Stryker rises and turns toward me, his boots kicking up powder.
There’s movement, and he freezes, taking out the guy that I’d shot in the thigh. Then he continues toward me.
In that moment, I break completely, dropping the gun, my shoulders rolling forward as I sob.
When he nears me, he jerks his helmet off with one savage motion, and his eyes—God, his eyes—lock onto me. His gaze is wild. Terrified. Furious in a way that isn’t about anger at all but something deeper, darker, rawer.
I stumble toward him without meaning to—my body moving before my brain catches up—and then his arms are around me, pulling me into the solid reassurance of his hard chest and cradles the back of my head with one of his hands.
The world falls away.
I’m shaking violently.
A sob wrenches out of me—broken, helpless—and I press my face into him because I can’t bear the sight of Remy’s still form in the snow.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out. “I’m so—so sorry.”
His breath is hot against my ear, harsh from exertion, thick with fear. “Shh, sweetheart. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
His voice breaks on the word okay.
He tightens his arms around me, like he’s trying to hold the pieces of me together.
Snow drifts down around us, soft and cruel, settling on the bodies, on the blood, on Remy, on everything.
I can barely breathe.
Barely think.
And the only thing I want to do is cling to him.
Stryker tucks his face against my temple. When he speaks, his whisper is low and fierce, breaking with emotion. “I thought I lost you.”
His breath is still warm against my ear when the noise hits us—a low, mechanical growl that climbs into a violent whir.
My heart lurches.
Stryker’s hands clamp hard around my waist, pulling me behind him as if shielding me from an enemy I can’t yet see.
The treetops erupt in a storm of spinning snow.
A helicopter bursts over the ridge, the downdraft kicking up a vicious halo of snow around the bodies, the wreckage—me.
I try to ask him who it is, but the wind from the rotor wash rips the words out of my mouth.
And when I catch the faint glint of black-and-gold on the fuselage—Hawkeye’s mark—I go cold all over.
Bad guys or Hawkeye… I don’t know which is worse. Not for me. Not after everything my father stole. Not after a lifetime of being told to run from both.
All I can do is watch as the machine drops lower, closer, grows louder.
Frantically I meet Stryker’s eyes.
My nightmare isn’t anywhere close to being over.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Stryker
