Page 38 of Beckett (Warrior Security #2)

Beckett

Water exploded through the windshield like a living thing, ice-cold fingers reaching for us with violent intent.

The impact had spider-webbed the glass, and now the river poured through it in torrents, filling the cab faster than my mind could process.

The shock of it—Montana river water in early fall—hit like a sledgehammer to the chest. My body tried to gasp, but there was no air, just water and glass and the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.

The truck groaned around us, metal screaming as it twisted and settled. We were sinking. Fast.

“Audra!” I fought against my seat belt, the mechanism jammed from the impact. The belt bit into my chest, trapping me against the seat as water climbed past my waist, past my ribs. Every drop was liquid ice, stealing sensation from my skin, making my muscles seize and cramp. “You okay?”

“I can’t—” She gasped, thrashing against her own belt, her movements growing more frantic as the water rose. “The belt’s stuck! Beckett, I can’t get it off!”

The truck tilted nose-down with a sickening lurch, settling deeper into the riverbed.

Water rushed in faster now, the pressure making my ears pop and my skull feel like it might implode.

Through the cracked windshield, I could see nothing but dark water and the occasional glint of our headlights still somehow functioning, illuminating our tomb.

My fingers were already going numb as I yanked out my pocketknife. The cold made them thick and clumsy, like trying to work while wearing oven mitts. I sawed at my belt, the blade slipping twice before catching. The fabric was tough, designed to save lives, but right now, it was killing us.

“Beckett?” Audra’s voice pitched higher, edged with panic.

“Hang on, sweetheart. We’re going to make it.”

The belt finally gave way. I lurched forward, immediately twisting toward her.

In the dim, watery light filtering through what was left of our windows, her face was ghostly pale, eyes wide with the kind of terror I’d seen in combat—the kind that came when your brain finally understood that death wasn’t abstract anymore. It was here. It was now.

“Look at me.” I gripped her shoulders, forcing her to meet my eyes while I attacked her seat belt with the knife. The blade kept slipping in my numb fingers. “We’re getting out of this.”

Water hit our chests. The cold was violence—pure, simple violence against every nerve ending. It was being beaten with hammers made of ice, each wave stealing more breath, more warmth, more time. My body wanted to curl in on itself, to protect vital organs, but I forced my hands to keep working.

“I— I—” Her teeth were chattering so hard she could barely speak.

“Almost got it.” The belt gave way, and she fell forward into me, her body shaking uncontrollably. I caught her, held her steady even as my own muscles spasmed from the cold. “Listen carefully. We can’t open the windows yet—too much pressure. We need to wait for the cab to fill.”

“What?” Her eyes went wider, but her voice stayed controlled despite the chattering teeth. “We have to wait for it to fill?”

“It’s physics. Once the pressure equalizes, we can roll down the windows.

” I grabbed the window crank with fingers I could no longer feel, grateful for once that my old truck had never been upgraded to power windows.

The ancient mechanism might save our lives.

“When I say so, take the deepest breath you can and hold it. We’ll have maybe thirty seconds to get out and swim up. ”

The water reached our shoulders. Then our necks. Each inch it rose felt like another nail in our coffin. Audra’s breathing came in short, panicked gasps that were using up precious oxygen. Her eyes darted wildly, looking for escape that didn’t exist.

“Hey.” I cupped her face in my hands, forcing her to focus on me instead of the water that was about to cover our heads. Her skin was like ice under my palms. “Trust me. I’ve done this in training. We’re both getting out of here.”

She nodded, but I could see she didn’t believe me. Hell, I barely believed myself. Training in a controlled pool with safety divers was nothing like this—trapped in a truck in a freezing river with someone trying to kill us.

The water was at our chins now. I could taste it—mineral and mud and something oily from the truck’s fluids leaking. My body shook so violently it felt like my bones might shatter. Every instinct screamed at me to panic, to thrash, to fight against the inevitable.

“Deep breath on three,” I managed through chattering teeth. “One—two—three!”

We both sucked in air just as the water reached our lips. Then it rose fast—past our mouths, over our noses. Audra’s eyes went wide with primal terror as the water closed over our heads.

The silence was immediate and crushing. The only sounds were the truck settling deeper and the muffled rush of water still pouring in through cracks and seams. I kept my eyes open despite the sting, watching for the moment when the cab filled completely.

The murky darkness was broken only by the weak glow of the dashboard lights, still somehow clinging to life.

Audra’s hand found mine in the darkness, squeezing hard enough that I could feel it through the numbness. Her fingernails dug into my palm—good. Pain meant we were still alive, still fighting. I squeezed back, trying to communicate without words: hold on, almost there, don’t give up.

My lungs already burned. The cold made everything worse—my body wanted to hyperventilate, to suck in air that wasn’t there. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision. How long had it been? Ten seconds? Twenty? Time moved differently when you were dying.

A stream of bubbles escaped Audra’s lips. She was running out of air.

The last air pocket bubbled past the rearview mirror and escaped through the cracked windshield.

Now.

I cranked the window handle hard and fast. The mechanism protested, forty years of rust and wear fighting against me.

For a terrifying moment, it stuck completely.

I threw all my weight behind it, muscles screaming, and felt it give with a grinding squeal.

Inch by agonizing inch, the window rolled down.

Water swirled but no longer rushed—we’d equalized. Thank God.

I pointed up, then pushed Audra toward the window. She understood immediately, pulling herself through the opening with more strength than I’d expected. Adrenaline and desperation were powerful motivators. Her foot caught me in the shoulder as she kicked free, but I didn’t care. She was out.

I followed, the edges of the window frame scraping against my shoulders, tearing my jacket as I forced myself through. The current immediately grabbed me, trying to drag me downstream. My boots were concrete blocks, my jacket a straitjacket of waterlogged fabric.

Kick. Push. Fight.

The surface felt impossibly far away. My vision tunneled, darkness creeping in from all sides. My body moved on autopilot, muscle memory from training taking over when conscious thought failed. One stroke. Another. Another.

My lungs were on fire, chest convulsing with the need to breathe. Just a little farther. Just?—

I broke through gasping, the cold air hitting my lungs like broken glass. Every breath was agony, but it was the most beautiful agony I’d ever felt.

“Audra!”

She was three feet away, coughing and sputtering, river water streaming from her nose and mouth. But she was alive. Beautifully, wonderfully, impossibly alive.

“Swim!” I grabbed her arm, fighting against the current that wanted to claim us. The riverbank was so close but might as well have been miles away. Every stroke was torture, muscles already seizing from the cold, coordination failing as hypothermia set its teeth into us.

My boots finally scraped bottom. I hauled Audra up, both of us stumbling and slipping on the rocky riverbed. She fell twice before we made it to dry ground, and I fell with her, neither of us able to stand without the other.

We collapsed on the bank, gasping and shaking, our bodies convulsing so violently it felt like we might shake apart at the seams. Water poured from our clothes, from our hair, from our mouths as we coughed up what felt like half the river.

Audra rolled onto her side, retching, her whole body heaving. I wanted to help her but could barely move myself. My hands were claws, fingers locked in curved positions, unable to straighten. I couldn’t feel my feet at all.

We’d made it out of the water. We were alive.

I looked up but saw no sign of the car that had rammed us. Good. No danger on that front, but it didn’t change the fact that we needed to get warm right fucking now. But we had no phone and were on a mostly deserted road. We were going to have to make it to Travis’s house on foot.

“Come on, let’s get moving. We need to get warm.” My words came out stiff and broken. “We’re only about a mile from Travis’s house as a crow flies.”

Audra tried to stand, fell, tried again.

I grabbed her arm, hauling us both upright through sheer determination.

Every muscle screamed in protest. My boots squelched with each step, the sound obscene in the quiet night.

Water still dripped from our clothes, leaving a trail behind us like wounded animals.

The first hundred yards were the worst. Our bodies didn’t want to work right—legs moving in jerky, uncoordinated motions like broken marionettes.

Audra stumbled every few steps, and I wasn’t much better.

The cold had bitten deep into us now, gnawing through muscle and bone until everything was just varying degrees of agony.

“Talk to me,” I said. I needed to keep her conscious, keep her moving. “Tell me something. Anything.”

“I can’t.” The word came out as barely a whisper.

“Try.” Talking would help her body and mind.

She was silent for so long I thought she’d given up. Then, “Hate…hate Montana rivers.”

A laugh burst out of me, painful and raw. “Fair. Let’s think about hot coffee instead.”

We kept walking. Or stumbling. Or whatever you’d call the graceless forward momentum of two people whose bodies were shutting down one system at a time. I didn’t try to get us back to the road; that wasn’t the most direct route. I was thankful I knew this area well.

We kept moving, each step an epic battle against gravity and hypothermia. We looked like something out of a horror movie—two corpses that didn’t know they were dead yet, shambling through the gathering darkness.

Quarter mile. Half mile. Time lost all meaning. There was only the next step, then the next, then the next. Audra fell again, and this time, it took everything I had to get her back up. My hands wouldn’t close properly, fingers too numb to grip.

“Leave me,” she mumbled.

“Not happening.” I wrapped my arm around her waist, taking most of her weight. “We’re almost there.”

Three-quarters of a mile. I could feel my body starting to shut down, that dangerous warmth creeping in at the edges—the lie your brain tells you right before hypothermia wins. Audra had gone quiet against my side, her feet barely lifting off the ground anymore.

Then—lights. Through the trees, maybe two hundred yards ahead. Travis’s house, lit up like a paranoid Christmas tree with security floods and motion sensors.

I stopped dead, pulling Audra to a halt beside me.

“Travis!” My voice cracked, barely carrying. I sucked in a painful breath and tried again, louder. “Travis! It’s Beckett! Turn it off! Turn everything off!”

Audra lifted her head slightly, confused. “What?—”

“Don’t move.” I kept my arm locked around her, holding us both perfectly still. “Not one step.”

“ Travis !” I shouted again, voice shredding. “It’s us! Beckett and Audra! Turn off your systems!”

The silence stretched, broken only by our ragged breathing. I knew Travis had the whole perimeter wired—motion sensors, pressure plates, God knew what else. The man’s paranoia had paranoia. One wrong step and we’d trigger something that would make drowning seem pleasant.

A crackling sound made us both jump. Then Travis’s voice, tinny and distorted, emerged from somewhere to our left. I turned carefully and spotted the speaker wedged between tree branches, painted to match the bark.

“Beckett? What the hell are you doing coming in from the woods? You’re supposed to?—”

“Someone rammed my truck off the bridge,” I cut him off, words tumbling out. “We went into the river. We’re hypothermic. Need out of these wet clothes now. Turn everything off, Travis. Everything.”

A pause. Then, he said, “Jesus. Okay. Give me thirty seconds. Do not move.”

I counted the seconds in my head, feeling Audra sag heavier against me with each one. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.

“Clear!” Travis’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Come straight up the direction you’re heading. Don’t deviate.”

I started forward, half dragging Audra now. Her feet barely moved, toes catching on every imperfection in the ground. The house grew larger with each agonizing step, warm light spilling from the windows like a promise of salvation.

The front door burst open when we were still twenty feet away. Travis stood silhouetted in the doorway, for once not caring about tactical disadvantage or sight lines.

We made it to the porch steps before Audra’s legs gave out completely.