Page 30 of Risk It All
“We’ve got this,” she told him in a hoarse voice. “I’m not letting you go.”
Kavenski didn’t pause in his efforts to escape the car, but he did give her a narrow-eyed glance.
“What?” she puffed, her muscles straining. She hadn’t expected torrents of gratitude, but his look had been more exasperated than grateful.
“Inspirational…speaking,” he gritted out as he dragged himself forward, his muscles vibrating with the strain, “isn’t…your thing.”
She opened her mouth to retort, their back-and-forth strangely reassuring in a crazy way, but then the sound of splintering wood filled the air again. This time, the car lurched sideways, away from them, yanking Kavenski along with it.
Taken by surprise, Cara stumbled forward, pulled by her grip on him, but then she planted her stocking feet and resisted being towed along. Kavenski caught at the rocky ground, searching for handholds, and his fingers locked into a narrow crevice. She tightened her hold and threw herself backward, putting all her weight into being an anchor while she wished she were bigger and stronger, feeling like a hummingbird trying to save an eagle.
With a horrible grinding, tearing sound, the car toppled forward. Cara held on and watched, terrified that Kavenski was going to be dragged along with it. His hips and then legs slid free as the hunk of twisted metal and shattered plastic tumbled over the edge of the cliff. Cara toppled backward, and Kavenski followed her down, landing on her with enough force to drive the remaining air from her lungs. She didn’t care about breathing at that moment, though. She just appreciated the feel of his huge, intact,alivebody flattening her against the rocky ground.
The crash of the car landing far below them was as loud as the grenade had been, but somehow worse as the sound bounced around the peaks. Cara flinched at every echo. It had been too close a call. They’d been so close to being inside the vehicle when it fell, so the sound of its destruction hit Cara hard.
Kavenski’s weight lifted as he pushed himself up. Hovering above her, he inspected her with an intense gaze. “You okay?”
“I think so.” Now that he wasn’t on top of her, she could actually breathe again, but a part of her missed the secure feeling of being pinned by his bulk. “Give me a minute. I have to wait for the adrenaline to subside before I know if, you know, one of my legs fell off or something.”
His huff of air could’ve been just an acknowledging grunt, but Cara liked to think that it was a laugh. He rolled to the side so he was lying on his back next to her, and it felt oddly intimate, as though they were in a bed together—if the bed was a sheet of rock.
As her heartbeat started to steady, her aches and pains let themselves be known. Her entire body felt as if she’d been tossed into a cement mixer, but she couldn’t feel any pain that stood out more than any other.
“Everything still attached?” Kavenski sat up and then rose to a crouch, as if he could tell she was mentally cataloging her injuries and ready to report.
“Yeah. Sore, but nothing needs immediate attention.” She started to sit as well, but it was harder than she’d expected, her muscles protesting any movement. Flopping back down, she allowed herself one miserable groan before making her next attempt.
Kavenski offered a hand up, his mouth twitching in that way that was equivalent to a grin from anyone else. She gave him the flattest stare she could manage while scrambling to her feet with his help, hiding her pleasure at getting him to smile.
His humor disappeared quickly once she was standing. “We need to get moving.”
Everything rushed back. “Right. They’ll be looking for us.” She peered up the slope, but she couldn’t see the road. That was good, though. If they couldn’t see their pursuers, hopefully she and Kavenski couldn’t be seen, either.
“Most likely.”
“Won’t they think we’ve gone down with the ship?” She waved in the general direction of the cliff without looking at it. Their close call was too fresh in her mind.
“At first. They’ll eventually check out the wreckage and know that we weren’t in it. Abbott tends to be…thorough.” Kavenski was back to his expressionless, almost harsh way of speaking, and Cara was strangely glad. That soothing voice had been disturbingly unlike him, and she mentally filed away the fact that if he pulled out his gentlest tone, they were probably very close to death.
Focusing on the subject at hand, Cara looked around. The part of the slope they were on wasn’t too steep for them to traverse on foot, but it would be difficult in just her socks. She dropped her gaze to her feet.
Kavenski pulled off his coat, silently eyeing the rips now decorating the sides where they’d caught on the edges of the car window. The sight reminded her that he’d gone through an even more traumatic event than she had. “Are you hurt?” she asked, feeling guilty she hadn’t immediately checked. The man was so stoic that he could be missing a body part, and he’d probably just rub some dirt on it and walk it off.
In response, he flipped his hand in a dismissive gesture, which Cara took to mean that, like her, there was nothing life-threatening wrong, although she guessed he had to be even sorer than she was. As she studied him, looking for signs of more minor injuries, he pulled a folded knife out of one of his pockets and flipped it open.
Her attention caught, she watched as he used the knife to hack off both sleeves of his coat. Although she couldn’t imagine why he was mutilating his outerwear, she kept her mouth shut, figuring she’d eventually figure it out if she kept observing. Once the sleeves were removed, he put on the remains of his coat, which now looked like a hacked-up vest, and put away the knife.
When he pulled out a few zip ties, Cara couldn’t help but flinch. He met her gaze. “Don’t worry. They’re not for tying you up this time.”
This time?Somehow, his words weren’t as reassuring as he’d probably meant them to be. Warily, she watched as he banded the cuff of the separated coat sleeve and pulled the tie tight. He did the same to the other sleeve and then held them out to her.
She accepted the sleeves but held them in front of her, eyeing them uncertainly. “What am I supposed to do with them?”
“Put them on.” When she didn’t immediately follow his command, he gestured impatiently toward her feet.
Looking back and forth between the sleeves and her socks, it finally clicked what he was aiming for. “Oh! They’re boots…well, sort of.” Still not sure how exactly they were going to work, she lifted her foot and pulled one of the sleeves on so the zip-tied end was by her toes. When Kavenski didn’t tell her she was doing it wrong, she put the other one on as well. Immediately, she felt warmer, the insulated fabric making her skin tingle a little painfully as her feet thawed.
Crouching next to her, he pulled the top of the sleeve up past her knee and then secured it with a zip tie. “Too tight?” he asked.
