Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

January 28 th

9:19 A.M.

Every time a shiver rocketed through her body, Lucy could feel the blade of the knife pressed against her throat nick her skin.

Zimraan's arm was locked tightly around her chest, pressing painfully against the wounds he'd made.

Almost worse than the pain was the unrelenting cold. Hours of being out in it, the constant shivering, her muscles were aching, and honestly, without Zimraan holding her up and dragging her along with him, she was pretty sure she would have collapsed against the knife already and inadvertently slit her own throat.

"I will not be stopped," Zimraan roared in her ear, making her flinch.

They were walking—well, Zimraan was trying to run, but she was too weak, too cold, and too clumsy to keep up—across the wide, open valley. They were practically sitting ducks out there, but Lucy was reassuring herself with the fact that the young terrorist's men weren't going to open fire on them, and if it had been Prey who had come to rescue them, they were too skilled to shoot randomly at them and risk hitting her.

Right now, it was Zander that she was most worried about. He'd been there in the courtyard when bullets started flying in every direction, and she was terrified that he'd been hit by one.

What if he was bleeding out right at this very second, all alone when she'd promised she would always be there for him?

Or, worse, what if he was already dead?

The very idea of him dying alone sent another shiver through her that, this time, had nothing to do with the cold.

"They will not kill me as long as I have you," Zimraan said, but she got the feeling the words were more for his benefit than as a threat to her. It was obvious he was afraid, he was young, inexperienced, had no idea what he was doing, and he needed to reassure himself that he was making it out of this alive.

Only she had no intention of letting that happen.

Ahead of them, she saw a helicopter sitting on the ground. It had to be the one that had brought in Prey and was waiting to take them all to safety.

As soon as he saw it, Zimraan picked up the pace, forcing her to find strength she didn't really have to keep up with him or risk having her neck split open and dying right there in a dusty valley in Syria.

When they reached it, he shoved her on board. "Take us out of here or I kill her," he warned the pilot.

The man looked at her, and she could see him debating his options. He was wearing a headset, and she hoped he communicated with the men who had stormed Zimraan's compound. If he'd already alerted them, help was only minutes away. All she had to do was stay alive a tiny bit longer and she could go home.

Finally, the pilot nodded, and he started the rotors.

The roar hurt her ears, but held as she was there was no way for her to move her hands to cover them. The bite of the blade against her neck was a constant reminder of how precarious her situation was. One wrong move and her carotid artery could be sliced right open, and she'd be dead before anyone could do anything about it.

Just as they began to lift off the ground, she heard Zander scream her name.

Well, in reality she knew there was no way she could hear anything over the roar of the helicopter, but she felt him, and when she turned, she saw a dozen men running toward them. The man at the front of the pack was Zander.

Lucy knew it, felt it, even as her vision wavered and she couldn't see clearly.

Alive.

Zander was alive.

Rejuvenated by the knowledge, Lucy quickly ran through scenarios.

If Zimraan got her away from there then it would be all over. She'd be killed, she'd never go home, and never get to explore this thing with Zander. Without her, she was worried about what would happen to him. It wasn't out of a sense of ego it was just that he already blamed himself for what happened to his team, and then if she died at the hands of the same family, would he be able to survive it?

No.

She couldn't let Zimraan take her away.

With her on the helo there was no way the guys would be able to shoot it down because she'd die along with the terrorist if they crashed.

But if she took herself out of the equation …

Then they could do what had to be done.

A quick glance out the window showed they were barely ten feet off the ground. Not terrible odds, she would almost definitely survive that fall. The guys were too far away to be able to do anything, although they were quickly making ground.

This was her only choice, and delaying only increased the chance she would die.

"Jump," she yelled to the pilot, she didn't want his death on her conscience. If both of them jumped, it left Zimraan to decide between going over the side with them and getting caught or killed by the men on the ground, or crashing in the helo because she doubted the young man knew how to fly it. Even if he did, the second she was clear, Zander and the others would open fire on the helo.

Not needing to be told twice, the pilot jumped.

Startled, Zimraan lowered the blade enough that she was able to summon all the remaining strength left in her body and shove him to the side.

Then without a second thought, Lucy pretended she was just going sky-diving with a parachute safely strapped to her back, and threw herself out the helo door.

They'd risen another couple of feet, but she was still confident that she could survive the fall as she slowly dropped toward the earth. Time seemed to slow down, and her body felt weightless. If her parents could see her now, bloody wounds, half naked with her sweater flapping in the wind, jumping out of helicopters, they'd have a heart attack and insist that she live at home with them forever.

But she'd saved herself.

And there was a smile on her lips that was only wiped off by the jarring thud of her body slamming into the hard, unforgiving ground.

Footsteps pounded toward her, and a second later, a body flung itself on top of hers.

Covered as she was, the explosion almost caught her by surprise.

Still, as soon as her brain processed that it had to be the helo hitting the ground, she let out a sigh of relief. Zimraan was dead. That meant Zander was safe.

The relief made her lightheaded.

Or perhaps that was shock.

Or cold, or pain.

Or even an impending seizure.

Take your pick.

Any or maybe all of them.

"Don't you ever do something so crazy and reckless again," Zander's voice was harsh with fear, but his hands as he eased her onto her back were so very gentle.

Blinking, she tried to clear her vision, but everything remained hazy.

Kind of … distant … removed.

She was here but she didn't feel like she was here.

Her body might have hit the ground, but her mind seemed to be still floating through the air.

"Lucy? Answer me, now! Are you okay?" Zander sounded panicked, and even though she really wanted to soothe him, she didn't seem to have control over anything. Not even her own body.

"Let me get an IV set up," Bubba said.

Even though she felt stuck floating in the air, it was like she was still able to look down on what was happening. It was a little fuzzy, but she could see Zander and Bubba kneeling beside her, Rocco and Gumby were standing protectively beside them. Rex, Phantom, and Ace were surrounding the pilot, and Fox and the guys running toward the flaming wreckage of the helo she'd just jumped out of.

Guess Zimraan really didn't know how to fly a helo.

Good.

She was glad he was dead.

He'd threatened the man she was falling in love with, made Zander live out his worst nightmare all over again, he deserved a lot worse than he'd gotten.

"What's wrong with her?" Zander asked, the panic in his voice growing. "Why won't she answer me? She's awake, her eyes are open, but she's not saying anything and looking right through me."

Hands were skimming her body, and Bubba looked concerned. "She's in shock, but her pulse is steady, she's not going to die."

No.

Not going to die.

But her overwhelmed brain was ready to short circuit. Her body went completely taut and then her muscles began to jerk violently as a seizure hit.

January 28 th

11:51 P.M.

"It would be really nice if you woke up soon, sassy girl," Zander whispered as he brushed his knuckles across a sleeping Lucy's forehead.

More than fourteen hours had passed since he watched her jump out of a flying helicopter.

In those seconds it had taken her to hit the ground he'd been positive his heart was going to hammer its way right out of his chest. There was every possibility that she wouldn't survive the fall, even though it wasn't a huge distance, and even if she did the injuries she could have ended up with might have been horrific.

Though he'd lived through a lot in his life, those seconds topped the scale of the worst of the worst.

Because Lucy was his future.

His entire future was wrapped up in a five-foot-three, blonde-haired, blue-eyed package, full to the brim of smarts, sass, and strength. Without her, his life would be empty and useless. There would be no point in going on.

A whirlwind of activity had filled the first half of the last fourteen hours. Another helo had been brought in to pick them up, Lucy and the pilot had both been loaded onto backboards and transported to Landstuhl, the military hospital in Germany. It was the closest facility, and five hours after she jumped out of the helo, she was being examined by a doctor.

Two of her cracked ribs had been damaged further, her broken arm had ended up needing surgery, there was a hairline fracture in her right foot that would require her to wear a moon boot for a few weeks, and she had been diagnosed with a concussion. Some of the wounds from where she'd been skinned would need to be watched carefully for infection, and thankfully none were bad enough to need skin grafts.

Three hours after arriving at the hospital, she was wheeled out of recovery and into a private room.

While the doctors had told him—on many more than one occasion—that she was not receiving any sedation drugs, and that her brain scan was clear, he was yet to believe it.

Why wasn't she waking up?

Six hours was more than enough time for her body to have regained enough strength just to open those big blue eyes for a single second. That was all he needed. One second to know that she was going to be okay.

"How's our girl doing?" Phantom asked as he strolled into Lucy's room.

All six of the SEAL team guys had decided to stay at the hospital until Lucy was released as had all the Prey guys. Nobody wanted to leave without her.

In their world, you didn't leave anyone behind, even if you would only be leaving the person safe in a hospital bed.

"She's the same," he replied. The guys kept coming in and out. Nobody wanted to overwhelm her when she woke up, otherwise, he was pretty sure that all twelve of them would be camping out in there. Well, maybe eleven as he was sure somebody would hang with the pilot who had been lucky to walk away with nothing more than bumps and bruises.

"Lucy is strong, she'll be okay," Phantom said as he pulled up the room's other chair to the opposite side of Lucy's bed.

The man's confidence should help, but it didn't.

Lucy was strong but had lived through hell these last couple of weeks. Was she strong enough to survive the aftermath?

More than that, was she strong enough to forgive him for what she'd suffered because of him and still want a future with him?

That seemed like more than he should hope for.

More than he deserved.

Because of him, the woman he was falling in love with had been abducted, flown halfway around the world, strapped to a table and had her skin peeled off with a knife, and been forced to jump out of a helicopter.

Expecting her forgiveness was like expecting her to grow wings and fly herself home.

"How are you doing?" Phantom asked, assessing him with brown eyes that seemed to see too much. See more than Zander wanted.

Much more than he was comfortable with.

Giving what he hoped came off as an easy, dismissive shrug, he replied, "I'm fine. Zimraan's men didn't break anything." While Lucy had been in surgery and there was no possibility of him remaining at her side, he'd finally agreed to be checked out himself. He had some hellish bruises littering his body, horrible black and blue marks that he was sure would hurt when his fear for Lucy dissipated enough for him to feel anything else.

"Still with everything that happened with your team, then having to relive it all with Lucy …"

When Phantom trailed off, giving him the opportunity to fill in the blanks, Zander remained steadfastly silent.

What did the man expect him to say?

That it was like being transported to hell?

That watching Lucy be tortured, hearing her screams, was the worst thing he'd ever had to do?

That if he was a braver, less selfish man he'd do the right thing and walk away from her now so she didn't have to see his face when she finally woke up?

All of that was true, but he couldn't make himself say it aloud.

Almost as though by speaking it he might make it become a reality.

"She needs you, you get that, right?" Phantom asked.

There was no way he couldn't scoff at that.

What Lucy needed to heal was for him to get out of her life. How could she possibly deal with everything that had happened when she had to look at his face every day and know he was to blame for most of it?

The problem was, he didn't know how to live without her.

While she might be better off if he returned to being a ghost man as she liked to call him, he most certainly would not be better off without her.

It terrified him how much he needed her.

"Zander, if you don't know it then let me say it. She needs you. She doesn't need you to be perfect, she doesn't need you to always say and do the right thing, and she doesn't need you to hide your own pain and trauma from her. But she does need you to be there. She needs to hold onto you when she feels like the bottom of the world has opened up beneath her, wanting to swallow her whole. She needs you to hold onto her, too, when you feel the same way."

"I want to believe that, but …" Zander trailed off, the ending not needing to be said aloud. He wanted to believe it but how could he?

How could he think his presence could in any way help Lucy heal?

"Can you please trust me on that?" Phantom asked. "I learned a lot from being there for Kalee as she healed from what happened to her in Timor-Leste. And please trust me and believe me when I say this, being alone is the worst thing for her right now. Your presence is going to make all the difference in how she heals."

"She has other people. Parents, siblings, her whole Prey family," he reminded Phantom. Whether he was in the picture or not, it wasn't like Lucy was going to be alone.

"But they weren't there. They won't get it. Not really. They'll try and do their best, and yes, Lucy needs them, too. But that doesn't change the fact that she needs you. You lived through it with her, and I'm pretty sure she's falling in love with you. Don't let your demons talk you into doing something that's going to wind up hurting you and the woman you love."

With that, Phantom got up, leaned down to touch a kiss to Lucy's forehead, then rounded the bed to squeeze Zander's shoulder before heading out of the room, leaving him and Lucy alone again.

As badly as he wanted to believe everything Phantom had said, his demons were screaming at him that the man was lying.

There was no way on earth that Lucy could need him now.

Her Prey family were no strangers to the horrors of the world. Fox and the guys had all been SEALs, and they'd all gone through ordeals with their now wives. The women of Artemis Team had all gone through more than most people could ever comprehend, and then there was what Scarlett had been through a couple of weeks ago. Lucy would be surrounded by people who would understand what she was going through and know how to help her.

People who wouldn't make her have to relive it all every time she looked at their faces.

She'd be fine without him.

Better without him.

Because all he'd done since he came back from the dead was hurt her. Crashing the plane, scaring her in the jungle, not saving her soon enough from Raul Castillo, letting her get kidnapped by people with a grudge against him, getting her tortured and almost killed. Never once had be brought anything good into her life.

Only pain.

Only suffering.

Only trauma that would haunt her for the rest of her life, just as his own was haunting him now. Reminding him of his sins, reminding him of his failures, reminding him of all the reasons he should leave, and why Lucy would be better off without him.

Dropping his forehead to rest against hers, Zander tried to draw in enough of her scent, the feel of her on his skin, her bravery and strength, to imprint it on his soul. He needed enough of her to last him a lifetime.

All he needed was one second to see his girl's eyes open, to know that she was going to be okay, and then he should disappear for good.