Chapter 12
Heat scorched Pav’s back. Harper was under him, face pressed into the snow, motionless.
He hadn’t moved. One arm remained locked over her head, his other hand braced in the snow. The wreckage burned behind them—the crackle and groan of fuel-fed fire eating through metal.
He catalogued. His head—pain, left side, blood in his eye. Ribs—bruised, maybe cracked, but functional. Legs—working. Hands—still attached. A win.
Her.
Was she breathing? He couldn’t tell through the hammering of his pulse. He held still and felt for the rise of her back against his chest.
There. Shallow and fast. But there.
“Harper.”
Nothing. She was locked. Eyes open, but somewhere else. Shock, maybe. Dissociation. He’d seen it in soldiers after contact. The body present, the person gone.
He said her name again.
Her fingers curled in the snow, knuckles white against pink-chilled skin. She rolled out from under him and onto her side and vomited into the snow.
It was violent, her whole body seizing with it, shoulders heaving, hands clawing at the ground, the sound of it raw and wretched against the wind.
He followed her, his hands gathering her hair, holding it back from her face at her nape. He spread his other hand between her shoulder blades, her body shaking against his palm. “I’ve got you.”
The words came from somewhere older he hadn’t accessed in a long time.
When it passed, she stayed on her hands and knees, gasping for air, spit trailing from her lip. Her whole body trembled. Cold, shock, and the aftermath of everything.
He let go of her hair, sat back on his heels, and gave her space as she scooped snow and pressed it to her face. She scrubbed it across her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes. Almost punishing.
Pav glanced toward the wreck. Fire had taken the cockpit, but the rear compartment was still mostly intact.
His field pack. AK rifle.
He moved fast, staying low against the heat. The rear cabin door had twisted inward on impact. He forced his fingers into the gap and hauled. Pain flared through his ribs. The frame shifted an inch. Then enough.
Smoke blinded him as he reached inside and dragged out the field pack and rifle, the sling snagging briefly on bent metal. He jerked it free with a grunt.
He checked his pack even though he knew what was in it. Medical kit, emergency foil blanket, spare gloves, signal flare, protein bars, sat phone, the casing cracked down one side. The screen was black, the antenna bent at a bad angle.
He thumbed the power button. Nothing. He tried again, because procedure was procedure. Still nothing.
He shoved it back into the pack and turned back. Harper was sitting upright in the snow, cheeks scrubbed raw, eyes bright and furious.
Mountain silence pressed in as snow fell between them—fat, slow flakes landing on her hair, her shoulders, melting on her flushed skin.
He should be moving, assessing. Calculating distance and daylight and threat timelines. Instead, he was watching snow melt on a woman’s cheekbone.
Focus.
He looked away. “We need to move.”
She looked up at him from the snow and something shifted behind her eyes—the grief crystallizing, finding a target. “We need to go back.”
“There’s nothing to go back to.” He kept his voice level and jerked his head toward the burning wreckage.
Harper took one knee and then boosted up to an unsteady footing. He resisted the urge to offer a hand of support. Not now.
“Sasha was alive when we crashed. If you’d let me—”
“She wasn’t.”
“You don’t know that—”
“You checked her pulse. You know.”
That landed like a slap. She tried to hide her flinch, her jaw locking. Her hands balled into small fists at her sides. “I could have tried. CPR. Something. You dragged me out before—”
“The helicopter exploded.”
“Thirty seconds—”
“Would have killed you.”
Her breath was ragged, shoulders trembling. “She died because of me.”
“No.” He held her gaze. “She died because of the men who locked her in a barrack. Start there.”
Emotion moved across her face. Just for a second—the grief finding the truth in it, almost accepting it. Then the anger closed back over.
She stepped closer, into his space, breath fogging between them, her chest heaving. “You left her there.” Her words were edged in granite.
A lie. Her eyes flickered after she said it—the micro-flinch of someone who’d thrown a punch they couldn’t take back.
“You act like this is math.” She jabbed a finger at him. “Like people are numbers you subtract.”
“Math keeps people alive.” His back teeth met under pressure.
“Not Sasha.”
Fuck.
“You don’t get to decide who lives,” she pushed. “You don’t get to play God because you think you’re better at surviving.”
He wiped any trace of emotion from his face. “Careful.”
A tendon snapped taut in her neck. “Or what?”
“Or you’ll say something you don’t understand.”
Frigid air cut between them.
“I made the call.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I chose you.”
The fury in her eyes faltered and the silence between them was enormous.
Wind. Snow. Fire ravenous behind them. The line of her throat moved around a swallow.
He retreated, putting distance between them, sealing back over what had broken through. “They’ll send people to check the crash site. Sat phone’s dead.” His voice was working again. “We need to move.”
She was motionless for several seconds, then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, swallowed hard, and nodded.
He scanned her body.
Thin sweater, soaked through and clinging. No jacket. No gloves. Her boots practical enough but already dark with snow melt. Her hands were cut and bare, fingers red-white at the tips.
She’d be hypothermic inside an hour. Less if the wind kept rising. He stripped off his waterproof jacket without hesitation and held it out.
“I’m fine.” Her nostrils dilated, a vein beating a fierce tempo at her temple.
“Put it on.”
“Don’t tell—”
“Now, Harper.”
She glared at him, pride fighting necessity, then took it. She shoved her arms through the sleeves without a word. It swamped her, shoulders too wide, hem hitting mid-thigh, the warmth of his body still trapped in the lining.
He pulled his spare hat from his back pocket and stepped closer. He tugged it over her head, down past her ears. She stilled for a moment, then pulled it lower herself.
He adjusted the collar of the jacket at her throat, sealing it closed, ignoring the heat of her cheek against his knuckles.
Satisfied she wouldn’t die in the next five minutes, Pav turned south-southwest and started walking. He slung his pack over his shoulders and didn’t look back.
She was following.