Page 18 of Echo: Line
"Dinner." The word catches. A normal thing. Something worth surviving for. "Yeah. Deal."
Something shifts in her voice. Almost warmth. "Deal."
The cold spreads from my fingertips inward. Ward's voice becomes distant static. Her hands on my face, warm pressure—the last thing that feels real.
She chose me over the badge.
Everything goes black.
6
DELANEY
Alex goes limp in my arms, his weight suddenly dead against me. Blood soaks through the pressure bandage and onto my hands. Too much blood. Way too much blood for anyone to lose and still be breathing.
"Alex." My voice stays steady despite the panic clawing up my throat. "Alex, stay with me."
Nothing. His head lolls against the seat, eyes closed, skin gray in the dashboard light.
Two fingers press to his throat. The pulse flutters there—thready, weak, but present. Relief floods through me so hard my hands shake. He's alive. Unconscious and bleeding out, but alive.
I need to move him. Can't drive with him slumped in the driver's seat. Pushing open the passenger door from the inside, I grab him under the arms and pull him across the center console. He's dead weight, two hundred pounds of unconscious muscle and blood loss. His head lolls back, and for a second I think I'm going to drop him. But then he's in the passenger seat, slumped against the door, and I'm sliding behind the wheel.
The truck idles on the abandoned road, surrounded by darkness and trees. No signs of pursuit yet. But Patterson's teamwill be tracking this vehicle. They have the resources, and they won't give up.
I need to think. Prioritize. The FBI training kicks in despite the adrenaline still burning through my system.
First priority: stop the bleeding. Second: find shelter. Third: figure out what the hell to do with an unconscious fugitive who might be the only person telling me the truth.
The road curves ahead into deeper wilderness. No streetlights, no houses, nothing but forest. I put the truck in gear, one hand on the wheel, the other keeping pressure on Alex's wound. Blood slicks my fingers. The metallic smell fills the cab.
Half a mile down, a turnoff appears barely visible through overgrown brush. The kind of access road hunters use in the fall. Branches scrape against the truck's sides as we push deeper into the woods. The road ends at a small clearing with a decrepit hunting cabin that looks like it hasn't seen use in years.
Perfect.
I kill the engine and the headlights. Total darkness swallows us. For a moment, I just sit there, listening to Alex's shallow breathing, feeling the warmth of his blood seeping through the bandage.
Twenty-four hours ago, I was reviewing case files in my Alexandria apartment, drinking bad coffee, preparing to bring in a dangerous fugitive. My biggest worry was whether the electric bill got paid.
Now I'm sitting in a stolen truck with that same fugitive bleeding out beside me, my entire career destroyed, wanted by the same organization that sent me to arrest him.
The absurdity hits me—I'm a fugitive now too.
"Okay." Speaking out loud because something needs to break the silence besides Alex's labored breathing. "Let's get you inside."
Getting an unconscious two-hundred-pound man out of a truck turns out to be significantly harder than FBI training prepared me for. I open the passenger side door and drag him out. He slides bonelessly to the ground with a grunt. I hook my arms under his shoulders and pull. He's heavy, dead weight dragging through dirt and pine needles. The thirty feet to the cabin door might as well be thirty miles.
The cabin door hangs unlocked—no surprise since the whole structure looks ready to collapse. Inside smells like rot and animal droppings. No power out here. But there's a ratty couch against one wall and a stone fireplace.
I get Alex onto the couch, using the last of my strength. His face is pale, lips tinged blue. Shock. He's going deeper into shock.
The trauma kit. I left it in the truck.
I sprint back outside, grab the kit and a go-bag, and return to find Alex exactly as I left him. For a terrible moment, his chest looks still. Then it rises, falls.
My phone is in my pocket. The screen illuminates the cabin with harsh LED light. Battery icon shows red. No signal.
I set the phone aside, face-up on the floor for ambient light. Then I turn my full attention to keeping Alex alive.
