Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Early the next day, Sebastian dug his poles into the thick snow and tried to keep his rhythm. They traveled light. No shelters. One extra set of base layers each. One sleeping bag each. One medical kit. Enough food for a few days, ammo, and the other equipment HRT deemed necessary.
Nora was avoiding him.
It had started last night when Ryan, for all his urging him to talk to her and fix his shit, had inexplicably taken her shift at guard duty. Then this morning, she’d hung out with the other SAR people while HRT had discussed possible strategies for if and when they caught up with Eastman today.
At least Nora looked as if she’d rested, which was more than could be said for himself. And she hadn’t screamed herself awake in the darkness, so he called that another win.
Now Sebastian and Alpha Squad headed directly across the lake in the pre-dawn to find the start of their search area, but she still hadn’t said a word to him.
The others had surely noticed the tension between them.
Frustration burned through him that he hadn’t yet found the opportunity to talk to her alone, to apologize, and the chances now were next to zero.
Remember the mission.
Except every time he remembered the mission, he thought of Nora as a child fighting for her life and no one coming to rescue her. And he remembered the pain in her voice last night when he’d completely flunked out on how to deal with the weight of her truth.
It certainly wasn’t her fault, but it wasn’t his fault either.
He wasn’t perfect. Far from it. The fact her story had hit him so hard wasn’t something either of them could have predicted.
It had pierced his usually heavy armor and wounded him deeply.
And even though none of this was about him, he was collateral damage.
A secondary victim, even all these years later.
It had been a lesson he’d needed. Despite his natural inclination to try, he couldn’t control everything, and he couldn’t save everyone. But he damned well wanted to save Summer, and he intended to make it up to Nora anyway he could.
He wanted her forgiveness even if he wasn’t likely to get it, but he was holding onto what they’d shared. He was holding onto the fact that maybe this really was what he thought it was, and he was not about to let it go without a fight.
He was good at fighting. Unfortunately, he was pretty sure Nora was good at it too.
She’d had to be. And there was no way he’d hurt her, so he needed to go with brutal honesty, which was one of his best features—except when it came to talking about his own past. And she hadn’t exactly given him much of an opportunity to get his shit together after she’d told him some truly awful things last night.
She’d been almost eager to believe the worst of him and that burned.
He got it. She’d been vulnerable with him, and he hadn’t known how to be vulnerable back. Not the way she’d needed.
Hopefully he’d get another chance.
His muscles had started to warm up. Grady and Donnelly were out front, breaking trail. They were making good speed. Nora and Chance followed, then himself and Ryan, Cas bringing up the rear.
The air temperature had begun to drop again rather than rise, and there was another risk of a blizzard. At these altitudes, weather was the gift that kept on giving.
Unfortunately, the impending storm helped their quarry more than it helped them and made things potentially more dangerous for Summer.
Birdman and Hunter had orders to launch the thermal drone any time now because this was the optimal time to use it, before the sun came up and when the thermal contrast was highest between the background and the target.
Cold reduced battery life considerably, so Birdman and Hunter were tasked with charging each drone at regular intervals via the generator Novak was having flown in today and the solar-charged power banks HRT had already set up at the cabin.
The sound of the helicopter rotors as they started to turn thrummed across the valley floor toward them. Shane Livingstone and his squad would be about to move out. The other squad had begun to move south at the same time Sebastian’s squad had departed the cabin.
They were almost on the other side of the valley, about to cross a frozen river which fed into a lake just north of here.
The sound of the ice cracking as Grady started across shot a bolus of fear through Sebastian.
It brought back that moment of sheer terror two days ago when Nora had plunged through and flipped his world upside down.
The river was only about twenty feet wide, and he wasn’t sure how deep. Didn’t need to be deep to drown someone if it was flowing fast. Chance picked his way cautiously over the obstacles of branches and rocks.
Sweat formed on Sebastian’s back.
He held his breath as Nora skied carefully down the bank and onto the surface of the river, following Donnelly’s trail without hesitation.
Brave as hell.
“Sebastian? You okay?” asked Cas.
Nora got to the other side of the river and started a sideways shuffle to get up the small bank.
“Yeah.” He started to shiver. “Let’s take it one at a time.” He started across the ice. Meghan and Grady were already working their way up the bank so they could travel amongst the trees.
Nora went to follow them.
“Ranger Deacon. Wait up.” He made the words terse. Professional. “I need a quick word.”
The others joined him, and he jerked his chin that they go on ahead.
When the others were out of earshot, he began. “I want to apologize for what happened last night.”
She tilted her head, gritted her jaw. “The sex? Or the other stuff.”
He shook his head. He’d already lost control of the conversation he’d planned out in his mind. “For everything.”
“Apology accepted.” She went to turn away.
“Wait—”
“We’re done talking, Sebastian. I don’t need you judging me when I’m more than capable of doing that for myself.”
“Judging you?” He grabbed her arm and made her face him. “Judging you? Do you know why I don’t dare set foot in Kansas City?”
The sun had begun to shine its first rays over the mountains, providing plenty of light to make out her wide eyes.
“It’s not because I hate Missouri.” He gave a tight smile.
“I don’t go within two hundred miles of my hometown because I’m genuinely terrified I will snap that motherfucker’s neck if I ever see him again.
Or I’ll get a firearm they can’t trace back to me and put a bullet in him, late at night when nobody could ever prove it was me.
I’d wake him just long enough so he knows who did it, and then I’d blow his fucking brains out.
” He was breathing hard. “I don’t judge you for what you did, Nora. I applaud you for it.”
Her hand gripped his sleeve, and her nostrils flared in reaction. But she wasn’t done beating herself up. “I still need to tell the cops in Vermont. They deserve to know the truth.”
He shook his head. “Do you really think they don’t know?”
She froze.
“You said you broke his fingers with a rock and bit his arm. You think they didn’t see that during the autopsy? You think they didn’t find your hair in his grip and put two and two together? They knew what happened, and they didn’t blame you, Nora. They never blamed you. They blamed him.”
Shock had her mouth dropping open. She shook under his grip. He could tell she hadn’t thought this through. She hadn’t thought about the fact that the detectives must have known all along and not said a word. He’d send them fucking flowers when he got back to Quantico.
“You know he murdered other girls.” He wished he could figure out what was going on behind her violet eyes. She looked trapped in self-doubt, and he didn’t know how to reach her. “It was only a matter of time until he killed you. You must know that.”
He watched her swallow and nod. The drumbeat of his heart rushed through his ears.
What if he couldn’t find the right words to get through to her?
He set his jaw. Then he’d keep trying until he did find them.
“It was self-defense, but more than that, what you did probably saved the lives of other girls. Did you think of that?”
She slowly shook her head.
“He was a serial predator, and you stopped him with a fucking rock. You are the most badass person I’ve ever met, Nora.
I’m so sorry I didn’t say this last night.
Hearing about what you went through hit me hard, and I wasn’t expecting it.
Not because I was judging you, but because the thought of what you endured and how much it hurt you to escape that motherfucker—I was a powerless little boy again watching a little girl fight for her life against all the odds with no one to help.
” He swallowed. “That was not what you needed right then. I made a mistake. I’m sorry. ”
She blinked at him. She looked fragile and emotionally battered. “I guess it’s too soon for me to make a crack about taking care of your deadbeat dad for you, right?”
That dark sense of humor of hers was a buffer between her emotions and the outside world. It was also a first-responder characteristic, a way of dealing with the darkness they so often encountered.
“That asshole is all mine, whether I like it or not.”
She sniffed and nodded.
“Are you okay?”
She sucked in her lips as if fighting tears. “It’s been a lot.”
“The sex? Or the other stuff?” He grinned when she let out a quick bark of laughter. He touched her cheek. “For two people who don’t do relationships, ours seems pretty damned complicated.”
She closed her eyes and seemed to fight tears. He let go of her, even though he wanted to pull her close and squeeze her tight. He didn’t know what her boundaries were right now. He did know it wasn’t the right time.
“And now, after upsetting you yet again, I’m going to let us both get back to work and do the job we’re paid to do.”
The job he loved.
And what if he had to choose between his job and this woman who he thought might be it for him?