Forever by Janie Crouch

Chapter Nine

Jess

I wasn’t goingdown like this. No matter what this guy had planned for me, I would fight.

He spun me around so my back was to him, keeping his hand over my mouth the whole time. Shit, he was strong. I squirmed and kicked, and it didn’t make a difference in his hold on me.

“Stop fighting,” the quiet voice said in ear. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

All the fight drained out of me. Oh thank God. He was here, it was beyond every conceivable possibility, but he was here.

He still hadn’t released my mouth. I reached up and touched his gloved hand.

“Don’t scream.” He released my mouth, and I turned, throwing myself against his chest.

“Ethan.”

He froze. “Jess.”

The word was no more than a breath, and his arms were around me. Where they belonged. “Jess,” he said again, lips in my hair.

I’d wished so hard that he was here, that I could be with him, that it felt like I’d conjured him out of thin air. I wanted to kiss him and remain like this, locked in his arms for the rest of forever. But we didn’t have time for that. Forever would have to wait.

“How did you find me?” I kept my voice to a whisper.

Ethan hesitated before speaking, never once letting me go. “The government brought me in.”

I gasped. “They sent a SEAL team for us?”

In the pale light from the door, I saw him wince. “Not exactly. It’s a team of four.” There was black paint smudged on his face to match his dark clothing, but it didn’t disguise how handsome he was—his strong jaw, carved cheeks.

Ethan had always been beautiful. But never more than now when he was an avenging angel come to save me.

But a team of four? That was strange. It wasn’t close to a full team. What did that mean? I would have to ask more later.

“We need to find Alena,” I said. “They just took her.”

He nodded. “Let’s go.”

Unlike before, this time when we entered the hallway, it was empty. Were the number of soldiers that I’d seen just a show of force? Where were they?

Voices sounded to the right, and Ethan pulled me behind him as he crept down the hallway toward the only visible door. He had a gun in his hand down by his side. Holding out his other hand, he motioned me back. I hesitated, unsure what he had planned, but I wanted to get in there. I could hear them laughing.

Without warning, Ethan kicked open the door. One powerful blow. A shout followed, and I stayed behind him as he swept into the room firing off three shots in rapid succession. Tranquilizer darts found their targets in the necks and chests of three soldiers. The last one was too close to get a shot off, and I yelled my warning too late.

The man jumped on Ethan, and they went down together. But Ethan wasn’t fazed. He flipped the man onto his back, delivering two sharp blows to the man’s jaw, stunning him. He retrieved his gun and shot him with one of the tranquilizers to complete the takedown.

Holy shit. I knew that Ethan was a SEAL and that he’d gone through all the SEAL BUD/s training. But he’d told me he was a field medic. He’d made it seem like nothing. Boring. Easy.

He hadn’t told me he could turn into a kick-ass action hero on demand. And it was sexy as hell.

But we needed to find Alena. I didn’t see her.

“I have to find my friend Alena. They’ve been hardest on her.”

Ethan watched the door, holding the dart gun ready. Nonlethal force. But I spied the real gun on his hip. He would do what he needed to, if it came to it.

The slightest sniffle caught my ears, and I pushed open a curtain to find a back room. Alena was sitting on a couch, staring at nothing. Her clothes looked intact, but it had taken me so long to get out of the ropes that anything could have happened. Had she been traumatized? Assaulted?

“Alena.” I crouched next to her.

Her eyes snapped to me like she hadn’t noticed me—retreated so deep inside that there was nothing left. As soon as she saw me, she burst into tears. “Jess.”

I held her close while she sobbed, unsure what to do. I wanted to cry with her.

A gentle hand touched my shoulder. Ethan looked down at me. His face wasn’t unsympathetic, but it was also firm. Ready. I knew that look. I’d seen it on the faces of the Linear Tactical men my entire life.

Ethan was in mission mode, and we were still in danger. Falling apart would have to wait. Survival first.

“We need to be as quiet as we can,” he whispered, “and we need to move. The rest of my team is getting your other two friends out. There’s a place we’re supposed to meet.”

He crouched down in front of Alena, eyes running over her quickly, assessing. “Can you walk, Alena?”

She was still crying, but she nodded.

“Okay. I’m going to make sure the way is clear, and then we need to go.”

Our eyes met for a moment, and something passed between us, though it was hard to say what. There was too much that had gone unsaid for too long. But he was here, and that was all that mattered.

* * *

Ethan

Jess was alive and unhurt.

Alive and unhurt.

That thought kept running through my mind as I checked the hallway to make sure that it was still clear.

There were bruises on her face that made me contemplate switching to real bullets, but she was moving well, and she’d suffered far less than her friend.

The relief I’d felt when I’d pulled her into my arms wasn’t something I was going to forget anytime in the next one hundred years or so. It had been so sharp, so acute, that I felt like a changed person.

I felt whole. Because the other half of me was back where it belonged.

She was so fucking beautiful, even covered in dirt and anger, and I knew that I would never let anything come between us again. Forget formulating a plan and wooing her.

I wasn’t leaving her side unless she asked me to let her go. And even then, I would still love her.

That was what beat in my chest. True, pure love. There had never been, and there never would be, anyone else. I just had to get her the hell out of here and tell her that.

I ducked back into the room, running my eyes over the fallen combatants. No signs of movement. There shouldn’t be—the tranq we used was powerful enough to put down an elephant—but I wasn’t about to take chances because a dart hadn’t connected properly. Behind the curtain, it was quieter. Jess had Alena on her feet, arm wrapped around the girl who was still silently crying. But at least she was ready to move.

I would get her somewhere safe enough to cry properly.

“Ready?”

Jess nodded. The determination in her eyes was enough to make me fall in love with her all over again. She hadn’t given up. Not for a second. Hell, she’d almost taken me down with that rock in the cell, and I was damn proud of her that she’d been willing to try.

They stuck close behind me as I led the way. We were going out the way that I’d come in. So far, everything had gone like clockwork. The only thing left was to get to the vehicles and get out.

Alena was limping, but we moved at a decent pace. Not one of the guards had moved from where I had dropped them. The back door was still free, and I couldn’t hear any other signs of movement in the building—which was exactly how it should be if the others were doing their jobs.

There would have to be a slight change in plan since Alena couldn’t descend the rocks with any kind of leg injury. The path to the west should be clear. I looked both directions out of the building before gesturing them forward. “Stay close to me.”

We clung to the shadows as we moved around the building until I saw a silhouette against the dark sky. I snapped my fingers twice and got three in return. “Landon,” I said.

“Ethan.”

“Got them.”

He nodded. “Edge of the woods, then hold. Go.”

We moved as one quickly down the hill. I pushed Jess and Alena in front of me so I could cover them from behind. Though I didn’t see any shapes on the rooftops, that could change at any second if we’d missed someone.

As soon as we reached the tree line, I pulled them to a stop, and we crouched low in the shadows, waiting. Not five minutes later, four figures ran down the hill and met us. Russell and Susan looked all right from what I could see. No one injured enough to need carrying, which had been our biggest fear.

Landon leaned in. “I’m scouting ahead for confirmation. Move as quietly as possible until we reach the vehicles.”

He disappeared into the woods like smoke on the wind, and that one movement told me more about his skills than anything else. The man was lethal, and he wouldn’t let anything stop him. Isaac motioned us forward when we’d let him have enough of a head start. He led through the woods, and I trailed behind, MacQueen covering the center.

It was slow moving, being as quiet as we were, and the civilians were louder than we could afford, but they were doing their best. The distance to the vehicles was only a mile, but it felt like five at the pace we were moving.

We had almost reached the clearing when I heard the sound.

Two snaps.

The other team members froze with me while Jess and the others followed suit, suddenly sensing our tension. Landon materialized, and I stepped up at his hurried whisper. “We’ve been made somehow. The woods beyond the vehicles are filled with patrols. We won’t get a hundred meters.”

Isaac cursed under his breath. “Who tipped them off?”

“Maybe we were spotted coming in,” MacQueen said.

It didn’t seem likely, but we couldn’t rule it out either. Either way, there was no way an ambush waited just beyond our vehicles by chance.

Could MacQueen have tipped them off? Russell? Susan?

“We head for the town on foot,” Isaac said. “Get close and hide before the sun rises. Secure new vehicles to get the hell out of here.”

Eight people were conspicuous under the best of circumstances, and these were far from that.

“Ethan, take point while I go up ahead,” Landon said. “Isaac, you’re the rear.”

I heard what he wasn’t saying: he wanted Isaac at the back of the group to watch MacQueen now that we knew someone had tipped off the enemy. We’d have to make sure we knew every move that he made.

Had he really been going to the bathroom on the plane? Or had he been making a well-timed phone call?

Landon disappeared after I nodded. By now I had hoped to be driving away, well on our way out so I could get Jess somewhere safe and talk to her.

Wasn’t going to happen as soon as I’d hoped.

We moved to the east, cutting back through the woods and away from the line of soldiers. Thankfully, they were far enough away that we could afford a little more noise. I glanced back when I heard whispers and had to lock my jaw in place to tamp down the spike of jealousy rocking me.

Russell Kramer was next to Jess. Far closer than was strictly necessary for walking through the woods. He asked her if she was hurt and briefly recapped what he’d gone through at the hands of the kidnappers.

All I could see was her birthday party. Walking into the bar and finding them just as close as they were now, his eyes all over her as if he had the right.

Not that I blamed him for wanting to be close to Jess. That didn’t mean I wasn’t about to knock his teeth out.

Russell started telling a sob story about how one of the bad guys had punched him in the gut a couple of times. Maybe Jess could look at it when they stopped and make sure the bruising wasn’t too bad.

You know what? Maybe we needed some quiet after all.

“Think you both could save the sweet nothings for when we’re no longer in danger?”

Jess’s eyes snapped to mine, hurt obvious even in the shadows. Fuck. My tone had been harsher than I’d intended, though it had the desired effect of getting Russell to back the hell off.

But I hated that look on Jess’s face. She’d just been through hell, and I was acting like an ass.

I reached for her out of instinct. “I’m sorry. We just . . . need to keep chatter to a minimum if possible.”

Jess stepped toward me, only a breath away, about to say something. I wanted to kiss her more than I wanted my next breath. I should’ve done it the second I found her in that room.

“Hey man, exactly where are we going?”

I glared at Russell for the interruption. But we needed to get going. The personal stuff with Jess would have to wait.

I tilted my head to the side. “This way.”

My sole focus needed to be on the mission. Everything else would have to wait.