Page 88 of Bared

“They found the window wreckage,” she told Brickham in a fast whisper. “And now they are going to break up into search party teams.”

“What else?” he demanded, already interpreting her fresh wince.

“They are ordering search dogs too. And a couple of helicopters.”

“Only a couple?”

Though his sarcasm was undercut by tension, it worked wonders for her own anxiety. If he was still capable of cracks like that, he had to still be harboring a few schisms of hope. If he had hope, so did she—despite being pitifully out of breath by the time he made her jog under the bridge, between stone monuments of all shapes and sizes, then through a copse of thick maple trees.

By the time they emerged on the other side of the grove, the distinct rumble of copter rotors throbbed the air.

“Damn it,” she blurted. “Did they have to be stationed that close?”

“Let them come.” Brickham yanked her deeper into the vast graveyard. “We’ll be well over one of the back walls by then. We just need to get out far enough that they won’t be searching—”

He cut himself off with a hiss when a pair of flashlight beams sped through the trees. Then spewed another when one of the gendarmes claimed to notice something.

“Shit,” Jayd rasped.

Brickham uttered something understandably filthy at the same time, though the oath never lifted from the volume of his breath.

When he did speak up again, it was not to deliver any more sardonic banter. “All right, back wall is out. At least for now.”

“So what do we—”

“Back the way we came,” Brickham asserted. “With a lot of fucking prayers.”

At least she could help with that part. She kept up her inner pleas to the Creator with every step they rushed back beneath the trees, though she was increasingly certain the supplications were disappearing into a void—especially when more lights slashed at them through the gloom.

“Saints help us!” she cried, watching the beams flicker across the taller gravestones.

“I don’t think they’re listening any more than your Creator, sweetheart.”

“Which means what?” She spat the words more from a need to do something, anything, rather than needing a whole answer. Still, the man who clutched her hand as it was fused to his was ready with a dark deadpan.

“Which means we really might be trapped.”

No. Not a deadpan. An admission. A resignation. Perhaps even a surrender.

“No.” She made the word her verbal fist, swinging it at her dismal thoughts. “No. No.”

“Pixie.” Brickham pivoted and tucked himself over her. “I’ve been in shittier scrapes before. As long as we can call Fox and Oz and get you safely back to them, then—”

“No!”

“Jayd.”

“I said no, Brickham. That is not one of our options.”

One of the gendarmes called out to his comrades. Something about thinking he saw something right where she and Brickham stood. There was more to it, but she was unable to think about translating. A thousand emotions were a damn tsunami in her mind. Fear. Anger. Desperation. Confusion. Resentment. And yes, more rage. So much more.

“Jayd. Sweetheart.” He cupped her shoulders. “Listen to me.”

“What part of no are you not understanding here?”

“Fine. You got a better plan?”

Cunning beast. That certainly shut down her no parade fast enough. But the man was clearly not indulging a personal gloat fest about it—perhaps because he already sensed that she did not like parades that got silenced, odds that got bad, or doors that got slammed.