He let go of her hair, sat back on his heels, and gave her space as she scooped snow and pressed it to her face. She scrubbed it across her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes. Almost punishing.
Pav glanced toward the wreck. Fire had taken the cockpit, but the rear compartment was still mostly intact.
His field pack. AK rifle.
He moved fast, staying low against the heat. The rear cabin door had twisted inward on impact. He forced his fingers into the gap and hauled. Pain flared through his ribs. The frame shifted an inch. Then enough.
Smoke blinded him as he reached inside and dragged out the field pack and rifle, the sling snagging briefly on bent metal. He jerked it free with a grunt.
He checked his pack even though he knew what was in it. Medical kit, emergency foil blanket, spare gloves, signal flare, protein bars, sat phone, the casing cracked down one side. The screen was black, the antenna bent at a bad angle.
He thumbed the power button. Nothing. He tried again, because procedure was procedure. Still nothing.
He shoved it back into the pack and turned back. Harper was sitting upright in the snow, cheeks scrubbed raw, eyes bright andfurious.
Mountain silence pressed in as snow fell between them—fat, slow flakes landing on her hair, her shoulders, melting on her flushed skin.
He should be moving, assessing. Calculating distance and daylight and threat timelines. Instead, he was watching snow melt on a woman’s cheekbone.
Focus.
He looked away. “We need to move.”
She looked up at him from the snow and something shifted behind her eyes—the grief crystallizing, finding a target. “We need to go back.”
“There’s nothing to go back to.” He kept his voice level and jerked his head toward the burning wreckage.
Harper took one knee and then boosted up to an unsteady footing. He resisted the urge to offer a hand of support.Not now.
“Sasha was alive when we crashed. If you’d let me?—”
“She wasn’t.”
“You don’t know that?—”
“You checked her pulse. You know.”
That landed like a slap. She tried to hide her flinch, her jaw locking. Her hands balled into small fists at her sides. “I could have tried. CPR.Something.You dragged me out before?—”
“The helicopter exploded.”
“Thirty seconds?—”
“Would have killed you.”
Her breath was ragged, shoulders trembling. “She died because of me.”
“No.” He held her gaze. “She died because of the men who locked her in a barrack. Start there.”
Emotion moved across her face. Just for a second—the grief finding the truth in it, almost accepting it. Then the anger closed back over.
She stepped closer, into his space, breath fogging between them, her chest heaving. “You left her there.” Her words were edged in granite.
A lie. Her eyes flickered after she said it—the micro-flinch of someone who’d thrown a punch they couldn’t take back.
“You act like this is math.” She jabbed a finger at him. “Like people are numbers you subtract.”
“Math keeps people alive.” His back teeth met under pressure.
