Page 29 of Wraith: Lethal Impact

The landing is a crash. The sloping tin strips away all traction. I slide toward the edge, drop to my knees, and bury my hands in the grooves of the corrugated metal until the momentum arrests.

I twist around to yell at her to hold position.

My lungs seize.

She's already in the air.

No line. No signal. She sprinted for the ledge and launched herself into the void.

She's a dancer, built to leap and trust that a partner will be there. She expects the catch. She expects the safety net.

This isn't a stage. It's a six-story drop into a concrete alley, and she doesn't have the mass to clear fifteen feet.

She's coming up short.

An emotion I haven't felt in ten years detonates in my chest.

I lunge forward and reach into the empty air, my muscles straining.

She collides with me.

The impact is brutal. Her momentum drives the air from my lungs. I wrap my hands around her waist, fingers digging into the wet fabric of her leotard. Her hands slam into my shoulders, fingers locking into the Kevlar of my plate carrier.

For a second, we teeter on the edge.

I haul her up and over the jagged lip of the roof.

We crash backward onto the slick, rusted tin.

She lands on top of me. The impact knocks the last of the air from my lungs. Gravity drags us down the slope, the wet metal offering zero resistance. I dig the soles of my boots into the grooves of the tin, grinding against rusted steel until the friction catches, slamming us to a halt inches from the edge.

The silence that follows is broken only by the monsoon hammering the tin and the ragged rasp of our intertwined breathing.

She's trembling—a full-body tremor that shakes her from the inside out.

The reckless bravado is gone. She buries her face in the curve of my neck, hiding from the drop we survived. Her fingers stay locked in a death grip on the straps of my vest, knuckles white. Her heart hammers against my chest, the beats bleeding through the ballistic plates.

She trusted me. No physics, no safety line. She leapt into the void and placed the whole weight of her survival in my hands. She expected the catch. She expected me to be the anchor.

I wrap my arms around her trembling frame, pulling her flush against my chest. I bury my face in her wet, tangled hair, her clean, sweet scent erasing the exhaust and gunpowder of the Bangkok underbelly.

I hold her tighter than I've ever held anything in my life, what almost happened burning through my veins like battery acid. The distance I rely on fractures. I'm supposed to be a ghost. Detached. Clinical. Untouchable. But with her trembling against my chest, ten years of training fails.

I can't afford to care if she falls.

But the truth is already written in my hammering heart. If she falls, I fall with her.

The whine of the drone passes over our previous position, the laser sweeping the empty roof. The corrugated canopy shields us. We broke the thermal lock.

We're safe. For now.

I loosen my grip, the mission bleeding back into my system.

"We need to move." My voice is a ragged whisper against her ear.

She nods and pushes herself up off my chest. Her green eyes are wide, still dilated from the jump. She says nothing. No apology.

I force myself to stand, ignoring the fire in my ribs. I don't offer my hand. The distance has to go back up.