Page 99 of Fury

“Try to stay out of danger for the next few months, okay?” he joked.

Her laugh was less than wholehearted, and it cut him deeply. “I’ll do my best.” She pulled back and gave him a small grin, chin quivering slightly.

It almost tugged those three words out of him then and there, but that would be selfish on his part, wouldn’t it? He’d seen too many people start off relationships long distance that crashed and burned a few weeks later. He cared about Hollyn too much to risk that.

Once he was back here, he’d never let her go. Just had to make it through the next few months.

Fury sat at Davis’s side, observing everyone around them. Always on sentry duty. He was going to do great things for ABA.

Regretfully, Davis turned to Bongani. Shook his hand. “Thanks for the ride, man.”

“Of course.” Bongani nodded.

“Let me know when you two land?” Hollyn asked.

“Sure thing. I’ll see you later, Hol.”

With one last look, Davis clicked his tongue to Fury and turned toward the airport.

The next few months were going to suck. No two ways about that.

* * *

“Are you all right?” Bongani’s voice held genuine concern.

Hollyn was grateful that he was driving. She didn’t think she’d have been able to see the road clearly through the hot tears pooling in her eyes. She nodded her head. It was all she could do without completely breaking down.

Bongani pulled out of the terminal. “Come now,” he gently pried from the driver’s seat next to her. When she didn’t answer, he continued. “Why didn’t you go with them?”

She drew in a shaky breath. “He didn’t ask me to.”

And that was the simple truth of it. Though they’d talked things over and come to an agreement, she couldn’t deny that if Davis had asked her to go with him, she would have found a way to make her obligations to Reinhardt Tech work. Would have built a new life by Davis’s side now instead of possibly later. But clearly, he didn’t feel the same way.

A moment of silence passed between them. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Me too.”

Hollyn thought back to the kisses they’d shared. The conversations. The looks. She knew she hadn’t made it all into something it wasn’t, but maybe what was between them had simply been born out of chaotic circumstances. After all, he’d never actuallysaidhe loved her.

Now that things had calmed and returned to a normal pace, it was possible Davis was thinking clearly again—ornot,if you asked her—and regretted how far things had progressed between them. He was human, after all. Allowed to feel the way he felt. She only wished they’d had time to talk about things in more depth. He’d said he was coming back, so why did she feel like she was on her own once again?

After the funeral for her parents, Davis had gotten a call from Crew that the team was ready to take Fury. A whirlwind twenty-four hours later, he was ready to leave. It had all happened so fast. So soon. Her mind was still reeling from the events of the last couple of weeks. She needed some clarity. Wished that her parents had been buried here so she could talk “to” them, but Randall had seen to it that they were laid to rest in the family plot back in Tennessee.

Hollyn was grateful for that . . . but nevertheless it amplified the feelings of being left behind. On her own. Again. Still, there was comfort in the knowledge that even though everyone in her life might leave her, God never would. The question was: could she let that be enough?

She could head to the lab . . . but for the first time in her life, it didn’t feel like she’d find what she was looking for there. She wouldn’t see Dad sitting in his office or hovering over his next project with that familiar gleam of joy in his eye. No. The lab was the last place she wanted to be.

The ocean, then. She always felt close to her parents there.

“Would you please take me to Saadiyat Beach?”

Bongani nodded. “Of course.”

He guided the Mercedes through town, and Hollyn let herself stare mindlessly out the window. Watched families walking down sidewalks, mothers dressed in elegant kaftans that rippled in the breeze blowing in from the gulf. Children laughing while they talked with their fathers. The skyline of the city behind them was filled with a mix of gorgeous curved architecture seemingly a throwback to times past as well as modern skyscrapers ushering in the future.

Why didn’t it feel likeherfuture was here anymore?

Abu Dhabi had never felt so distant to her as it did now. It no longer felt like home.

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