The Jackal by Ward J. R

Author:Ward, J. R.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-3494-2700-3
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2020-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

When Jack brought them up to the fissure, Nyx was ready to get down and hustle on her own. Good thing, because there was no way he could carry her through the tight squeeze. There was barely room for one person to fit through, much less an on-the-chest carry of a gunshot victim.

Not that she was a victim.

Pushing against his shoulder, she peeled herself free of his hold, and she could tell by the way his hands lingered on her waist that he didn’t want to let her go even as her legs accepted her weight. No time to talk. She went directly into the darkness, pressing her body into the narrow, earthen embrace of the fissure—and she did not look back. No reason to. Jack would be behind her. He would back her up. And as she shuffled along, the damp rock scraping over her backpack under the tunic, she was curiously unafraid.

Which made no sense. Then again, at least no one was shooting at her inside this super-dark, super-cramped little hole.

Although when they reached the end, maybe that was going to change.

A soft glow marked the terminal of the crack in the cave’s core, and Jack’s hand on her shoulder slowed her as she reached their exit. For a moment, they waited. Breathing in, she got a refresher on the stench of the Hive, but she recognized that it was less intense somehow. Things were quieter as well. Maybe after the fight Jack’s buddies had playstarted, the place had been emptied out?

More likely, some alarm had been sounded as a result of the video game’s worth of bodies they’d left behind in the Command’s quarters.

“I don’t hear anything,” she whispered. “Is it safe?”

“Keep your gun ready, but hidden.”

As Nyx had been the first in, she had to be the first out, and in retrospect, she maybe should have let him go ahead of her. Too late. No trading places.

Turning her head, she wished she could see him, if only to take some strength from the sight of his face. It was too dark, though.

“I’m okay,” she said softly. “Just so you know.”

“You’re in shock.”

“I am not—”

“Of course you are—”

“Don’t tell me what I am—”

They both stopped at the same time. And she had to smile—although the expression didn’t last long.

“Under different circumstances,” she said, “I really could have fallen for you.”

She didn’t expect a reply from him. But then his voice, so deep and low, weaved its way through the darkness to her.

“Under different circumstances, I would have fallen even harder for you. And not regretted my heart’s tumble for a moment.”

Closing her eyes, she felt a pain that had nothing to do with her bullet wound lance through the center of her chest. To hell with that better-to-have-loved-and-lost-than-never-loved-at-all bullshit. She would much rather have never met Jack.

Now, she was going to have to live with everything she would never have.

Assuming she made it out of the prison alive.

Tilting forward, she peered out into the Hive. “It’s completely empty.

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