Page 96 of The SEAL's Duchess
Fuck. I made it.
“Ivy?” Jack’s voice was almost drowned by the deluge.
“I’m okay.” Her teeth chattered painfully as she turned to face Jack. “Y-your turn.”
Jack backed up, hands on hips, face pale and set. She ran, limping.
Jumped.
She landed on the edge, arms windmilling. For one horrible second, she teetered?—
Ivy threw her weight back and hauled on the hose. Jack crashed into her, both of them toppling in a heap as the ruptured pipe hammered them from above with liquid ice.
Ivy couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t feel her hands or her face.
“Move, Duchess.” Jack’s voice was in her ear. “We have to move.”
Ivy rolled to her side, her hands clawed from the cold, her teeth rattling like loose glass.
She fought with the knots on the fire hose for seconds, but they were jammed too tight to free. She gave up. “Come on.” She helped Jack upright, and they stumbled out of the torrent, still tied together.
At the flare cabinet, she wrenched the door open. Inside—three handheld flares, a flare gun with four cartridges, foil blankets, life jackets.
She helped Jack into a life jacket and then shrugged on her own, zipping it to the throat. It was a small comfort, but something. Ivy grabbed as much as she could carry, shoving the remainder into Jack’s arms.
“Helipad,” she said. “Higher.”
Jack nodded, too spent to speak.
The ladder to the helipad was welded to the exterior wall, rungs treacherous with ice. Ivy went first, testing each one. Her fingers barely curled around the metal; her cheek pressed to the freezing bar as she fought the wind trying to tear her free.
Behind her, Jack climbed slowly, breath rasping.
The helipad was a bare twenty-foot square, exposed to the full fury of the storm. Wind roared like a living thing, trying to pluck them free and toss them into the sea.
Ivy dropped to her knees and tensed against it, fighting a wave of dizziness. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, digging deep for the strength she needed.
Jack collapsed beside her, clutching the flares.
“How do they work?” Ivy took one of the flares. The instructions were barely legible in the dark.Strike cap against rough surface.Easy. If her hands would work.
“Let me.” Jack set the flare gun aside, took the stick. “You set up the gun. Four shots. Make ‘em count.”
Ivy loaded the gun cartridges, fingers clumsy and sore with gummy blood. The gash on her palm was wide and weeping again, raw skin catching on the flare gun’s edge. Every cartridge she loaded was a trial. She dropped the first. Picked it up. Missed the chamber. Loaded again.
Click.
Then another. Click.
Blood slicked the metal. Salt and copper rode the wind.
Beside her, Jack struck the flare.
Nothing.
Again. The striker skidded.
“Come on, you fucker,” Jack hissed. She struck a third time.
