Raw Edges (19 page)

BOOK: Raw Edges

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The vest was nylon. She wasn’t about to mess with the bomb or its ignition device, but she needed Andre out of it. She patted the back of the vest. No obvious wires.

Andre twisted around before she could slice the vest. “Jenna, don’t. Let the—”

“I thought you were dead,” she told him.

“We both might be if you—”

“I don’t care. Can’t you see that?”

Liz arrived with the bomb squad guy—one of the staties—and between them, they trundled a small containment unit, basically a cement mixer on wheels, designed to hold explosives safely.

The sound of an engine revving screamed through the clearing. Everyone turned to look in the direction of the ATV.

“They’re heading over the edge,” a man’s voice came through the radio. “I’ve lost sight of them. Repeat I’ve lost sight of the target.”

“Anyone have eyes on Caine?” Oshiro cut in.

No one responded.

“Morgan,” Andre said. “Forget Caine. Where’s Morgan? Did she go over?” He started to climb to his feet, but Liz pulled him back down.

“Let us get you out of this first.” She turned to the bomb tech. “Best hurry.”

Jenna stood, staring in the direction the ATV had vanished, standing in front of Andre as if she could somehow magically block the signal from the dead man’s switch and the bomb.
Hang in there, Morgan,
she prayed.

The tech assessed the situation and then did what Jenna was going to do anyway—he slit the vest up the back just as a loud crash boomed through the night, followed by the sound of an engine whining, then dying.

As soon as he was free, Andre stood, grabbed Jenna’s hand, and they sprinted across the clearing to the cliff.

Lights from the other officers shone through the thick bramble of branches and dead trees that had been bulldozed over the edge to make room for the loggers’ equipment. Ridges of granite jutted up through the dead wood, creating a nightmare of desolation.

The manhunt had now turned into a search and rescue. Officers’ voices overlapped on the radio as they scrambled down and called out their findings. There was no way to climb down the steep granite cliff from the top, not without ropes and technical gear. Jenna and Andre prowled along the edge back into the trees until they found a shallow path that led down.

“I’ve got the ATV and Caine,” a voice came over the radio. “He’s KIA.”

“You certain?” Oshiro asked.

“Definite. ATV crushed him. He’s gone.”

“The girl, find the girl,” Liz ordered, her voice cracking through the night.

The path Jenna and Andre found was slick with mud and steeper than it had first appeared. As they scrambled down it, tripping over hidden tree roots and sliding in the mud, the voices on the radio kept coming.

“Wait. Shine the light—yes, pink, I see a pink coat.”

“Can you reach the girl?”

Andre stopped, gripping Jenna’s hand as they listened. The night felt heavy as the silence lengthened.

“She’ll be all right,” she told him, surprising herself by how much she wanted that to be true. “It’s Morgan. She’s like a cat with nine lives.”

He said nothing, merely pulled her to him and hugged her hard.

“I’ve got her. She’s—oh my God. The trees tore right through her. She’s impaled on a branch.”

“Is she alive?”

“She’s cold, so cold. Like a block of ice. But…how the hell…she held on. Somehow the kid hung on. I have the detonator, deactivating it.” His voice faded for a long moment, then returned. “I have a pulse. It’s faint, but it’s there. She’s alive.”

Chapter 30

WHEN YOU FALL
so fast and hard, all you can do is learn to fly.

The words kept coming, swift as swallows, elegant as eagles soaring on the wind, gentle as a breeze, harsh and hammering as a hurricane.

Morgan had no idea whose voice she heard as the black swallowed her whole. It wasn’t hers. Definitely not Clint’s. But it belonged to a man—or maybe men. Sometimes the words sang through her in Micah’s sweet tenor, others they hummed with Nick’s baritone, or guffawed and echoed in Andre’s bass.

Everything she’d been told about who and what she was and who and what she could ever be had come from one man: her father. But now as she floated, blind, deaf, and dumb, her world a blank slate, she heard stories about herself, about a girl who definitely was no saint but who maybe could learn how not to be a sinner. Tales of strength and bravery. Warm wishes from people who cherished her, who had hopes and dreams for her future even when she had none of her own.

Maybe even a hint of love. Not merely the heartache of romance but also the heartsong of family.

Even Jenna’s voice joined the chorus. Along with Lucy’s.

Yet, still she fell. Hard and fast, hurtling through a void where time and space did not exist. Until, just as she was certain she was about to hit bottom, shatter into a million anonymous pieces, falling faster and faster and faster…and...she remembered.

She remembered. Who she was. Why she had chosen to fling herself into the void in the first place. What was waiting for her, if only she would stop falling and start flying.

So she did.

A beeping pulse as regular as the flap of a bird’s wings guided her back. Someone or something was trying to tell her body when it should breathe, shoving air into her chest, but no one could tell Morgan what to do, that much she definitely remembered about herself. She coughed and sputtered and fought back, breathing when she damned well pleased, thank you very much.

She couldn’t see anything. Weird, viscous jelly filled her eyes, making them sticky and blurring her vision. Her throat scratched as an invisible force yanked a tube out, and suddenly she felt free, in control—at least of her breathing. She coughed and sputtered and inhaled crisp air that blew at her and tickled her nose.

She tried to sit up, but her arms were tied down, which made her panic and flail and hit and gnash until a man’s arms wrapped around her and a gentle voice whispered in her ear, “It’s all right. I’m here. It’s all right. You’re back. You’re safe. Everyone’s safe. Go to sleep now. Rest.”

She wasn’t sure who the voice belonged to—there were so many voices in her head, swirling like a flock of starlings—but somehow she knew he spoke the truth. She relaxed in his arms and for once in her life Morgan Ames did as she was told. She fell asleep.

In her dreams she flew, almost reaching the sun, but never so far that she couldn’t make it back to earth and the people who were now her family. She was no sheep or fish or Norm…she dreamed of being a bird…but even in her restless slumber she knew the truth.

She was Morgan Ames. A girl who was sometimes a predator, sometimes a protector, but never the prey.

Morgan Ames. A girl with a bloodstained past but a blank canvas for a future.

Morgan Ames. The girl who might have given up killing for a living but who wasn’t ready—not yet, at least—to give up on living.

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