Chapter 65
CHAPTER
SIXTY-FIVE
The blinding light hit first.
Then pressure slammed into Duke’s chest, ripping air from his lungs. Pitching his body to the side.
Then heat rolled over him, white hot and brutal, searing his clothes. His skin.
For one suspended beat, nothing existed but ringing and grit and the taste of metal on his tongue. His mind clawed for orientation. Up. Down. Threat. People.
Andi.
Duke shoved himself onto his hands and knees. Pain flared along his ribs, sharp but distant. He dragged in a breath that burned all the way down.
He glanced back. The trailer was gone.
Not collapsed. Not damaged.
Gone.
Fire chewed at the remains, flames licking skyward, smoke boiling into the night. Debris rained down across the sand. Something clanged nearby—metal striking rock.
“Andi!” Duke shouted.
She coughed but said, “I’m here. I’m fine.”
“Ranger!” Duke called.
“Here.” Ranger’s voice sounded strained, but he was okay.
Ben coughed somewhere to Duke’s left. “Still breathing.”
Duke forced himself upright, scanning through smoke and drifting embers. His ears rang, but shapes sharpened.
Ranger rose from a crouch, one sleeve torn, blood dark against his forearm.
Ben staggered back a step, his hand pressed to his side, his face pale but focused.
All of them on their feet.
All of them alive.
Barely.
Duke’s stomach twisted as the realization landed. The blast had been placed to kill.
If Andi hadn’t yelled for them when she did . . .
His gaze snapped to the ground where the trailer had stood. The crater smoked, edges scorched. Wires glinted briefly before melting into blackened nothing.
Someone had set up that device fast. It must have been on a timer.
Duke looked behind him and saw Andi running toward him.
She crossed the distance with no hesitation or fear written across her face. Her breath was ragged and her eyes locked on him as if he were the only thing still standing.
She reached him and grabbed his jacket, hands sliding up his arms, checking, searching. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
She didn’t believe him. She never did.
Her hands pressed against his chest, his shoulders, her touch grounding and fierce.
When she found no blood, no obvious breaks, her breath broke free.
Relief washed over her face.
Her reaction hit Duke harder than the blast.
He saw it then—clear and undeniable. The depth of it. The fear she’d tried to keep locked down. The care she hadn’t meant to show yet.
Despite everything he hadn’t told her.
Despite the things he carried that didn’t belong to this moment.
Andi still loved him.
Her forehead pressed briefly against his chest. Duke didn’t move.
Instead, he scanned the darkness beyond the firelight. The desert stretched wide again, smoke drifting low, the silence returning in broken pieces.
Just then, a sound carried through the night.
A shout, hoarse and distant.
Duke’s head snapped toward it.
The sound came again, thinner this time.
Andi whispered, “Is that—?”
“Rupert,” Duke muttered. “That sounded like Rupert.”
“Ben—stay with everyone in the van.”
Duke’s voice cut through the smoke and the ringing in Andi’s ears. He was in command mode.
Ben nodded and turned back toward the van.
Andi was already moving with Duke and Ranger.
The scream came again—ragged, human, tearing through the desert night. It scraped along her nerves and pulled her forward at the same time.
Gravel bit through the soles of her shoes as her breath ripped in and out of her chest. Ranger flanked them, weapon low, eyes scanning the dark.
Duke used the flashlight on his phone. It lit the ground enough to show six feet in front of them. At least it was something.
The desert opened wide as they crested a rise.
Over there.
Was that . . . ?
Rupert!
He lay half-sitting in the sand, arms wrapped around himself as if holding his body together by force of will alone. His suit jacket was gone. His bow tie hung loose around his neck. Dust coated his clothes, his hair, his face.
He was shaking.
But he was alive.
“Thank You, Jesus.” The words tore out of Andi before she could stop them.
She closed the space between them and dropped to her knees in front of him, hands hovering, afraid to touch before she knew where he hurt.
Rupert’s gaze fixed on her, wild and glassy, and his breathing sounded sharp and uneven.
But he’d survived.
“You’re safe,” she said. “You’re okay.”
He swallowed, throat bobbing. “I—he—”
Ranger knelt on his other side. “Easy. Take a deep breath.”
Rupert dragged one in. Then another. His hands clenched into the sand.
“I thought . . . I thought you were all dead.” His voice cracked. “I heard the explosion.”
Andi pressed her palm against his shoulder, solid, grounding. “You’re not hurt?”
He shook his head. “No. He dumped me here.”
Duke crouched in front of him. “Which way did this guy go?”
Rupert lifted a shaking hand and pointed toward the dark stretch of desert beyond the ridge. “That way.”
Andi followed the line of his finger. All she saw was shadow and distance.
“He was fast, like he knew where every step would land.” Rupert squeezed his eyes shut.
Andi’s pulse thudded harder as she leaned closer. “Rupert, who is he?”
Rupert opened his eyes and met her gaze. “I don’t know. I never saw his face. He had this light . . . He kept it on me the whole time. I couldn’t see anything else.”
“Anything else you can tell us?” Andi asked.
“There was a woman with him,” Rupert said. “I think it was the one you guys talked about, the one you ate dinner with at the hotel that night.”
“Fake Pam . . .” Andi muttered.
Ranger rose to his feet. “I’ll get him back to the van.”
Duke didn’t argue. He turned toward the direction Rupert had indicated, already shifting his weight, already tracking.
Andi stood.
Duke looked at her. Just once. A question without words.
She nodded.
Then they broke into a run.