Page 5 of Say You Will

The girl, I’d estimate her age somewhere between three and four, shakes her head. If she doesn’t cooperate in the next fifteen seconds, I’ll have to terrify her into submission. Fighting her and any obstacles in our path at the same time will be a challenge.

I take off my helmet. “Look. I have freckles like you do. My sister says my hair is goofy. Is it sticking up all crazy?” I’m due for a haircut. When I let it get like this, the cowlicks in my brown hair are out of control.

She blinks. “Yes.”

“Did you just take your fucking helmet off?” Dante barks in my earpiece.

The kid coughs again.

“Put this on. It’s going to make it easier for you to breathe. No bad people can hurt you when you have this on your head. It’s special.”

“Like Iron Man?”

Not even close.“Yes. Just like that.”

When I fit the helmet over her head, it wobbles, far too large, but the air is cleaner for her than it is for me.

“Shit for brains, Henry. I have no idea why people think you’re a genius. Get the fuck out of there.” I don’t need to see my chief of security to know he’s clutching his own headgear in agitation as he hovers nearby in the waiting chopper.

I’ll be gone before my breathing becomes a problem, and I already killed everyone on this part of the ship. The greater concern is an explosion, and no breather will save me from that.

“I’m going to run with you really fast. It will be loud. Hold on as tightly as you can and don’t let go of me until I say so. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Small arms squeeze around my neck, her child’s voice distorted through the helmet.

“Close your eyes. Don’t look.”

She nods, then crams her helmet-covered head against my shoulder. I wrap a makeshift harness around the two of us. She’s too small. Too easy to slip out of it. Something to consider for the future. My mind hadn’t let me go to a place where I imagined needing a baby carrier.

Emerging on the upper deck brings the relief of moderately fresher air, but only because the smoke is blowing in the other direction.

“You’re getting me off this boat or I shoot.” The voice comes from my left, and I stop, turning toward the US senator who was lying in wait.

His eyes flare wide in recognition, despite the contacts I wear, rather than my usual glasses. “Hen—”

My roundhouse kick knocks the gun from his hand, followed immediately by a slice across his throat with my bowie knife.

The girl screams, and I waste precious moments preventing her from clawing at my face and escaping my hold. The distraction is dangerous, so I clamp down, trapping her arms against her body. My shoulder and thigh take a beating from her head butts and kicking feet, but at least I can see now.

“Be still,” I grate out.

Sheathing my bloody blade, I run and jump for the ladder as the chopper lowers toward us. Her added weight is negligible, but considering I can only use one hand to grab the ladder and blood makes my grip slippery, I nearly drop us both into the ocean.

“I’m letting you use your arms. You have to hold onto me. If you let go, you’re going to fall all the way down and die.” A harsh yell. A monstrous thing to say to a child. But true.

Her squeal barely cuts through thechop chop chopof the machine above us. I loosen my hold. When she grabs onto my neck, I release her for two heart-stopping seconds to get a better grip on the ladder and secure the rigging. She clings to me, then I anchor her against me once more, holding her tightly in case she panics or tries to squirm away. We fly out over open water, wind and sea spray thrashing us as the team pulls us up.

When I reach the top, Dante tries to take the girl from me, but she refuses to let go, so I climb in and settle onto a seat with her on my lap.

As soon as the door closes, I remove the harness, and the girl scrambles away to shiver on the floor, turning her head from me to the pilot and the other men around her, then back to me. I reach for her, prepared to check for injuries, but draw back when she screams. “No! You’re bad too. You’re bad.”

Crimson splatters mar her pink T-shirt. I’ve left a bloody handprint on her side. She’ll be in the care of medical and mental health professionals soon.

Will my face fill her nightmares? Will she ever understand what she saw? Pointless to wish she’d closed her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

She rocks in place. She may not even hear me over the sound of the propeller.

“You’re safe now. No one else is going to hurt you,” I say.

---