Pav’s head snapped toward the rear of the wreck. Harper smelled it then.
Fuel.
Rich and metallic, thick enough to coat her throat. Beneath it came the sour tang of overheated plastic and a wet, pressurized hiss bleeding into the wind.
“Harper.” The command in his tone cut through everything. “We go.Now.”
She wrenched free with a raw sound. But Pav caught her around the ribs and dragged her backward through the wreck as she screamed—at him, at the wreck, at the girl who wouldn’t wake up.
“Quit fighting.” His voice was rough against her ear. “Fuel leak.”
Cold hit her face, sharp enough to shock her lungs into a gasp. Snow struck hot metal and spat back in bursts of steam as her boots hit the ground. Her legs buckled.
Pav caught her around the waist and hauled her upright. His arm tightened around her, his stride lengthening, pulling her faster than her legs could match.
WHUMP.
Sound vanished beneath pressure and heat as Pav threw her to the ground.
She hit the snow face-first, his body slamming down on top of hers, the weight of him crushing her into the ice-packed ground. He folded over her, one arm locked over her head in a shield, the other braced into the snow as if he could hold the world back.
Heat roared over them, scorching the air dry in an instant. Metal shrieked and ruptured. She squeezed her eyes shut until there was a lull. Wind. The crackle of burning fuel. The groan of warping metal.
Snow numbed her cheek and froze her tears.
Pav’s weight still pinned her in place, one arm locked over her head, protecting her face. His heartbeat, fast and alive, hammered through his chest into her spine as his body shook with the force of holding position.
He didn’t let go.
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.
