Page 55 of Midnight’s Captive (Stroke of Midnight #2)
Ash woke suddenly. His throat was dry and he felt like he’d been hit by a bus. “Where am I?” he rasped.
“Whoa, go slow.” Taryn’s voice came from somewhere in front of him.
Relief whooshed through him. He was safe. Or at least alive.
Her hand rested on his chest, a reassuring weight.
“What happened?” His brain felt staticky.
“You can try to sit up but go slowly. I think you should lie down a bit longer.”
“Where are we?” He tried to focus on his surroundings, but all he saw was Taryn and the concern on her face.
“Still in the Jack’s hacking room. I dragged you out of the chair and over to the cot when you passed out.”
He passed out? What the hell had happened?
Ash rolled to his back, intending to sit up. Instead, fire raced through his nerve endings. “Ow!”
The edges of the cut Taryn had made throbbed. Fuck, that hurt. At least the pain cut through the rest of the fuzziness in his head.
“Let’s get you up and then I can get you more pain killers.”
Even with her help, he struggled to sit up. He should be embarrassed to appear so weak in front of her, but he was too damn tired to care.
“Did we win?” he asked.
Silence.
He grabbed her hand and tugged her back down onto the cot next to him.
“Don’t you know?” she sounded worried.
Shit. Did he? He thought back to his battle with Caspar. He’d led him to an inner core, then triggered the security system. That was why he was so wiped out. He’d had to evade the same trap and then make his way out of the network without being caught.
“Yes,” he said slowly, memories coming back to him. “I trapped Caspar in the system. Tremaine Security should be tracking him down now.” A rush of pride flowed through him. For a while there, he hadn’t thought that he would win. The woman beside him was the reason he had.
“What will they do with him?” Taryn asked.
“I don’t know for sure. I can’t imagine that they’ll use him like they did me, but it could happen.” The best thing, in Ash’s opinion, would be brain burn, but he didn’t say that.
“Do you think any of his people will come after you?”
Despite the throbbing in his neck, he turned his head and looked at her. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I don’t think so. I think going after me was Caspar’s personal project. And I’m not going after anyone else.”
Taryn slid her arm around his back. “What now?”
He wrapped his arm around her waist and sighed. “There’s still the Tremaine Corporation to deal with.”
“Tell Portia you stopped a major hacking syndicate from taking over the Tremaine network and to leave you alone.”
Ash imagined walking into Portia’s office with that message and laughed. Ouch. Even laughing hurt. “I don’t think that would go over very well. Especially since I was the one who let him into the system.”
“There has to be a way.” She rested her head on his shoulder.
He would miss this when he left. They fit together so perfectly. “I’ve thought of nothing else for the last five years. If there’s another way, I don’t see it.”
“That’s because you didn’t have me on your side.”
Was this amazing woman thinking about battling a corporation for him?
“If you could, would you stay?”
Yes, his heart shouted. Yes!
“It depends,” he said slowly. “Here in this basement, hiding? No, I can’t. It would be too much like being trapped before.” Just the thought panicked him. “Here in the city, without looking over my shoulder for Tremaine Security all the time? Yes, of course.”
She lifted her head and looked him in the eye. “What about here in Seattle and here... with me?”
His breath caught. “Here, like one of your rescues or here?” He placed his hand over her heart.
She covered his hand with hers. “Here.”
Ash leaned close and brushed his lips over hers. “Yes,” he whispered. Then he sat back and let reality take over. “I don’t see how that can happen.”
“As long as it’s what you want, we’ll figure it out. Anything is possible?—”
“—for a price,” he finished. The thought of a future with Taryn, with Hope, a future free of the Tremaine Corporation sounded like a miracle. An impossible miracle.