Natural Disaster by Skye Warren

Author:Skye Warren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
Publisher: Dangerous Press
Published: 2022-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Carter

It’s not mission protocol to lay on a makeshift mattress with June and Theo on either side of me, listening to them both breathe. I’m aware. There’s a corpse at the side of the room. If anything, I should get up and drag it outside. I should get dressed. Check my equipment. Prepare for what comes next.

I close my eyes instead.

There is no protocol. We are safe.

For right now, we’re safe.

I’m used to missions unspooling out in front of me. I’m used to thinking of how one minute is going to lead to the next. For this minute, I think of nothing at all except the way she tucks herself into me so neatly, like one row of perennials next to another. And I think of how he’s a sprawl, one foot hooking over my shin, an arm over my chest, a combining root system.

Later.

Later is when I’ll keep the three of us alive. I’ll get them somewhere even safer so I can track down the people who have us in their sights. Theo can’t refuse to go, for fuck’s sake. If I have to drag him onto a helicopter myself, I will.

I wouldn’t have to drag him anywhere right now. He’s that close, and that languid. All I’d have to do is whisper that it was time to go into his temple, and he’d probably hop up into the jump seat and fly away with me.

With June. I’m the one who won’t be going with them.

The sound of the helicopter is distant at first. It mixes with the breeze. Hard to separate, until it gets closer.

“Leo’s people are here.” I push up from June and Theo. Pull June to her feet while Theo hops up. “Clothes. June. You need clothes.”

I pull a shirt out of my bag. Push it over her head. Whip mine on, too. Pants. There’s a pair of fold-up sweats for her. Thin. Socks? I find boots that probably belong to a dead man and bring them to her. Take her ankle in my hand.

“Carter.”

“What?”

I look up into blue eyes and pink cheeks and an uncertain curve to her mouth. “I can put on my own boots.”

I scoff at the idea and finish guiding her foot in. Sure, she can put on boots. So can I.

The whirr of the chopper gets louder.

And—

It’s wrong.

My backpack thumps into place at the same moment I register how wrong it is.

“Wait. Wait.”

Theo and June hover at the door, already waiting, looking like two people who are about to get into an Uber after a party. He puts an arm in front of the door. “Wait for what?”

I gesture in the direction of the sound. “That’s not one of my brother’s helicopters. He mostly owns commercial non-military vehicles.” Listen to it. I don’t know how to describe it to them. “He sent helicopters from a security firm that has an office in London, and they wouldn’t have military copters, either.”

June scrunches up her nose. “How can you tell that?”

“Military helicopters sound…heavier.

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