12. The Extraction
TWELVE
The Extraction
WYATT
It doesn't bring warmth. It just illuminates the wreckage.
We move in silence. The five miles to the logging road are a brutal, mechanical slog through shattered pine and deep, freezing mud. I take point, cutting a path through the deadfall, tracking the bruised and saturated earth for any sign of an Ares patrol.
Nothing. The storm wiped the slate clean.
I check over my shoulder every fifty yards. Addy is ten paces back. Her face is pale, her lips tight, her boots sinking ankle-deep in the sludge, but she doesn't stop. She doesn't complain. She just keeps climbing.
Every time I look back, my chest tightens. The memory of her in the cave, pinned against the stone, taking me apart piece by piece, flashes through my mind in a violent, visceral loop.
It's a dangerous distraction. I lock it down.
I lock it behind the armor I've spent years building, the same armor she systematically dismantled in the span of three days.
Has it been only three days? Four?
An eternity.
We hit the tree line above an old logging road just before 0900.
I drop into a crouch. I hold up a fist.
Addy stops immediately, dropping to one knee behind a massive boulder.
Below us, the dirt road cuts through the timber. Fifty yards to the south, an old, heavy-duty forestry truck sits parked in a turnout, the engine idling.
One man stands by the driver's side door, smoking a cigarette, an assault rifle slung across his chest.
Ares extraction team. Waiting for the sweepers that aren't coming back.
"Stay here." I don't look at her. I draw my sidearm. "Do not move until I signal."
I slide down the embankment. The wet earth muffles my descent.
I don't use the knife this time. I come up behind the truck, using the heavy metal bed for cover. The mercenary takes a long drag of his cigarette, exhaling a cloud of white smoke into the cold air.
I step out.
Two suppressed rounds to the center of his chest. One to the head.
He drops into the mud before the cigarette hits the ground.
I secure his weapon, drag the body into the dense brush off the shoulder, and sweep the cab. Empty. The keys are in the ignition.
I turn back to the ridge and motion with two fingers.
Addy scrambles down the embankment. She doesn't look at the blood in the mud. She just climbs into the passenger seat and locks the door.
I drop the truck into gear and bury the accelerator.
We don't speak for forty miles.
I drive us off the mountain, sticking to the secondary service roads until we hit the valley floor. The heater in the truck blasts dry, hot air, baking the smell of wet wool and ozone into the cab.
My knuckles are white on the steering wheel. The closer we get to a signal, the closer we get to the end of the contract. The closer we get to the end of the line.
I pull into the gravel lot of a rundown, cinderblock motel on the edge of a dying mining town. It's off the main grid, but the rusted satellite dish on the roof means it has a hardline.
I pay cash for a room at the back.
The door locks with a heavy deadbolt. The room smells of stale smoke and bleach.
Addy doesn't hesitate. She pulls the hardshell drive from her pocket, plugs it into the terminal sitting on the scarred desk, and boots it up. I stand by the window, watching the parking lot through a crack in the blinds.
The silence in the room is suffocating.
"Uplink established." Her voice is hoarse. "Transmitting to the encrypted server."
I don't turn around. "Guardian HRS will get the ping in sixty seconds. A recovery team will be here in under two hours."
The keyboard clicks. A long, drawn-out beat of silence.
"Will Frost be with them?"
"Unknown." I keep my eyes on the empty parking lot. "Depends on who survived the ridge."
Another beat. Then the terminal chimes.
"Transfer complete. The offshore accounts are frozen. The evidence is logged."
A second chime. A secure text window opens over the upload bar.
Addy reads it. Her shoulders drop in a massive, silent exhale. "Guardian HRS acknowledges receipt. Extraction is airborne. ETA ninety minutes." She looks up from the screen. "Lead element is Frost. The team made it to the cellar."
The knot in the center of my chest loosens. My brother is alive.
The contract is done.
I let the blinds snap shut. I turn to face her.
She's standing by the desk, the blue light of the terminal washing across her face. She looks exhausted, battered, and devastatingly beautiful.
"They'll be here soon." I check the action on my sidearm out of pure muscle memory, sliding it back into the holster. I keep my voice flat. Deadened. "You're safe now. The job is done."
I pick up my tactical jacket from the bed.
Addy steps in front of the door.
"Where are you going?"
"I've got the perimeter to patrol."
"Frost's team is coming. We don't need a perimeter."
"Addy." I look at the floor. I can't look at her eyes. If I look at her eyes, I'll never walk out that door. "Move."
She doesn't flinch. "No."
I step closer, the frustration and the fear bleeding through the crack in my armor.
"You don't understand what this is. You don't understand what I am."
I grip the edge of the doorframe, leaning down, my voice a rough, desperate scrape.
"I'm too raw for you. The things I did to you... It's too rough. I don't know how to be gentle. I don't know how to turn off the violence. I don't belong in a world where you exist."
She reaches up and wraps her hands around the lapels of my shirt.
"Who asked you to be careful? When did I ask you to be gentle? When did I ask you to hold back?"
The question stops the breath in my throat.
"Wyatt, look at me." She jerks my shirt, forcing my gaze up. Her eyes are blazing, completely devoid of fear. "You think I want gentle? You think I want to go back to a world where I have to negotiate every interaction, where I have to filter everything I say and do?"
She steps into my space, forcing me back against the wall.
"When you put your hands on me, I don't have to think.
I don't have to plan. I just get to let go.
" She runs her hands up my chest, her fingers curling over my shoulders.
"You take me apart, and it is the safest I have ever felt in my entire life.
I don't want a filter. I don't want you to hold back. "
"I'll hurt you." The words tear out of me, a final, desperate defense.
"You'll never hurt me." Her voice is absolute steel. "You kill the things that try to hurt me. And then you take me into the dark and you make me feel like a woman who doesn't have to be afraid of anything."
She rises onto her toes and crushes her mouth against mine.
The kiss is an explosion. The last barricade in my mind shatters, collapsing under the sheer, undeniable weight of her acceptance.
I grab her waist, spinning her around and pin her against the heavy wooden door. She gasps, arching into me, her hands tangling in my hair.
I kiss her with all the uncivilized hunger I've been trying to suppress. I don't hold back. I don't soften the edges. I let the feral, predatory need take over completely, biting at her lower lip, my hands sliding under her shirt to grip the warm, bare skin of her hips.
She moans, a reckless, desperate sound that acts like an accelerant on a wildfire.
She pulls my shirt over my head, her nails scraping lightly against my chest. I lift her, her legs wrapping around my waist instantly, just like in the cave. I carry her across the room and drop her onto the mattress.
I follow her down, pinning her wrists to the sheets.
"No filter," I growl against her throat.
"None." She arches up, seeking my mouth. "Give me exactly what you are."
I do.
I take her apart in the dim light of the motel room. It's rough, it's possessive, and it's entirely consuming.
Every time I push the boundary, every time I think the intensity will be too much, she meets me there, demanding more. She unravels under me, completely uninhibited, completely safe in the center of the storm.
When the climax hits, it tears a ragged, broken shout from my lungs. I collapse against her, burying my face in the curve of her neck, my heart hammering against her ribs.
She wraps her arms around my back, holding me anchor-tight.
I turn my head, pressing a kiss to her damp skin. The isolation of the last four years, the crushing weight of the ghost I thought I had to be—it's gone. Burned away in the heat of her absolute acceptance.
I pull back just enough to look at her. Her eyes are heavy, satisfied, and clear.
"I'm not leaving." The words are a vow.
She smiles, her fingers tracing the scar on my jaw. "I know."