Page 15 of Fighting for Lucy

Focusing on the pain, he allowed it to lead him out of the fogginess, let it anchor him. Once he’d gripped his mind ontothat pain memories began to trickle back in. The plane crash, the hike through the jungle, the gunshot, the fall.

Lucy had tried to throw him over the side of the cliff.

A grin replaced the grimace, and he blinked his eyes open to find that he’d rolled about halfway down the incline and landed on a mossy outcrop where a single tree grew. It wasn’t so much as a cliff as a fairly steep hill that was more rocky than covered in trees like the rest of the landscape. If Lucy thought the fall would kill him, she was mistaken. It was enough for her to get away from him though, since it separated them and bought her a little time.

There was no anger in him at the knowledge she’d been willing to kill him. That she’d actively tried to, or at the very least to incapacitate him.

The opposite.

Pride blossomed inside him. The woman was smart and spunky. It took guts to do what she’d done, and she’d done it so perfectly. He hadn't seen it coming until it was too late to do anything about it, and momentum sent him sailing over.

It had taken every bit of strength he had to shift his trajectory to hit Lucy and take her down when he felt a tingling at the back of his neck one moment before the crack of a gunshot sounded through the jungle.

Had Lucy been hit?

Was she up there now with the shooter?

Or had his shove not been enough to save her from falling?

Fear for her safety was enough to wipe the smile from his face. Maybe the woman was a little too spunky for her own good. If she hadn't tried to get rid of him and go this alone, they wouldn’t be separated right now. He had a weapon in his backpack, which thankfully was still on his back, he could have protected them both, but now she was up there alone with someone he wanted desperately to keep her away from.

So much for that plan.

Whatever Lucy might think, he hadn't been walking her toward danger. The opposite in fact. He’d been walking her away from it, taking her to a place where he knew she’d be safe.

Too late for that now.

Now she was alone, unprotected, unarmed, injured, and left to face an enemy that spunk wasn’t going to save her from.

The fear that lurched its way through his body, gaining momentum as it went, was something he wasn’t accustomed to.

Sure, Zander knew what it was like to be afraid. Knew what it was like to fear for the lives of the people you cared about, those that were important to you, the closest thing you had to family.

But this felt so different.

It had been months since he’d felt anything even close to this, and that week of horror was etched into his mind and his soul. The echoes of his teammates’ screams still haunted his sleeping and waking hours. Nightmares plagued him, flashbacks during the day, and the only thing that kept him going was his need for vengeance.

Nothing could mess up his plans because without them he was … nothing.

Nothing but the tragic lone survivor of a hell he was never supposed to walk away from.

Death should have claimed him like it did the seven other men there with him that day. A horrible, unimaginable, agonizing death. Slow and painful, that was the kind of torture those men took pleasure in dishing out.

But he was going to get his revenge, and then there was every chance he was going to die for real. After that, he would have nothing left to live for. His team was all dead, his Delta career trashed, and his sister—the only blood family who had ever meant anything to him—hated his guts.

He was better off dead.

All of them were better off if he was dead.

Not yet, though. Death couldn’t claim his soul until he finished his final mission. And part of that mission included getting one strong, sassy, beautiful woman back home where she belonged.

“Hold on, Lucy, I'm coming,” he muttered as he placed his palms against the ground and used them to help heave himself into a standing position.

For a second, his body swayed, and he got the sickening feeling that he was going to fall the rest of the way down the side of the mountain. Just because it wasn’t really a fall that could kill a man, if he hit one of the trees the wrong way, he could snap his neck, or break a bone, rendering himself useless.

Somehow, he managed to remain upright, and covering his eyes to shield them from the bright sunlight he looked up to the top of the incline. Up there was the last place he’d seen Lucy, their gazes had connected as he was going over the edge. In that split second, he’d felt her fear, regret, and her deep remorse. There were a million things he’d wanted to say, assurances he’d wanted to give, but in the end, there hadn't been time.

All he’d felt, believing his life was about to end, was peace.

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