Chapter 43 Raine
Raine
The ridge was a graveyard of mud and smoke. Floodlights cut sharp beams through the rain, throwing jagged shadows across broken trees and twisted metal. Troopers swarmed, voices barking orders, but all I saw was him.
Adam.
He stood in the wreckage, broad shoulders heaving, his face streaked with blood and rain. His team looked half-dead around him, but he was upright—barely.
Alive. I jumped from the back of the truck, and ran.
My legs gave out before I realized I was moving. I stumbled, then ran, boots sucking at the mud, ribs screaming with every step. “Adam!” My voice cracked, ripped raw, but I didn’t care.
His head snapped toward me. For a heartbeat, disbelief crossed his face. Then something deeper—something that made my chest ache. Relief.
I slammed into him, arms wrapping tight around his neck, clinging like I’d never let go again. The world tilted, the ground spinning, but his arms locked around me, iron strong, anchoring me against his chest.
“You’re here,” I choked, breathless against his shoulder. “God, you’re alive.”
He buried his face in my wet hair, his voice low and rough. “I thought I’d lost you.”
Tears stung my eyes, hot despite the cold. My body shook with sobs I hadn’t let out until now. “Not yet,” I whispered, clutching him tighter. “Not ever.”
For that moment, nothing else existed—not the storm, not the blood, not the enemies still lurking in the dark. Just him. Just us.
And the unspoken truth burning between us:
we’d both nearly broken tonight.
But together, somehow, we hadn’t.
We were in a room that looked like a giant holding cell everyone getting bandaged and sewn up when Adam looked around.
“What happened to Logan?”
My heart fell into my stomach. Logan.
“I don’t know.”
My eyes looked around, frantic with worry.
“We’ll find him,” Adam said.