Page 14 of Twister

Before she could react, Twister came barreling toward her, grabbing her and pulling her into the well behind the stairs, shoving her down and covering her body just as the blast sent debris—drywall, wood, and glass toward them. She could only hope the stair structure held, or they would be crushed.

In the muffled darkness, she could hear the reverberation of the blast mixed with screams of pain. He shielded her head as more debris fell, then he rolled, taking her with him as a chunk of drywall crashed into the small space, pushing them back toward the base of the stairs, both of them coughing. She felt every hard inch of him, especially his arms tight around her, holding her against his defined chest and lean belly.

“Are you hurt?” His voice was a deep rumbling in her ears.

“I don’t think so,” she said into his chest. “Oh, God. I knew that guy was squirrely…oh man, all those people. We need to help?—”

“Not right now,” he said, his voice raspy and breathless. “We’re trapped in here.”

She took in his dark hair that fell over his brow, mussed from the exertion, peppered with dust and white drywall, the chiseled cut of his jaw and beautiful mouth. The deep brown shade of his eyes looked a bit off, almost glassy. Was he the one who was injured?

“Are you hurt?” she whispered.

He stared at her, his eyes intense and searching, as if he was trying to figure her out, who she was beyond the woman he’d just met. At that moment, she felt a sudden shift betweenthem. Her pulse leapt, and she realized that there was something unique about this man. Something not easily dismissed. He had an enormous power to discern people as well as she did, and that realization shook her to the very core of her being. Unable to look away, she took a hard breath.

“I’m—” His voice broke, and her stomach sank hard. His breathing increased dramatically, the kind of hyperventilating type of breathing that didn’t bode well. There was that same look in his eyes when he’d woken up from that nightmare, but now she had to wonder if he was living that nightmare in his waking hours, too.Flashbacks.

But she also saw his loneliness, that he didn’t expect to have anyone understand him, and didn’t want to show any kind of weakness. She understood that, too. The pain and hurt from the way her family had treated her had been rough. Even now, she felt old, buried resentment rise to the surface. Emotions she hadn’t allowed herself to feel. It was easier that way, easier to pretend that everything was okay, even when it wasn’t. The dark, earthy hue of his eyes searched hers, and she silently offered comfort and compassion that made her feel connected to him in a way that she’d never experienced before.

His big body shuddered, and he buried his face against her neck, his ragged breath hot and damp against her skin.

She racked her brain to try and think of a way to help him. Talking wasn’t going to do it, even though that was still an option.

They were trapped,and the instant he realized how small the space was, the worse his chest tightened. Panic, stark and razor-sharp, skittered across every nerve ending. The rush of alarmwas so intense that for an instant, he thought his heart would stop altogether. It wasn’t like the two times before when he felt he could breathe and control the fear. Tightening his arms around her, panic compressed his lungs, and a frantic sense of urgency went through him—that feeling of running out of time.

His immediate concern was Sadie. He’d been coming over here to apologize for his behavior. The way he acted did not sit well with him. But when he’d heard someone shout about the bomb, his instincts kicked in, and he’d gotten her to the closest shelter he could find. He knew that everything turned on a dime, and they all operated on the premise that it only takes a few critical minutes to do harm, to them, to civilians, to people under their protection, to America. Tex expected him to think and act independently to accomplish any task or mission.

The next few minutes were a jumble of fear and panic and short periods of him trying to convince himself that he was overreacting. He could overcome this.

But the panic gripped him in a vise, the memories of being trapped beneath all that rock and debris in Haiti, the pain and the sense of helplessness swamped even his formidable struggle to get himself under control. Against his hardest attempts, he was coming apart piece by piece, and that hollowness that came with these panic attacks seemed deeper and darker. They had to get out of here before they suffocated.

It was the fatigue that was beating him, and his anger almost burned away the panic, but he couldn’t quite get a handle on it. He was tired, his energy was low, and he was losing his shit right in front of this woman who he had been trying to save from the effects of the blast.

She would see him, see right into the raw, terrible center of him to where he was right now, that enclosed spaces brought on these feelings and those frightening flashbacks. He was a SEAL.He had been through the most difficult training on the planet. He could overcome this. He had to before?—

Sadie moved, then the sound of her voice, soft and unsure. “Twister…” He realized that she had been saying his name for a while now, but he’d been lost in the swirling swamp of his goddamned emotions.

He looked at her, working at keeping his expression neutral. “What is it?” His voice was tight and uneven, feeling as if every muscle in his body was stretched to the limit.

She was watching him with a worried expression. “What’s wrong…besides the fact that we’re trapped in this tiny space with the threat of collapse?”

His chest expanded, and the panic gripped even tighter. He fought to remain here with her, but he was losing that battle. “I’m okay,” he said, but his voice was weak, and his breathing was too rapid.

There was a tiny tremor in her voice when she responded, “Why don’t I believe you?”

His whole body trembling, Twister clenched his jaw, his heart now slamming against his chest, the intensity of his fear and panic on the rise. Feeling as if everything was closing in on him and his control was gone, he was exposed and vulnerable, two things he hated like hell to be.

Hauling in ragged breath after ragged breath, his chest heaving, he squeezed his eyes shut, as if that would somehow block out the awful sense of panic overwhelming him. His hands started trembling, and he didn’t know what would be worse. Release her and not have her to hold on to or leave them and add fuel to that damn dangerous fire he was building here.

Feeling as if his lungs were closing up on him, his throat tightened. He tried to focus on her, noting the dismay in her eyes, but the memories kept intruding until he saw nothing butsolid rock and violent shudders coursed through him. That look in her eyes was enough to rip the heart right out of him.

His heart hammering, his breathing so labored he felt almost dizzy, he weakly rested his head against hers, his whole body shaking. He felt as if he was being wrenched in two. He spiraled down and got lost in his mind with no seeming way out.

He clenched his teeth. He would find one. His training exposed every weakness in him. But he was determined to never give up. He’d endured all those sudden-death overtime periods with a never-ending push for internal fortitude to continue when there was nothing left to give, yet somehow finding it inside himself to make it happen.

He wouldn’t let Sadie down, he wouldn’t let his team down, and he’d be goddamned if he would let himself down.

He was momentarily trapped in his own mind. He didn’t know why this woman scared him so much, and he had no idea how he was going to explain everything, what he was feeling, which was beyond words, terrified, and so horribly alone.

---