Page 45 of Echo: Line
We disappear into the trees, leaving behind everything that could lead them to us.
Behind us, Committee operators fan through the forest. Ahead, nothing but wilderness and the slim hope of reaching safety before they close the net.
No extraction. No Kane. No Echo Ridge.
Just us, and the certainty that the Committee's been tracking our every move.
My hand finds Alex's as we turn toward the trees. His fingers close around mine—warm, steady, real.
Then we run, and the forest swallows us whole.
11
ALEX
The safe house smells like mildew and forgotten violence.
Three miles of running through forest turned to scrambling over rocks, then wading through a creek cold enough to numb everything below the knee. Delaney never complained. Never slowed. Blood soaked through the makeshift bandage I'd wrapped around her shoulder, turning the fabric dark, but she matched my pace step for step until we reached this place—an abandoned hunting cabin whose location Tommy made me memorize. Emergency fallback location, one of six scattered across this mountain range.
Now she sits on a rusted metal chair while I dig through the med kit we stashed here. The cabin's got no power, no running water, just four walls and a roof that mostly keeps out rain. Enough.
"Shirt off," I say, keeping my voice flat.
She hesitates. Just a second. Then her good hand moves to the buttons. The fabric's torn, blood-stiffened, nearly ruined. Each button takes effort. When she reaches the fourth, her fingers fumble.
"Let me." I step closer before I can reconsider.
My hands brush hers as I take over. The contact sends electricity up my arm that has nothing to do with adrenaline crash. Her breath catches—barely audible, but I hear it. The space between us narrows until I can smell pine and copper and something underneath that's purely her.
The shirt comes off. Beneath it, her tank top is soaked through on the left side, clinging to skin and showing exactly how much blood she's lost. Not life-threatening. But enough to make my pulse spike.
I killed the operator who shot her. Put three rounds through cover that shouldn't have been penetrable at that angle. Didn't hesitate. Didn't feel anything except the cold clarity that comes with eliminating a threat to someone I can't lose.
"Tank top too," I say.
"Very professional." The attempt at humor falls flat. Her voice carries too much pain.
"Practical. I can't treat what I can't see."
She pulls the tank top over her head with a gasp that turns into a bitten-off curse. The wound is worse than I thought—a deep furrow across the top of her shoulder where the bullet carved through muscle. Edges ragged. Still seeping. Needs stitches I'm not qualified to do but will anyway because we don't have better options.
"How bad?" she asks.
"Bad enough." I open the med kit, pull out antiseptic, gauze, the suture kit I've used on myself more times than I want to count. "This is going to hurt."
"Everything hurts already. What's a little more?"
The joke doesn't land. We're both too raw, too wired from combat and the kiss we haven't mentioned. The kiss that's present in every breath between us.
I pour antiseptic over the wound without warning. Better that way. No anticipation, no flinching.
She goes rigid. Doesn't scream. Just breathes through clenched teeth while the liquid foams pink in the gash. Her good hand grips the chair arm hard enough that her knuckles turn white.
"Breathe," I tell her. "In through your nose, out through your mouth. Four counts in, hold for four, out for four."
She follows the instruction. Controlled even now, even bleeding. Even sitting half-naked in an abandoned cabin while I tend damage I should have prevented.
I should have spotted that ambush sooner. Should have realized they were tracking us. Should have protected her better.
