tattoo on her arm shimmered a brighter violet now, and she could feel the hum of power rising in her chest. She needed to be extra careful howdeeply she let herself feel emotion, or she would end up hurting the very people who’d saved her life. Who she loved with her entire being. The questions needed to wait until she had a firmer grasp on her heart and was more level-headed.
Christian pressed his lips to Gemma’s hair when she clung tighter to his shirt and tried to steady her breath. “You’re okay now,” he said. “You’re safe.”
The skimmer’s hull was still warm behind them when they veered off a ridge, ducking beneath a wall of scorched brush. Following Nadine, Christian shoved aside the branches, pulling Gemma through after him. Imara and Hawk were close behind. Christian’s boots slammed against cracked dirt, his ankles flexing on loose gravel.
“Keep moving!” Nadine called.
Together, the five of them hurried down a narrow slope that curved under a dead pipeline and into the base of a ravine. There was no path from there, no cover. Just rock and dust and heat. Christian kept his arm curled around Gemma, guiding heracross the uneven slope as Nadine led them east, up the ravine mouth.
The sun was almost below the horizon, but the heat clung to the ground like a second skin. Christian’s shirt was soaked, a thin layer of red dust clinging to it like paint. Sweat dripped down his spine. His shoulder burned from the bullet that had nicked him, but he didn’t slow. All that mattered was getting Gemma to safety.
Behind him, Hawk stumbled and swore.
“Still with us, Patch?” Imara called out.
“Just conducting a very thorough stability check,” Hawk shot back.
At last, they crested the ridge.
Open desert. Rolling red dunes. Nothing to hide behind for kilometers.
Gemma slowed beside him, her breath ragged. “This is suicide. We’re exposed.”
“Without your comms and rings, they wouldn’t know which direction we ran. And we cut back on our trail often enough. Their trackers couldn’t follow us,” Nadine replied. “Odds are, they’ll think we ran toward Perileos. Not away from it.”
Christian didn’t like those odds. “How far?”
“Another kilometer. The mouth of the cave is small. Barely big enough for redhead here to fit through.” She tipped her head in Hawk’s direction. “They’d have to be looking really close to see it.”
Christian pursed his lips. They could manage that. Hopefully.
They took off at a dead sprint. Nadine was by far the fastest in the group, even quicker than him. Proof she’d spent a lot of time on Reva’s surface. It was no wonder the Dissent were so hard to find when they were probably spread out in places no one even knew existed.
Again and again, Christian flicked his gaze to Gemma, who ran at his side with eyes full of tears. He couldn’t wait to have her back in his arms. Stars, he’d missed her so fucking much.
A few hundred meters later, Imara stumbled. Hawk caught her by the waist before she hit the ground.
“Easy,” he said.
