25. Oliver
25
“Run. Get away. Run,” Mya murmured as I held on to her.
Her face was screwed up tight, as if in the throes of a nightmare. It killed me to see her in pain, far more than the burn in my arm and the ache in my jaw.
We’d landed in the thick of the woods, and I was fairly certain we were on the other side of Emerald Lake. Thankfully, Malcolm was tracking the transmitter I’d removed from the chute and shoved into my pocket after I’d cut us free when we’d not-so-gracefully fallen onto our asses.
It had been hard to navigate with Mya unconscious, arms and legs dangling limp while attached to me, so we’d had a tough landing.
She’d fainted a few times, probably more from her fear of falling than due to a fear of heights, which I knew she didn’t have.
As we’d closed in on the ground, she’d passed out again and headbutted my jaw, and she’d remained asleep ever since.
Of course, it also had to start raining again. Nothing like walking through the mud with an unconscious woman in my arms while getting nailed in the face by water. I’d slipped twice and somehow channeled every ounce of strength in me to get back up without dropping Mya.
My bad shoulder hurt like a motherfucker, but I had no plans to force her to wake up so she could walk. I’d taken two breaks by leaning against a tree to catch my breath. But Mya was safe. We survived. So, that was all I cared about.
“Oliver!” At the sound of Malcolm’s voice in the distance, I almost cried.
I did collapse to my knees, though. I slammed my ass back onto my heels, going down in the mud without losing hold of Sleeping Beauty.
I kept myself slightly bent over her face to try and shield her from some of the rain, a bit shocked the water hitting us had yet to wake her.
“There you are.” Malcolm came rushing over.
The guy was a solid six-four and all muscle, even at sixty. I was glad my father had him in his corner over the years, I only wish Dad had also been in mine.
And not just in the shadows, but where I could’ve seen him.
Not what I needed to think about, especially with my arms tensed and locked up, starting to lose feeling from holding Mya for the last ten or fifteen minutes.
“You hear from my dad?”
“He was able to land, on ground, not in the water. He’s a hell of a pilot. He’s on his way to meet up with Cindy now. I’ll text him you’re good, and when he knows it’s safe and he’s not being followed, he’ll come to my place.”
Well, thank fuck for that news. At least I could give Mya something good to focus on when she finally woke up.
“Give her to me. I got her.” I let Malcolm take her, and my arms remained extended, still working to regain feeling in them. “My Tahoe is close. Can you make it?”
“Yeah, just get her inside. I’m coming.” I lifted my chin, a quiet plea not to worry about me.
Once his back was to me, and my arms finally worked again, I fell forward, hands slapping down in the mud as my head dropped forward. My chest ached, and I was fairly certain a sob managed to break free.
I hadn’t been that scared since Thailand, terrified those men would get to us and take her from me, and I’d fail again. I hadn’t let her know that, kept my shit together as long as she was with me, but now that I was alone . . .
I gave myself another minute to let go, to break down, before struggling to stand. And it was a struggle. Every part of me hurt, not just my shoulder.
Finally exiting the woods, I found Malcolm waiting for me outside his Tahoe, the back door open. “What happened to her?”
I limped over to the door, holding my leg, hating there was a new problem I was now dealing with. My knee. Nothing like getting older. “She’s afraid of jumping—into and out of things—and probably didn’t sleep well last night,” I explained. “Bad combination for skydiving. Then she whacked me in the jaw with that hard head of hers.”
“Ah, well, better her passing out than you. Your dad said there’s no AAD in your chute.”
The automatic activation device was a gadget that opened up the reserve canopy at a preset altitude if the jumper didn’t do it. “Yeah, you know I like to live dangerously. I took it out.” Not that I’d ever needed it before. I’d never passed out from free-falling. I’d also never guessed I’d be jumping from a plane with Mya strapped to my body.
“You kids these days. A bunch of daredevils,” Malcolm said, his deep Southern drawl cutting through both his tone and the downpour. All his time in Canada hadn’t stifled it one bit. “You going to get in, or make me stand out here in the rain all day?”
Right, I had to move. I released a dramatic sigh, shoved my wet hair from my eyes, then ducked my head to get inside. Mya was stretched out on the seat, so I had to shift her head up to rest it on my lap.
Once behind the wheel, Malcolm met my eyes in the rearview mirror. I was still in a bit of shock from everything that’d happened, but could tell he was waiting for me to ask him something. When I didn’t, he filled in the blanks. “Vanessa put up my drone over your dad’s runway after your father radioed down to me. She counted five dead bodies. Two abandoned SUVs. Plus, the truck you left, and Cindy’s car since your dad took hers. Nothing or no one else, though.”
“That means Easton and Teddy hopefully got away safely and with one asshole alive for questioning.” I’d have to reach out to Falcon once we were at Malcolm’s for an update. But first, I needed to get Mya inside and in dry clothes, make sure she was okay.
“Run,” she whispered under her breath, stirring in her sleep on my lap.
I had to assume she was reliving what happened earlier, or in Thailand, and I couldn’t help but hold her cheek while staring at her wet, fluttering lashes.
When Malcolm pulled through the gates of his home, which was an old lodge he’d bought a while back and converted to a house, I released a pent-up breath of relief. Thankfully, Malcolm’s place was even more heavily protected and fortified than my dad’s.
Vanessa was on the porch, avoiding the rain, when we pulled in. She walked around to the side and joined us in the three-car garage.
When the garage door shut, Vanessa opened the car door for me. “Oh, Oliver.”
I stared at her in a daze. She had the same soulful expression that mirrored the one Mom once had in her gaze before those men stole it from her.
“You okay? Is she?”
“She’s just asleep, but okay.” Deep asleep, apparently. I knew I wouldn’t be able to carry her into the house, not with my shoulder feeling broken, right along with my heart.
“I got her, don’t worry.” Malcolm swapped positions with his wife, and I helped ease her over to him despite the burn tearing up my shoulder and arm.
Once he had her, I accepted Vanessa’s hand to get out since I was in shit shape.
“You don’t look so good yourself.” Vanessa hooked her arm around my side for support, helping me walk up the three stairs to go inside.
“Yeah, I’m not so good,” I admitted, not in the mood to suck it up and act okay. Hell, I didn’t have the energy to.
Malcolm found us in the living room a minute later, arms empty. “I put Mya on the guest bed in the last room down the hall. I don’t really think it's a good idea to leave her in those soaked clothes, though.”
“I grabbed a few things for you two before y’all came back, assuming you’d be soaked and dirty.” Vanessa pulled her arm from around my side, and I leaned against the wall so I didn’t collapse. “Do you want to go up there and help her, or do you want me to?”
“I better go up. I don’t want her waking up alone and freaking out about being in a strange place.” I accepted the clothes from Vanessa with my good arm. Well, at this point, it was simply better than my bad one.
Malcolm set a phone on top of the clothes. “A secure line to reach out to your people.”
My people. Were they mine again? Did what happened today force me back onto the team whether I was ready or not? Shit, I couldn’t think about that. “Thank you. Let me know when Dad reaches out, okay?”
“Sure. Why don’t you two rest up there until he’s here,” Vanessa suggested.
“You sure? I’m placing you both in danger by being here, and I don’t?—”
“We’re just fine, and you know that.” Malcolm’s piercing brown gaze shot to my face, his firm nod an unspoken warning not to argue.
“Okay. If there’s a breach?—”
“You’ll be the first to know,” he cut me off again, then shooed me away.
It took me a bit longer than I’d have liked to make my way upstairs. I also knew if Mya was awake, she’d realize I was hurting, and I didn’t need her worrying about me. So, I’d have to do my best to put on a show and hide the pain.
I was familiar with the guest room at the end of the hall. I’d slept in there before, when my father and I’d had too much to drink to drive back home after dinner. Thankfully, it was on the other end of the house, so I hadn’t woken anyone from my nightmares.
The door was open, and Mya was in the process of sitting upright, lowering her feet to the floor while holding her head. “I was running, trying to get away, but I didn’t. They got me,” she said as if in a daze.
“No, we got away.”
This time, at least.
I set the clothes and phone on the dresser before joining her on the bed. It was a firm mattress, so it didn’t sink in from my weight, even if I had the urge to meld right into it and disappear.
She twisted the hem of her white tee, wringing out some of the water onto her wet jeans. Did she remember what happened? That she’d jumped from a plane?
“Are you okay?” I was beginning to worry she somehow gave herself a concussion when she knocked her head against my jaw.
Letting go of her shirt, she clasped her hands together. Open and closed. Repeating the motion as if trying to get a grip.
No, definitely not okay.
“In my dream, I was running, but I was also watching myself run,” she shared instead of answering me. “Not me, maybe not me. I—I don’t know. I was trying to get away, but I didn’t.” She closed her eyes, and I had to remind myself the back of her head hit my jaw not her face, so that was smudged mascara around her eye, not a shiner.
“It was just a bad dream. You fainted and hit your head during the fall,” I said steadily, trying to keep my voice calm to lull her into a sense of safety. And it felt good to be able to do that for her since that’s what we were. Safe.
But for how long? That was the ultimate question. If The Collective could infil Carter’s team, what would they be capable of doing next?
“No, it’s something else. I—I don’t know.” She blinked a few times, then her eyes opened wide. “Wait, we’re okay. On the ground and inside.” She was finally coming around. Good. “Is your dad all right?”
“He’s fine.”
“Thank God.” Her shoulders fell in relief at the news. “What about Teddy and Easton?”
“Looks like they made it out, and with a guy alive to question.” I looked over at the phone on the dresser. “We should call your team and let them know we’re okay. Get an update.” Your team. Not mine. Right?
“Okay.” She cupped her mouth, and I noticed her jaw clicking a bit as if her teeth were chattering.
“Let’s get a quick message out to Mason first. Let him know you’re—we’re safe, then I want you to change so you can warm up.” I knew how worried Mason had to be, along with the rest of Falcon, so I didn’t want to delay that message. “We’ll call Falcon in a bit.”
She shifted her wet braid to her back, chewing on her lip as if still lost to whatever dream had pulled her away from me for so long between the fall and now. “Okay.”
I slowly stood, concealing a wince from the movement the best I could, then tried not to hobble over to the dresser. Suck it up. Suck it the fuck up. I’d been through much, much worse.
The phone was already on—and thanks to my memory, I had every former teammate’s number memorized—so I entered Mason’s digits but stopped myself from sending him a message.
“What’s wrong?” At her soft voice, I looked up to see her on her feet. Her white tee clung to her breasts, and her nipples poked through the thin fabric. She never wore a padded bra, and I didn’t blame her if they weren’t comfortable, but . . .
What a time for me to be noticing her tits. Did that knock to my jaw mess with my head, too?
“You should text him.” I cut across the space, careful to hide my limp, and offered her the phone. “Here.”
She hesitantly accepted it, typed out a quick message, and it immediately pinged from a response. Then two more times. Back-to-back texts.
“What’d he say?”
She returned his message with another, then tossed the phone onto the bed before rubbing the back of her head. She probably had a knot there now. “Glad we’re okay. He confirmed Teddy and Easton have a guy tied up in the back of their Explorer to question. Gwen is still safe with her father. No other attempts made on anyone else. I told him we’d call soon. Just need time to, you know, breathe.”
I nodded, unable to get my voice to work.
“You don’t look so good. Are you okay?”
I covered my eyes, hanging my head. She’d read the lie there if she stared at me any longer.
“Right as fucking rain,” I rasped before falling to my knees, my body no longer able to play pretend.
Because like yesterday, today, and how I knew I’d be tomorrow . . . I was a wreck.