Silver flashed above her.
A knife.
The man had a knife. Voices shouted from the hatch, raw and urgent, urging him on.
Wyatt caught the first slash on his forearm, deflecting the blade wide. He drove his forehead into the man’s nose—a wet crack that echoed off steel—and for a second the terrorist’s grip loosened.
But gravity and the swing dragged them apart before Wyatt could press the advantage. The man came back snarling, blood sheeting from his nose, knife hand already moving.
Jen didn’t need to understand the words to hear the bloodlust. Her gaze dropped to the missile bay hatch below. Ten feet. She could make it to safety.
She looked back up.
Wyatt had the man’s knife hand trapped in his grip, tendons stark in his neck as he fought to hold it away from his body. His strength was being bled out second by second, fighting for his life.
I can’t leave him.
The thought landed with absolute clarity.
Something electric tore through her veins, burning away her terror.
She climbed.
Up.
“Jen—no!” Wyatt barked.
She ignored him, climbing faster than she believed possible.
Wyatt swore as the two men ricocheted off the rig again. The force tore his grip loose, and the knife found flesh. The blade sliced across his thigh.
Wyatt’s face blanched, his lips peeling back from his teeth. The knife came away slick and dark, rain diluting his blood as it smeared across the metal. Wyatt clamped down on the man’s wrist, twisted hard, and the knife flew, flying uselessly into the storm.
Too late. The damage had been done.
The terrorist howled, his hands clawing for Wyatt’s throat.
Jen was almost level with them now—closer to the men with guns above, closer to everything she didn’t want to think about.
“Wyatt—swing here!”
She yanked her multi-tool free, thumbed the blade out with shaking hands.
Wyatt’s gaze connected with hers, his eyes burning through rain and blood.
A grim nod.
He planted both boots against Seven and shoved off hard, angling his weight, forcing the swing. The ropes arced wide, momentum dragging them out into the open air. For one sickening second, she thought she’d reached him too late, that gravity would win.
She caught the tangle of rope and harness one-handed. The weight of two men nearly tore her arm out of its socket.
She grunted with the pain. Her grip was slipping, but she found the terrorist’s safety line and drove the blade under it, sawing frantically, her arm burning, vision greening at the edges from the strain.
The swing reached its apex and reversed. The line swung back toward her. Wyatt’s attacker locked eyes with her.
He twisted, blood-slick fingers stretching for her, breath rasping ugly and loud. Jen wedged her boots under the ladder rungs and locked her arms through them, teeth gritted as the force tried to peel her away.
His fingers missed her by inches.
