Chapter 19
Harper woke cold.
Pav’s warmth was gone. The space behind her was empty. The tarp still held the shape of him.
For one disorienting second—
A warm hand sealed over her mouth.
“Up.” His voice was low and controlled.
Blood rushed in her ears.
He was dressed, weapon slung, body angled toward the door. He was listening. Every line of him tuned outward. Tracking something she couldn’t hear.
“What—”
“Quiet.” Hardly a sound. More exhale than words. His eyes flicked to the window. The door. Then the trees beyond the cracked glass.
Prickles danced over her skin. What now?
He pulled his hand away. “Boots. Now.”
His tone bypassed debate. She threw back the survival blanket and rammed her feet back into her boots. Pain flared in her blistered feet, but she gritted her teeth and ignored it.
She pulled his jacket on with shaking hands. His hat.
Don’t be the problem. Don’t slow him down.
She threw one glance at the now cold fire, the memory of last night fragile as dust. The man she’d witnessed then was gone now.
“Move.” He caught the back of her jacket and guided her out the door.
They hit the trees at a near run, breath coming in foggy bursts.
Dawn filtered pale through the branches, but it didn’t touch the forest floor. Under the canopy, it was all shadow and green and the soft, muffled crush of their boots in snow.
“Pav—”
“Quiet.” Sharper now.
She shut up, but her ears strained.
Nothing. Just wind.
She jogged to keep pace. He was setting a pace that was faster than her feet wanted to go, and he wasn’t adjusting for her. The man from yesterday was gone. The one who almost smiled when she threw his words back at him.
This Pav was operational, and frightening in a way she hadn’t experienced. His eyes moved constantly, scanning the canopy, ground, and flanks.
Thirty minutes in, a stitch consumed her side. Her mouth tasted metallic, and she regretted every gym session she’d ever skipped. Pav looked barely winded. She suppressed a sting of irritation. Didn’t he get tired?
I can’t go on like this.
“Pav.” She grabbed his bicep.
He spun, catching her against his chest, one hand firm at the back of her head. “Shh. Listen.”
A sound.
Faint.
It threaded through the trees from somewhere above and behind, slipping between branches, impossible to place.
She fought to slow her breathing to listen better. But blood thundered in her ears. She dragged in a breath, forced it quieter, tilted her head—
Nothing. Just trees. Endless suffocating trees.
The buzz grew. Closer.
His hand eased away, shifting to her wrist.
His face had gone remote, all that quiet precision narrowing to a point. Eyes cutting through the canopy, tracking something.
He knew what it was.
“Move.”
He dragged her off-line into denser cover, forcing her through branches that clawed at her clothes and skin, shoving her down behind a wall of dense pine.
He pressed between her shoulder blades, forcing her into a crouch.
“Stay down. Don’t move.”
Her breath fogged fast and shallow, her mouth bitter from effort. The sky above was a pale, distant gray through the lattice of branches.
Sound warped and echoed. Everywhere and nowhere.
A dark shape darted across a gap in the trees. Compact. Fast. Four rotors glinting through the branches. Searchlights snapped on—white beams slicing through the forest, cutting between trunks, sweeping.
Hunting.
A small black pod hung beneath its body. A camera. Thermal, maybe.
Pav slammed her flat, his weight driving her into the pine needles.
“Spotter drone.” His voice was stripped to ice. “Stay down.”
Every sound sharpened—the rotor buzz, wind through pine needles, the rasp of her own breath.
She forced her eyes open and peeked through her icy fingers. The drone banked between the trees with terrifying precision, searchlights sweeping, adjusting.
Someone had their hands on the controls somewhere, searching for them.
She pressed into the ground.
Run.
Every instinct screamed it.
Run now or die.
“Don’t.” His hand pressed into her spine. Holding her there against every instinct screaming to bolt.
The drone drifted past overhead, searchlights combing through the forest.
Harper stopped breathing, Pav perfectly still above her. The light swept across the forest floor—then kept moving.
Silence rushed in behind it.
Harper’s lungs unlocked. “Did it—”
Somewhere beyond the trees, the rotors shifted pitch, now growing louder. The sound swung back toward them.
“They’ve seen us,” Pav whispered.
His hand shifted to the center of her back.
“We need to end this.”
The pressure of his touch vanished. His hand was gone.
She twisted, fingers digging into icy grit. “Pav—”
He wasn’t beside her anymore.
She lifted her head, a violent shiver running through her. “Pav—”
He’d stepped out of cover. Into the open and into the light.
No.
The only break in the canopy wide enough to drop it.
He didn’t look back.
A sob escaped her. He’s drawing it away.
“No.” The word ripped out of her as she scrambled to her feet.
Branches scraped her face as she ran. “Pav!”
The searchlight snapped to him. The white glare illuminated him like a target painted on his chest.
Pav didn’t duck. He planted his feet and raised his weapon.
For one impossible second, the world narrowed to Pav and the drone.
The muzzle of his rifle tracked, adjusted.
One shot.
Pav fired.
The drone jerked mid-air. Rotors stuttered. Sparks blew out of its side.
It plummeted, spinning out of control.
“Pav—”
It hit the ground. A split-second of silence.
Something inside it ruptured with a white-hot crack. The blast was small but vicious, smashing through the trees and spitting metal outward in a lethal spray.
Pav’s body jolted sideways. He hit the ground, arm outstretched.
Everything stopped.
He didn’t move.
No. No.
She ran. Nothing else existed but closing the distance.
She skidded to her knees beside him.
He lay in a scatter of wreckage. Twisted rotors. Cracked casing. Acrid smoke bleeding from a shattered battery. One searchlight cast a crooked beam across the snow.
Her hands worked before her brain caught up.
Airway. Breathing. Circulation.
Training took over. Terror followed, clawing at her chest.
His head. So much blood.
Scalp wounds bleed heavily. She knew that. Knew it.
The gash above his left ear was deep, blood matting his hair. His shoulder—dislocated or worse. She’d deal with that after.
If there was an after.
Pulse first.
She pressed her fingers to his neck and sagged when she found it. Thready and rapid, but there.
Okay. Okay.
Airway.
She opened it carefully, mindful of his neck, her hands shaking only after they’d done what they needed to do.
“Pav.”
No breath.
She pinched his nose, sealed her mouth over his, and breathed.
His chest rose. Fell.
“Come on.”
Another rescue breath.
“Don’t you dare do this to me.”
Another.
“Come back to me.”
His body jerked under her hands as she bent again. A harsh inhale tore into his lungs, and suddenly his face was right there.
So close.
Her lips were still parted, his breath hitting hers, warm and alive. For a split second there was nothing but those wild, untamed eyes.
She jerked back as he sucked in another breath, his chest heaving, his back arching as his body fought its way back online.
His hand locked around her wrist. His eyes were open, unfocused, his grip crushing. Pure reflex. This wasn’t him. Not yet.
“It’s me.” Her voice broke. “It’s me. It’s Harper. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
His eyes found her face. Focused. The wildness receded—dragged back under control by force.
Something else flickered there, raw and unshielded. Gone almost as soon as it surfaced. His grip loosened but didn’t release.
“Harper.” His voice was wrecked.
Her head dipped at the sound of her name. “I’m here.”
His eyes closed, and his breathing steadied from its ragged pace. She crouched over him in the snow, his blood on her hands, her breath still in his lungs.
His fingers tightened around her wrist.
Not enough to hurt.
Enough to hold.