Page 44 of Echo: Line
"When I saw you go down—" The words crack. Actually crack. "I thought I lost you."
"You didn't."
His forehead drops to rest against mine. We stay like that, breathing the same air, still framing my face like I'm something precious. Fragile. Worth protecting.
I've never felt less fragile in my life.
"Alex." I find the back of his neck. His skin is hot, slick with sweat and adrenaline. "I'm here. I'm alive."
"I know. I know." But his grip doesn't ease. If anything, it tightens. "But for a second—just a second—I thought?—"
I don't let him finish. Can't. My fingers curl into his hair—still damp with sweat, gritty with dirt and pine needles—and I pull him down.
The kiss crashes into me—collision more than connection. His mouth meets mine with enough force that I taste copper, salt, the bitter residue of adrenaline. His blood or mine, I don't know, don't care. All I know is the desperate press of his lips, the ragged edge of his breathing against my face.
He kisses me like I might disappear. Like this might be the last chance. His fingers tangle in my hair, grip tightening as he angles my head, deepening the kiss until there's no space left between us. Until I can't breathe and don't want to.
My heart hammers so hard I feel it in my throat, my fingertips, everywhere his body presses against mine. The rough scrape of his jaw against my skin. The heat radiating off him despite the cold. The way his hand shakes—actually shakes—where it cups the back of my neck.
He's trembling. We're both trembling. Not from fear. From the stark reality of still being alive when we shouldn't be.
My wounded shoulder screams protest but I ignore it. My good arm wraps around his neck, pulling him impossibly closer. His weight presses me back against the stone and the solid reality of him—alive, whole, here—makes something break open in my chest.
Alive. We're alive. That's all that matters right now.
The rough pad of his thumb traces my jaw with surprising gentleness given the ferocity of the kiss. The contrast makes me shiver. Makes me kiss him harder, deeper, like I can somehow get closer than we already are.
When we finally break apart we're both shaking. His forehead rests against mine again, his breath hot against my lips. My shoulder throbs in time with my racing pulse but the pain feels distant through the haze of adrenaline and want and the stark reality that we're both still breathing.
"We have to move," he says eventually, voice wrecked.
"Yeah." But I don't release him. Can't make myself let go yet.
He finds my hand where it rest against his chest. His fingers thread through mine, squeeze hard enough that it almost hurts.
I'm here. He’s here. We're alive. And something fundamental just shifted between us.
"Can you run?" he asks.
"Yes."
"Good. Because that ambush wasn't random." He's already scanning the gear we're carrying - the water bottles, the first aid supplies, everything we took from the Committee truck. "They knew exactly where we'd be. Not from intel. From tracking."
The implications hit like ice water. A tracker. Hidden in something we've been carrying this whole time.
"The truck," I say. "Everything we took from it."
"Standard Committee protocol. Tag all tactical vehicles and equipment." His jaw tightens. "Should have thought of it sooner. They've been following us the whole time."
"Then where do we go?"
"We dump everything. Move fast and light. Get far enough away that by the time they realize we ditched the tracker, we're ghosts." He helps me to my feet, already stripping the water bottle off his belt. "Can you make five miles with nothing but what we're carrying?"
"I can make ten if I have to."
He looks at me—really looks—and something in his expression changes. Not quite a smile. But close.
"Yeah," he says. "I think you can."
