Page 31 of He Is Jensen: Part One

“Let me go!” she demands, shoving weakly against me, determined to use what energy she has left to escape me. I turn her in my arms as I had in her kitchen, her back to my chest, holding her firmly, steadily. “Damn you, Jensen.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Why won’t you just let me go?”

“BecauseI can’t,” I reply. “Because I don’t want to let you go again. I will never hurt you,” I add softly, and repeat it as she continues to squirm. “I willneverhurt you, Layla.”

Seconds pass, and she stills in my arms, but she whispers, “Let me go, Jensen.”

I open my mouth to tell her “never,” when a tingling awareness rushes over me and wind gusts rip through the warehouse. I grabLayla’s wrist and press the vial in her palm a second before I draw a gun with each hand and rotate to block her from danger.

At the same moment, a good half-dozen Zodius soldiers materialize. “We’ll be taking the woman,” one of them declares, confirming what I’d feared. They’re here for Layla; they’re tracking her, not me.

Before I can move, the soldiers drop to the floor like sawed-off trees, just hitting the ground with hard thumps.

“What the—?” I use my weapons to scan each unmoving soldier, then above, checking the pallets for another attack. At the same time, I nudge the leg of the nearest Zodius. Nothing. Totally limp. I lean down and check for a pulse, and find one. These fuckers are sleeping. What the hell?

I whirl around to Layla, one eye still on the soldiers, finding her standing against the wall, hands pressed to the concrete, accusation in her eyes.

“Why are you still standing, and they aren’t?” she demands.

“Why arewestill standing, and they aren’t?” I counter.

“You…oh, God.” She curls forward, holding her stomach.

I close the space between us, bending down and taking her with me, cupping her face and forcing her gaze to mine. “I didn’t deceive you.”

She blinks up at me, her lashes fluttering. “I don’t know what to believe.”

My hand closes over hers, where it clutches the ICE. “You can trust me. I took bullets for you for a reason. I willnotlet you die.” I remove the vial from her palm and pop the seal before holding it near her mouth. “Drink.”

She hesitates and says, “If you betray me, I swear, I’ll kill you.” With that vow, her hand settles over mine, soft and trembling, and she helps me tilt it back so she can swallow.

I admire her so very much in this moment—her bravery, her intelligence, her fight.

She gasps as the liquid slides down her throat before curling forward again. “Please God, let it work quickly.”

I scoop her up in my arms and push to my feet. She’s done fighting me, snuggling close and leaning against my chest, her lashes lowering. She doesn’t fight, doesn’t ask where we’re going, doesn’t have any fight left in her. I go icy inside, and not from the drug. From the sheer terror that I’ve found her too late.

I start for the door, feeling her shaking intensify, and for the first time in a very long time, I’m shaking, too.

The End…For Now

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