She used the bush to pull herself to a stand. She half-slid and half-walked down the slope, until the forms of the two men became clear.
Lucas’s arms flailed. He tried to beat at Alex’s sides, but the impacts, and the arcs of his arms, grew smaller and smaller as his strength failed. His hands clutched at Alex’s shirt in a final grip before falling to the side. Lucas’s legs kicked out, splashing twice in the deeper water before they stilled and bobbed as they were tugged at by a swift current.
Alex leaned away from Lucas, pulling his shaking hands from the man’s throat. “No. It isn’t enough,” he growled down at the still man below him. “Not for what you did.” He stared down at Lucas, his features twisted.
She didn’t think it was just fury. What did he have to be ashamed of?
“It’s okay, Alex,” she called out to him. Her voice sounded wet and hoarse. Hearing it hurt as much as the effort of speaking.
He lifted his head to stare across the stream at her on the hillside.
“It’s okay. It’s okay to like it. Remember?”
His head fell to the side and grief twisted his face. He shook his head, rubbed his face, and muttered under his breath. “You did that, Reyes. Proud of yourself?”
She started to descend toward him.
“No,” he shouted. He waved her back. “I’m coming.” Alex swung his leg over Lucas. He slid on his backside through water and leaves and mud until he pulled clear of Lucas, kicking the man’s side as he pushed away.
The kick had enough force to dislodge Lucas’s head and shoulders from the hold of the muddy shore. Lucas slid out, spun as the current caught his lower body and then flowed loosely away in the water.
Alex started, then scrambled to his feet and waded in, following a few steps as if to retrieve Lucas’s body. When he stopped, he stared after his former partner for a long moment before turning back to her.
His beautiful face was a study in rage and shame. He splashed across the shallow water to the hillside then climbed to her. He moved as if in pain, but it wasn’t physical pain slowing him.
He stopped in front of her. “It’s not okay, Lena. It’s not.”
She stared back into his face. His expression was as haunted as that of the boy under the train car and filled with pain. The bloody slash showing through his torn shirt flashed her to a man crawling away, a gaping wound across his throat. It’s not okay. It’s not. But he does.
Alex cupped her cheek away from her wounds. He shook his head in small movements back and forth as he searched her eyes above her mangled face.
It’s not okay to like it. But I do, too.
“I just—I almost lost you.” His voice broke, and he swallowed.
She nodded. That made it okay? It didn’t. “It’s not okay to like it,” she whispered. “But we do. We do.”
He picked small bits of forest detritus from the blood thick on her face. His hand fell to her shoulder, and he pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her, not a vise this time, but a cradle.
Lena’s hands went up automatically, wrapping around his sides.
Alex bent into the embrace, lowering his face into the space between her head and neck. His voice was muffled, meant only for her, “We do what we have to. And I almost lost you.”
“Hey.” Jackson called down to them from the top of the hill. How long had he been there?
Alex’s arms tightened around her for a second before he pressed his lips to her temple. The warmth of his breath curled on her skin. When he pulled away, her blood coated his cheek and lips.
Jackson said something above, but Lena lost the words to the look on Alex’s face. Grief and guilt mingled with rage—darkness. But something else pushed at the darkness like light oil spreading through wine.
He ignored Jackson. He kept his focus on her. He swiped the back of his hand across his face, smearing her blood into his skin.
“Thought I told you to heal her, Lee?”
“She ran to you.” Irritation flared in Jackson’s voice. “Was he done? You want me to head downstream to find and finish him?”
Alex still didn’t raise his face. Instead, he looked back down the river as if he could see Lucas’s body, long gone like a log fallen in the night.
“He’s done enough. Let him drown.” The words throbbed with hatred, different from his usual agent cool. He pressed his hand to his side. “It’s going to be full dark soon. We need to get Lena to the rendezvous. Let him rot.”
“Yes, sir.” Jackson said.
She looked up at him. Jackson nodded, his expression as empty and implacable as that of the man he looked down on from above.
Chapter 32