Page 36 of Carter
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her bag at her feet, her hands folded in her lap. When her eyes found mine, they were soft, steady, and full of something that damn near undid me. Trust.
“This isn’t forever,” I told her, crouching in front of her, my voice low and rough. “It’s just until I end this.”
Her hand slid into mine, trembling but sure. “As long as we’re together, I don’t care where we are.”
The words hit like a blade and a balm all at once. I lifted her hand to my lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.
“You’re safe now,” I said, and for the first time in hours, I almost believed it.
Almost.
Because in the back of my mind, I knew the truth: we weren’t hiding. We were waiting. And when they came for her again, I’d be ready.
49
Harper
The cabin smelled of pine and old wood, the kind of place that should have felt like a retreat. But there was no mistaking what it really was—a fortress. Every lock clicked, every shutter sealed, every shadow double-checked by Carter and his team.
And me? I was the reason for it.
I sat on the bed, my bag at my feet, listening to the low hum of men moving through the cabin, setting traps and sensors as if this were a battlefield. Maybe it was.
But when Carter came back into the room, the hard soldier edges softened. His rifle stayed slung at his side, but his eyes—those stormy, unyielding eyes—settled on me like I was the only thing that mattered.
He crouched in front of me, his hand warm as it closed over mine.“You’re safe now,”he’d said.
Safe. The word clung to me like a fragile thread. Because part of me knew safety didn’t exist—not really. Not when faceless men knew my name, when two people had already died because of this.
And yet… with him, I believed it.
I lay back on the bed after he left to brief the others, staring at the wooden ceiling, my heart twisting. For so long, survival meant standing on my own two feet, keeping the world at arm’s length. Now, it meant something else entirely—trusting Carter to stand between me and the storm.
The truth was terrifying. Not just that I was marked, not just that danger was circling—but that my heart wasn’t just mine anymore. It was his.
When he came back, I rolled to face him, my voice barely above a whisper. “You won’t always be able to protect me, Carter. You know that, don’t you?”
He froze in the doorway, shadows painting sharp lines across his face. Then he crossed the room, sitting on the edge of the bed, his hand brushing over my hair.
“Maybe not,” he admitted, his voice rough. “But I’ll die trying.”
The words should have scared me. Instead, they wrapped around me like armor. Because I knew the truth underneath them—he wasn’t just my protector. He was my heart.
And that was something no one could take from me.
50
Carter
The table in the cabin’s kitchen was covered in maps and tablets, the glow of screens casting harsh light across River’s and Gideon’s faces. Cyclone came in from outside, the night clinging to him, and dropped a duffel on the floor.
“Perimeter’s set,” he said. “Tripwires, motion cams, sensors—if a squirrel sneezes out there, we’ll know it.”
“Good,” River muttered, scrolling through intel. “But it won’t be enough if we don’t cut this off at the source. We can’t sit here waiting for them to strike again.”
I stood with my back to the wall, arms crossed, my eyes flicking to the narrow hall where Harper was resting. I could hear her faint movements—the creak of the mattress, the whisper of a sigh. Every sound was a reminder of why I was here.
“Carter.” River’s voice snapped me back. “You with us?”
