Page 44 of Rescuing Ally, Part 2 (CHARLIE Team: Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists #8)

THIRTY-EIGHT

Run Silent

ALLY

The RIB slams into another wave. Salt spray slices across my face, mixing with the sting of wind and blood. I don’t flinch. I don’t blink. I can’t—because Hank’s face is going slack, and if I lose sight of him now, I might never see him alive again.

Too much blood. Not enough time.

They came for us.

The truth doesn’t just hit—it detonates, sharp and blinding, like shrapnel to the chest. My knees buckle. Breath locks in my throat. Every nerve fires at once, unable to process the impossible.

I saw their bodies explode. Saw the fireball swallow them whole. Watched the footage over and over, forced to memorize every frame while Malfor whispered what it meant—that they were gone. That I’d failed. That love could be obliterated with a single detonation.

But they’re here. Bleeding. Breathing. And now, maybe dying.

I can’t make sense of it. My brain stutters, glitching between grief and hope. Hallucination? Dream? Trap?

Gabe’s eyes meet mine, and something inside me fractures.

I can’t look. I can’t not look.

My hands tremble. My vision blurs. The sound of the ocean, the girls crying, the motor’s rumble—all of it fades beneath the roar of my own heartbeat.

“Keep pressure.” I guide Malia’s hands to the soaked field dressing on Hank’s shoulder. The bullet went clean through, but that just means two holes bleeding out instead of one.

The night ocean churns black around us, our wake cutting a white path through the darkness. The wind tears at my hair, carrying away the smell of copper and gunpowder. The constant thunder of twin outboard engines nearly drowns out my thoughts.

Nearly, but not quite.

They came for us.

The realization keeps crashing over me in waves. These men who I mourned—who I saw blown to pieces in the crystal clear footage Malfor forced us to watch on repeat—they’re alive. They came for us. And now Hank might die because of it.

Gabe crouches at the bow, a shadow carved in moonlight, rifle steady even as blood darkens his leg. He doesn’t wince. Doesn’t even acknowledge it. But I see the way his grip tightens every time the boat slams. His silence screams louder than the engines.

Blood seeps steadily from his leg, darkening his tactical pants. He ignores it, the same way he’s ignored my attempts to check the wound.

I can’t stop staring at him. Alive. Real. And it guts me—because the second I let myself feel that joy, I know I’m stealing it from Hank. There’s not enough oxygen for both emotions. Not enough room in my chest for gratitude and grief.

“Status.” Ethan’s voice crackles through our comms from the second RIB.

“Still breathing.” Carter pilots our boat, hands steady on the throttle. “RIB 1 holding together. Hank’s stable—barely.”

“Should’ve been me taking that rappel. Dammit.” Blake’s fingers curl into fists as he glances at Hank’s too-still form.

“RIB 2 has some punctures.” Walt’s voice sounds strained. “Taking on water, but pumps are keeping up.” He checks on Hank, placing his hand to his neck, then looks to me. “Pulse is slow, but holding. Just keep pressure.”

My gaze drifts to the second boat, twenty yards off our port side. Rebel lies in the center. Jenna sits beside her, two fingers missing from her right hand, face hollow with exhaustion. Their RIB rides noticeably lower in the water.

“How far to extraction?” Blake stands at our RIB’s rear gun mount, knuckles white on the grip.

“Twelve miles.” Ethan’s reply comes fast. “Trawler waiting at coordinates. ETA forty minutes. If we make it.”

If we make it.

Three words.

Tiny. Hollow.

They rattle around inside me like shrapnel, echoing like a curse I’m too afraid to say out loud.

Because if feels fragile right now. Like a breath that won’t hold. Like hope that can’t survive the weight of blood.

Hank’s blood.

He lies sprawled beside me, his face gray beneath the boat’s flickering lights. The bandage I pressed to his shoulder is soaked through, the bleeding relentless. My hands are coated in it—slick, warm, sticky where it clings to my wrists like the memory of his body pressed against mine.

Only that memory doesn’t match the man in front of me now.

I remember strength. Heat. The weight of him pinning me to tangled sheets, his voice low and commanding, eyes full of fire and purpose.

Now he’s limp. Pale. His lashes flutter, lips parted as if caught mid-plea or prayer.

He doesn’t look like the man who once made me feel invincible.

He looks like a body. Like a loss I haven’t had time to grieve.

I want to wrap myself in the miracle of Gabe’s survival—but Hank is bleeding out at my feet. And I can’t choose. I can’t. So I don’t. I split myself down the center and try to be enough for both.

I can’t stop shaking.

He took the bullet mid-rappel—jerked hard in the harness but still fired three return shots, like he wasn’t already dying. Then he let go early. Dropped the last thirty feet without hesitation. Crashed into the boat with a sound that will live in my nightmares.

He hasn’t opened his eyes. Not once. Not even when I begged. That stillness terrifies me more than gunfire. More than death. Because Hank’s not supposed to be still. He’s supposed to tease me. Steady me. Catch me when I fall.

Gabe kneels opposite me, gripping Hank’s limp hand so tightly his knuckles have gone bone-white. His jaw clenches once. Twice. A muscle ticks in his cheek.

But his eyes?—

God, his eyes are wreckage.

I’ve seen Gabe angry. I’ve seen him cold. Focused. Dangerous.

But never broken.

Not like this.

He’s bleeding too. His blood smells different from Hank’s. Older. Drier. But it still clings to my fingers when I press his thigh. Still proof that I could lose him too.

“We’re being tracked.” Blake’s voice slices through the night like a wire pulled too tight. Tension snaps across the boat. Every breath holds. Every heart waits to shatter. “Something in the water. Closing fast.”

A current of dread curls low in my stomach.

“What kind of something?” Rigel asks, already moving toward the bow.

Blake glances at a handheld thermal scanner. “Not marine life. Not natural. Drone or torpedo. Maybe both.”

Gabe doesn’t flinch. Just shifts slightly, shielding Hank and me with his body.

I try to focus, but the world keeps narrowing to the wound beneath my hands. I press harder. Feel a sluggish pulse. Too weak. Too slow.

Please, no. Not him.

Another wave slams into the hull. Salt spray stings my raw neck where the collar used to be. The freedom burns more than the restraint ever did.

“Two contacts now,” Blake growls. “They’re flanking us.”

I don’t lift my head. Don’t care. Let them come.

Just let me keep Hank.

“Stay with me,” I whisper, dragging my sleeve across my face. “You said we were a team, remember? Three of us. All in. You don’t get to leave.”

He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even twitch.

Gabe’s breathing grows louder. Rough. Fraying. Like he’s seconds from doing something reckless.

I meet his eyes. “We’re not losing him.”

His throat works, once, twice, three times before he finds the words.

“No. We’re not.”

He says it like a promise. Like a threat. Like a prayer.

Somewhere behind us, the boat’s engines scream as the throttle slams forward. Another explosion lights up the cliff face, turning the sea orange for half a breath. The team’s still covering us. But I know—we all know—we’re not out yet.

And Hank… Hank is barely hanging on.

His lashes flutter. Just once. I freeze, fingers splayed on his chest, afraid to believe it. His heart thuds once under my palm. Not strong. But there.

I lean down, press my forehead to his. Close my eyes. His skin is ice against mine.

I curl around him, shielding his body with mine as chaos churns just beyond us. His blood seeps into my clothes, warm and terrifying. I lower my lips to his ear, my breath shaky against his skin.

“I love you,” I whisper, soft enough that only he can hear. “So you fight. You fight, Hank. For me. For Gabe. For us.”

His eyelashes flutter against my cheek like the ghost of a promise. I clutch him tighter, refusing to let go of the warmth still in his body, the fight I swear I can still feel in his chest.

For a breath, there’s only the hush of wind across the water. The thunder of my pulse. The ache behind my eyes. He stirs, and the world restarts.

A soft gasp escapes me at the faintest flutter of his fingers against mine. Not much. But real. Enough.

The scanner pings again.

“Contact right off the port side!” Blake shouts. “We’ve got sixty seconds before it’s on us!”

The world narrows to chaos—yells, weapons drawn, team bracing for impact.

But I stay here.

In the blood.

In the silence.

In the space between breaths, where everything I love hangs in the balance.

If we make it.

No.

When .

Because I didn’t survive hell to lose him now.

“We’ve got him, Ally. Trawler’s rigged for trauma response. He’ll make it.” Carter curses, throttling up the engines.

Our RIB surges forward, slamming harder into the waves. Hank’s body jolts with each impact. I brace myself against his side, trying to stabilize him.

“Multiple contacts,” Walt confirms from the other boat. “Aquatic drones. And something on radar—aerial pursuit.”

Rigel touches my shoulder, pointing to the night sky behind us. Tiny red lights blink in formation. Getting closer.

“Malfor’s persistent.” Jeb checks his weapon, expression grim.

Something changes in the air—a subtle electric charge raising the hairs on my arms. Mia’s head snaps up in alarm. She feels it too.

“They’re deploying nanobots!” I shout to Gabe. “Swarm pattern!”

The microscopic hunters will find us, tag us, and lead the drones straight to our position, no matter how fast we run.

Gabe’s head turns sharply. “Blake?—”

“On it.” Blake digs in his gear, pulling out a cylindrical device with blinking lights. “EMP ready. Thirty-second countdown.”

The aerial drones are close enough now to hear their high-pitched whine over the boat engines. Red targeting lasers sweep the water around us.

“Brace!” Carter throws our RIB into a hard turn.

Water explodes ten yards to starboard—a miss, but close enough to shower us with spray. Malia screams. Blake returns fire from the mounted gun, tracer rounds arcing into the night sky.

The second RIB veers sharply to the left as two aquatic drones breach the surface, their sleek forms gleaming wetly in the moonlight. Walt opens fire, driving one back underwater. The other launches something—a projectile that rips through their RIB’s hull.

“Taking water!” Ethan’s voice crackles through comms. “Hull breach!”

Blake activates the EMP device, tossing it high into the air between our boats. It detonates in a silent pulse of blue-white light. The pursuing drones falter, their lights flickering and dying as they plummet into the sea.

The electric feeling dissipates—threat neutralized.

Our momentary victory evaporates as Walt’s voice cuts through: “We’re going down! RIB 2 is sinking.”