Page 65 of The Wrecked One

She’d fainted a few times, probably more from her fear of falling than due to a fear of heights, which I knew she didn’t have.

As we’d closed in on the ground, she’d passed out again and headbutted my jaw, and she’d remained asleep ever since.

Of course, it also had to start raining again. Nothing like walking through the mud with an unconscious woman in my arms while getting nailed in the face by water. I’d slipped twice and somehow channeled every ounce of strength in me to get back up without dropping Mya.

My bad shoulder hurt like a motherfucker, but I had no plans to force her to wake up so she could walk. I’d taken two breaks by leaning against a tree to catch my breath. But Mya was safe. We survived. So, that was all I cared about.

“Oliver!” At the sound of Malcolm’s voice in the distance, I almost cried.

I did collapse to my knees, though. I slammed my ass back onto my heels, going down in the mud without losing hold of Sleeping Beauty.

I kept myself slightly bent over her face to try and shield her from some of the rain, a bit shocked the water hitting us had yet to wake her.

“There you are.” Malcolm came rushing over.

The guy was a solid six-four and all muscle, even at sixty. I was glad my father had him in his corner over the years, I only wish Dad had also been in mine.

And not just in the shadows, but where I could’ve seen him.

Not what I needed to think about, especially with my arms tensed and locked up, starting to lose feeling from holding Mya for the last ten or fifteen minutes.

“You hear from my dad?”

“He was able to land, on ground, not in the water. He’s a hell of a pilot. He’s on his way to meet up with Cindy now. I’ll text him you’re good, and when he knows it’s safe and he’s not being followed, he’ll come to my place.”

Well, thank fuck for that news. At least I could give Mya something good to focus on when she finally woke up.

“Give her to me. I got her.” I let Malcolm take her, and my arms remained extended, still working to regain feeling in them. “My Tahoe is close. Can you make it?”

“Yeah, just get her inside. I’m coming.” I lifted my chin, a quiet plea not to worry about me.

Once his back was to me, and my arms finally worked again, I fell forward, hands slapping down in the mud as my head dropped forward. My chest ached, and I was fairly certain a sob managed to break free.

I hadn’t been that scared since Thailand, terrified those men would get to us and take her from me, and I’d fail again. I hadn’t let her know that, kept my shit together as long as she was with me, but now that I was alone . . .

I gave myself another minute to let go, to break down, before struggling to stand. And it was a struggle. Every part of me hurt, not just my shoulder.

Finally exiting the woods, I found Malcolm waiting for me outside his Tahoe, the back door open. “What happened to her?”

I limped over to the door, holding my leg, hating there was a new problem I was now dealing with. My knee. Nothing like getting older. “She’s afraid of jumping—into and out of things—and probably didn’t sleep well last night,” I explained. “Bad combination for skydiving. Then she whacked me in the jaw with that hard head of hers.”

“Ah, well, better her passing out than you. Your dad said there’s no AAD in your chute.”

The automatic activation device was a gadget that opened up the reserve canopy at a preset altitude if the jumper didn’t do it. “Yeah, you know I like to live dangerously. I took it out.” Not that I’d ever needed it before. I’d never passed out from free-falling. I’d also never guessed I’d be jumping from a plane with Mya strapped to my body.

“You kids these days. A bunch of daredevils,” Malcolm said, his deep Southern drawl cutting through both his tone and the downpour. All his time in Canada hadn’t stifled it one bit. “You going to get in, or make me stand out here in the rain all day?”

Right, I had to move. I released a dramatic sigh, shoved my wet hair from my eyes, then ducked my head to get inside. Mya was stretched out on the seat, so I had to shift her head up to rest it on my lap.

Once behind the wheel, Malcolm met my eyes in the rearview mirror. I was still in a bit of shock from everything that’d happened, but could tell he was waiting for me to ask him something. When I didn’t, he filled in the blanks. “Vanessa put up my drone over your dad’s runway after your father radioed down to me. She counted five dead bodies. Two abandoned SUVs. Plus, the truck you left, and Cindy’s car since your dad took hers. Nothing or no one else, though.”

“That means Easton and Teddy hopefully got away safely and with one asshole alive for questioning.” I’d have to reach out to Falcon once we were at Malcolm’s for an update. But first, I needed to get Mya inside and in dry clothes, make sure she was okay.

“Run,” she whispered under her breath, stirring in her sleep on my lap.

I had to assume she was reliving what happened earlier, or in Thailand, and I couldn’t help but hold her cheek while staring at her wet, fluttering lashes.

When Malcolm pulled through the gates of his home, which was an old lodge he’d bought a while back and converted to a house, I released a pent-up breath of relief. Thankfully, Malcolm’s place was even more heavily protected and fortified than my dad’s.

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