Chapter 5 Savannah
FIVE
Savannah
"Home sweet bolt hole," he says, lighting a camping lantern.
"You can have the sleeping bag," he says, not looking at me. "I'll keep watch."
"You need sleep too."
"I don't sleep much. Occupational hazard." He's already checking window sightlines, cataloging approaches, and shifting into sentry mode.
I set up my laptop on the small table to work and process the Prometheus data while my brain still functions.
Later looms, but for now…I work.
The encryption is layered like an onion, each level requiring different keys. Nathan taught me some of these techniques, not knowing I'd use them against him.
The irony tastes bitter.
Layer three uses a Vigenère cipher variant with a key based on—I stop, staring at the screen.
The key.
It's our anniversary date combined with the coordinates of where we first kissed. Nathan built this encryption using our relationship as the foundation. Either he's more sentimental than I thought, or he's taunting me.
"Bastard," I mutter, typing harder than necessary.
"Problem?" Sawyer glances over from his position by the window.
"The encryption key. It's based on..." I trail off, not wanting to admit how deep the betrayal goes. "Personal information. Nathan's using our relationship as part of the cipher."
His jaw tightens. "He's trying to hurt you even through the code."
"Or he never thought I'd be the one breaking it. Maybe he assumed he'd kill me before I got this far."
Sawyer moves closer, studies the screen over my shoulder. This close, I can feel the heat coming off him, smell that cedar scent mixed with sweat from our climb.
"Can you break it?"
"Already am." My fingers fly over keys, anger making me focused. "He thinks he knows me, but he only knows the version I showed him. The real me is much less nice."
"Good." His hand rests on the back of my chair, not quite touching me but close enough that I feel the almost-contact, like an electric shock. "Nice doesn't survive this kind of betrayal."
Sawyer moves to the window, rifle assembled from his pack, scanning the darkness for threats that followed us.
"How long do we stay here?" I ask, deep into decryption protocols.
"As long as we need to. But..." He turns from the window. "You need to sleep. Real sleep, not catnapping in cars. When's the last time you got more than two hours?"
I try to remember. "Four days ago? Maybe five?"
"That's what I thought." He pulls out the sleeping bag and unrolls it. "Sleep. I'll keep watch."
"You need sleep."
"I'm used to it. Perks of chronic insomnia." He checks his rifle again, movements automatic. "Savannah, let me protect you. Go to sleep."
The words unlock something in my chest. For three days, I've been alone, trusting no one, constantly moving. The idea of sleeping safely while someone else stands guard is almost overwhelming.
I curl up in the sleeping bag, which smells like him—cedar and gunpowder and safety. It's a mummy bag, designed for one person, but surprisingly roomy. Probably because I’m nearly half his size.
The temperature's dropping outside, and even through the down filling, I'm cold.
"You're shivering," Sawyer observes from his position by the window.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not." He moves from the window, does something to the door—a wedge under it, cans balanced on the handle that will fall if anyone tries to enter.
Early warning system.
"We'll hear anyone coming up the ladder. I can take a break from watch."
He sits next to the sleeping bag, and I shift to make room, but there isn't any. We're pressed together through the down fabric, his body heat seeping through.
"Tell me about Tyler," I say, needing conversation to distract from how aware I am of him.
He's quiet for a moment. "Tyler Brennan.
Best PJ I ever worked with. Could find survivors in impossible conditions and had a sixth sense for where people would be.
Married his high school sweetheart, had two daughters who look just like him.
" His voice softens. "He was teaching me to surf.
Said I was too rigid, needed to learn to flow with something instead of fighting it. "
"Did you? Learn?"
"Never got the chance. Our last mission was supposed to be a routine extraction, a downed pilot in neutral territory.
But the intel was wrong. RPG hit us as we were lifting off with the pilot.
Tyler was at the door, managing the winch.
The explosion threw him back into the cabin, trapping him under equipment that shifted. "
I reach out from the sleeping bag, find his hand. He grips it like a lifeline.
"The fuel tank was compromised. I could smell it leaking, and knew we had maybe minutes.
The pilots were dead on impact, the rescued pilot was unconscious, and Tyler was screaming.
Not from pain—he was telling me to get the pilot out first. That's who he was.
Dying, and still trying to save everyone else. "
"But you stayed with him."
"I tried to lift the equipment, but it was the gun mount—bolted down, twisted from the impact.
I needed tools. Found a pry bar, started working on it, and my hands—" He looks at his scarred forearms. "The metal was already hot from the fire starting in the electrical systems. Skin just..
. melted off. But I kept pulling, kept trying. "
Tears run down my face, and I don't wipe them away. "How long?"
He leans in, and I meet him halfway—but this kiss isn’t like the others.
This one is born from pain and truth and the raw, trembling place he’s kept locked for years.
His mouth meets mine softly at first, almost reverent, like he’s afraid he might break the moment if he pushes too hard. But then I exhale against his lips, a helpless, aching sound, and something in him snaps loose.
His hand slides from my cheek into my hair, tightening just enough to hold me still as he deepens the kiss, slow but devastating. Not hunger—need. The need to feel something other than guilt. The need to be seen, held, wanted… even in the dark.
“Savannah…” he breathes against my mouth, like my name is the first clean inhale after smoke.
I shift into his lap without thinking, knees bracketing his hips, my hands sliding up his shoulders, over the tense muscles of his neck. The moment I settle against him, I feel it—his body surging up to meet mine in a hard, unmistakable response that steals the air from my lungs.
His breath punches out, sharp and involuntary, as if he hadn’t expected the effect I’d have on him—or how fast it would hit.
Heat floods through me at the contact, the rigid length of him pressing exactly where I’m already aching.
My thighs tighten instinctively, drawing us closer, and his hands clamp around my hips, fingers digging in like he’s fighting the urge to pull me tighter still.
The shock in his breath…
The hunger in his body…
It hits me like a spark catching dry tinder—and suddenly staying still feels impossible.
“This okay?” My voice is low, not timid. Offering him control, not distance.
His fingers flex in my hair. “More than okay.”
A whisper, rough and honest.
The space between us disappears completely. His lips trail along my jaw, slow at first, then deeper, more urgent. Heat spills through me, pooling low and hard, tightening everything inside me. I tilt my head for him, giving him access, wanting his mouth on my throat, wanting him everywhere.
He kisses down the line of my neck, breath hot against my skin.
“You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” he murmurs, voice a low scrape that sends a trembling shiver straight down my spine.
I do. God, I do.
Because he’s doing the same to me.
My hands slip under his shirt, palms meeting warm, scarred skin. His breath punches out at the contact, and he grips my waist, drawing me closer, holding on like he’s afraid I might vanish.
“I shouldn’t want this,” he mutters against my throat.
“But you do.” I press my lips to the corner of his mouth, a slow, deliberate tease. “And so do I.”
His forehead rests against mine, breaths mingling, heat wrapping around us in the cramped darkness of the shelter. Something in him softens. Something in me opens—wide, vulnerable, wanting.
He swallows hard. “Savannah… this probably isn’t a good idea.”
A bitter-sweet truth. His voice is rough with restraint, the kind that costs him something.
“I know,” I breathe.
And I do.
I know every reason we should back away, breathe, regroup.
But knowing and wanting are two very different things.
I lean back just enough to put a sliver of space between us—just enough to reach for the hem of my shirt.
His eyes widen, gray gone molten as I peel the fabric upward, over my ribs, over my head, and drop it onto the sleeping bag. The cold brushes my bare skin; his gaze sets it instantly on fire.
His breath catches. “Savannah…”
“I almost died tonight.” My voice shakes—but not from fear. From certainty. Want. Need. “Don’t deny me this. Not when I’m right here. Not when you’re right here.”
He stares at me like I’m a cliff he wants to leap from.
Torn.
Hunger battling caution.
Then his resolve cracks.
He lifts a hand, slow as a man touching something sacred, and lets his fingertips trace the curve of my waist. Heat blooms under his touch, a low, spreading ache that pulls a quiet gasp from me. His thumb brushes the underside of my breast, barely there—but I arch into him, inviting more.
“You’re sure?” His voice is a rasp.
"Very sure." I grind against him, my knees sinking into the sleeping bag on either side of his hips. The way he inhales—sharp, stunned—sends a thrill through me.
His hands come up, gripping my hips, holding me in place as if he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he doesn’t. The tension in him fractures, the last threads of restraint snapping. He pulls me closer until the heat of him presses exactly where I’m aching for friction.
“Oh God…” he mutters against my collarbone, mouth trailing fire over my skin. “Since you kissed me after that jump, I’ve been trying not to imagine this.”
“Stop trying.” I shudder, fingers digging into his shoulders. "Start doing."