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His jaw set, all expression erased from his face, he put one foot in front of the other, feeling as if there was a big hand jammed in his chest.
Her voice had trembled, but her words had landed clean, slicing through him like they belonged there.There’s something alive in there…He wanted to dismiss it,chalk it up to an oxygen-depleted brain, a moment of confusion. But something in his gut told him they were up against something more. He shook his head and continued to move. Moving was all he could think about now. Get her away. Get her safe. Don’t let her die. He was the fucking shield, and he’d been powerless in that room. He gritted his teeth, hating that sensation as it lingered in his memory like those screams, like those losses.
Not Grace.Goddammit. Never Grace. Everything in him overrode fucking slowing down, even as he remembered how intoxicating it was to be still with her, not just surviving, but living. His heart contracted, and adrenaline dumped into his system.No. That was for someone else, not for a man who had protected people his whole life; falling apart meant everything went to hell. He would disappear like his memories had. He would be ineffective just like the Navy had deemed him…medically compromised, and his instincts wouldn’t be good for shit. SEALs moved into the fire, they took ground, they never gave it up. He never quit.
He threw a glance over his shoulder at OrdoTech, and it crouched in the gathering darkness like a monster with teeth and intent. Nash knew monsters. He killed monsters. He rescued people from monsters.
Grace would understand. They were connected now, and she knew who he was. This had to end.
“Nash?”
He kept walking, the car now close.
He barely registered that she had dug in her heels. He moved, she stumbled forward, clutching his forearm. “Nash!” She jerked out of his grasp. He met her gaze, dark with concern.
“Slow down.”
Nash stopped, turning to face her, OrdoTech looming behind her, now nothing but a black, threatening mass, reinstating all his protective instincts. “No,” he said, clenching his jaw. “I won’t, Grace.”
She stood like a beacon, her red hair flaming against the gloom. Her eyes were dark and anxious as she watched him. His chest tightened, flooded with so much emotional energy, he didn’t know how to untangle or decode. He gritted his teeth against the memory of her gasping for breath even as she fought the system with a brilliance that made his breath catch. When he’d looked at her, he knew she was fighting for him, for them, for the justice that ached across his skin like torture. His body wanted to move, urging him to move, but she anchored him in place.
“We won here, Nash. I got so much information from this. We can?—”
“No, the fuck we can’t,” he interrupted, his tone expressionless.
She hunched her shoulders against the cold, against his words. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He stared at her, a flash of anger coursing through him. “We’re leaving, Grace. We’re fucking done. You go back to Phoenix, back to your job. I’m going back to DC. Fuck this. It’s not worth your life.” He would lose her, but he would know that she was alive somewhere, even if it wasn’t in his life, and he knew no amount of movement could stave offthisloss.
He swallowed hard. The thought of being without this vibrant, warm, beautiful woman was like a knife to the gut. He was bleeding, and that blood loss was going to be permanent. But he would accept it to keep her safe.
He was the shield. He was the fucking brick wall between her and whatever was opposing them.
She lifted that chin, and he knew Grace well enough to see what was coming. He might be the shield, but he had no protection from her. “No,” she said so decisively it cut him.
She brushed past him, heading for the car. Nash watched her walk away, then bent his head and swore. He was losing it. In that one word was the sound of his betrayal. He wanted her out of this mess, wanted to protect her from exposure to the threat that lingered in the air even outside that damn building. A jolt of adrenaline and anger swept through him with pure, energizing force, suddenly so furious that he could barely see straight.
The pain in her eyes was like a gaping wound in his chest. He’d been forced tohurther.
He started after her, his temper at the boiling point as he yelled at her. “Stop right there, damn it!”
She turned, her eyes like verdant bruises. He flinched, his chest heaved as he closed the distance between them, the snow practically melting in his wake. He walked up to her, his anger surging in him, fear the driving force. “You can’t do this alone.”
Her expression startled, she stared at him, alarm flickering in her eyes, then that fire went out, she turned as if to walk away.
He grabbed her arm and wheeled her around, regret like lead weighing him down. He wanted the words back immediately, but now they were like something sharp between them. She frowned, the devastation in her eyes dialing up to nuclear strength. “Watch me. I got what I needed from you. You leave. I’m not giving up.”
Oh, his Grace wielded something sharp, too.
Something burst around them, shattered, the warmth, the connection, whatever had been building between them went with it. He was standing there with the echo of her words, like silent G-forces against his body, and his gut tightened so hard, he thought he was going to be sick.
He caught her by the jaw and forced her to look at him, something dark and painful breaking loose in him when he saw how pale her face had gone, when he saw the hollowness in her eyes. “Grace, please, dammit, don’t do this,” he rasped, the rough edge of command breaking beneath the plea.To us, he wanted to say, but it caught between his heart and his mouth. His temper crested, and he dropped his hand, looking away, a thick ache in his throat.
Inhaling deeply, he shifted his gaze back to her. Grace was magnificent in her defiance, in her pain, in her power, a power that extended to him, sucking everything from him in seconds. He stared at her and exhaled heavily, his anger settling into a heavy, resigned feeling.
Fuck, where did they go from here?
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