And when she looked at Will with that expression, forced his name past her lips in that flatly pleading tone, he understood.
She’d told him the truth.
All of it.
Cole had been sent to kill her . . . and for reasons Will still didn’t entirely understand, she was more than willing to die to save him.
Even tucked away in some deep recess of her mind, she’d fought her way out just to beg for Cole’s life. And though she couldn’t muster the desperation across her face or into her tone, Will saw the fear, instinctual and predatory, that lived within her.
And he knew without question that killing Cole would surely destroy her, too.
Fuck.
He couldn’t do it. Even if every instinct he had said they’d both be better for it, he couldn’t hurt Cooper that way. Couldn’t ignore the fact that she hadn’t been able to fight for herself, hadn’t found the strength to beg for her life, but had managed to beg for Cole’s.
That alone told Will everything he needed to know in that moment. Whatever else she was, Cooper was better. Than Cole. Than the shitty hand she’d been dealt.
And better than Will, too. Because she still knew how to forgive. How to care about someone who’d so ruthlessly betrayed her.
In the face of it, Will could do no less.
“It’s okay,” he promised her, though even as he did he saw her begin to fade. “It’s going to be okay.” Will tightened his arm and cut off both blood and oxygen.
Held it, until Cole stopped fighting, stopped moving, and nearly stopped breathing.
Against every instinct he had, Will dropped Cole to the ground and forced himself to walk away—and headlong into the next set of problems.
Cole had found them; Will had to assume that the apartment wasn’t safe. Not anymore. But they had to go back. Grab gear and resources, then run and regroup.
Cole wouldn’t be out nearly long enough for that.
They had minutes but needed hours.
Searching the overturned bins, Will came up with a thick length of twine, hog-tied Cole, then dragged him none too gently into the narrow space between two dumpsters. He gagged him with the shredded sleeve of Cole’s shirt, then turned back to where Cooper sat, her back against the wall, her eyes on something far away.
Will knelt in front of her and watched as that tiny sliver of personality that had surfaced just long enough to plead for Cole’s life floated back down to the depths.
“Hey,” he said, brushing a thumb across a smudge of dirt and wincing at the bruise he found pinking up beneath it. “We need to go.”
Cooper stared at him, lost inside her own mind. He pulled her hair free from the tie that was barely doing its job and let it fall around her face. She wasn’t too banged up—probably because she hadn’t fought back—but Cole hadn’t been gentle with her, either.
Because his fury was banked, but burning, just waiting for the tinder to set it off, Will forced himself to extend his hand and say, “Come on, sweetheart.”
Obediently, she placed her hand in his, but didn’t seem to notice that her palms were scraped to hell or that her knuckles were bleeding.
He locked her fingers in his, tucked her arm up under his elbow, then wiped at the blood trickling down his face with the edge of his shirt.
Folding Cooper into his protection was easy, but walking away from the man who’d hurt her, betrayed her—no matter the reasons—was infinitely harder.
As always, the anger was right there, snapping and clawing and demanding justice or vengeance or just the sweet satisfaction of paying hurt with hurt.
For Cooper, Will realized as they left the alley and stepped back into the sun, he found the strength to walk away. To step back from the violence that had become so damn easy. From the cruel desires that had kept him alive.
She’d hurt him, yes.
But she’d given him something, too. His life, twice over, but more, she’d helped him take the first steps back toward the man he wanted to be.
The man he’d been—and the one he’d thought he’d buried in the muddy depths of that pit.
Cooper had brought him back to life, to himself, and he was damn well determined to return the favor.
No matter the cost.
Chapter Twelve
Something had made a home in Cooper’s mouth and proceeded to die there.
She sat up, her head pounding and the room spinning.
Oh God, she felt as if she’d just had the best, worst night of her life. How much had she had to drink?
Her pulse throbbing painfully behind her eyes, she swung her feet to the floor and realized two things simultaneously—she wasn’t wearing anything other than her underwear and she had no fucking clue where she was.
Fragmented memories flashed through her brain like a strobe light—fractured and pulsing and painful.
Will. The truth. The fight.
The drugs.
And then . . . and then . . . Oh God, she couldn’t remember.
Didn’t know where she was or how she’d gotten here.
Didn’t know if she’d gone to bed as she’d woken up—alone.
Fear flooded her mouth with saliva and the echo of poisonous choices. Cooper lurched for the open bathroom door at the other side of the room.
She tripped and flailed, her legs an uncooperative tangle of overtaxed muscles. She caught herself against the wall and her palms sang with pain, but she didn’t stop to inspect the damage she knew she’d find. Just used the wall to keep herself upright long enough to make it to the bathroom and fall to the floor in front of the toilet as she lost her fight with the nausea.
She heaved, and humiliation burned through her, adding to the mix of dwindling drugs and rising wave of pain and panic.
She shook, her skin flushing hot, then cold, then hot again.
Sweat slicked across her skin, drawing up an oily sheen of illness she couldn’t shake.
She heaved again, and tears burned her eyes until she could do little more than let them slide down her face.
She fought another wave of nausea and lost, emptying her stomach until cramps and exhaustion and a pitiful weakness finally settled in.
And still that cloying sickness and instinctual humiliation that accompanied retching couldn’t compare to the fear that was just beneath the surface, waiting its turn to tear her to pieces.
How much time had passed? Hours? Days?
Where was she? Cooper lifted her head and glanced around the bathroom, but nothing about it looked familiar. A pedestal sink. A tiny shower. A chipped mirror and cracked white tile that was clean, if not new, and blessedly cool against her skin.
It was bland and basic and definitely nowhere she’d ever been before.
She could be anywhere, she realized, her stomach cramping all over again, though there wasn’t much left to bring up.
Could be anywhere, with anyone.
She forced her way past the sound of her heart thundering in her ears. Nothing. Everything was quiet.
But then, she knew better than most that quiet didn’t mean empty, and that alone didn’t mean safe.
How many times had she taken a shot, shattered silence, and proven that the deadliest threats could be blocks away?
She sighed and let her head rest against the curve of her arm as her stomach cramped in protest but settled again. Alone or not, it didn’t matter. She was in no shape to defend herself. Besides, of all the enemies she’d made, not one of them needed or wanted her alive. They’d have killed at the first opportunity. That she’d lived to wake with the worst hangover of her life told Cooper everything she needed to know.
She’d gotten lucky.
She flushed the toilet, then wiped the back of her mouth and winced when her fingers dragged against a split and swollen lip. As if that one small action had demanded a full report, Cooper’s body lit up.
Her cheek throbbed and she gently fingered bruises she didn’t remember.
Her palms burned, and a quick loo
k revealed abraded skin, as if she’d braced herself for a rough fall against an unforgiving surface.
When she shifted, the skin at her knees pulled painfully tight, and Cooper knew they’d be just as torn up as her hands.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up like acid and escaped as a single, forlorn sob.
Lucky. To be alive, maybe. But at what cost?
Cooper swallowed back a wave of questions that churned like anxiety and dread and pushed her hair away from her face.
Another cramp, smaller but no less painful, wracked her.
A fresh wave of tears burned at the back of her eyes. They stung, not with the acidic shame of sickness, but with the sobering realization that something bad had happened.
Something that had left bruises.
Something that had put her on her hands and knees.
Something that she couldn’t—and probably never would—remember.
She’d have to find a way to live with it, with the bruises and the fear and the questions, all the same. And really, it was a drop in the bucket of all the things she was learning to carry.
A sob caught in her throat, choked the air from her lungs, then burst free without her permission. Another followed, then another, and another, until she was heaving with emotions she couldn’t name or place or repress a single second longer.
So was just so damn tired.
So much had happened over the last eighteen months. So much stress. So much fear. So many impossible obstacles, lined up one after the other until they loomed like a stack of dominos that were spaced just far enough apart that she couldn’t possibly hope to topple them.
She’d held herself together and faced all of it.
But this . . . she didn’t know how to deal with this. Didn’t know what to do with lost time, a blank memory, and an endless string of questions she wasn’t sure she wanted answers to.
As the sobs turned to steady tears, Cooper forced herself to breathe. To try to find some sense of calm as she knelt on the floor, her bruises singing and her knees burning.
Salt, coarse and plentiful, coated her skin and her limbs ached with dehydration and exhaustion . . . and what else? she wondered.
She’d thought the hardest thing she’d ever have to live with was the knowledge that she’d killed an entire team of innocent men.
But now she was faced with a new, more brutal reality.
She didn’t know what she’d done or who she’d hurt.
And she didn’t know what had been done to her, or who had hurt her.
The realization cauterized the flow of terror.
The questions, the fear, would never leave her. She’d always wonder. But she’d only lost hours—a day or two at the absolute worst. But Cole . . .
Cole had been under for eighteen months.
Even if Cooper found a way to save him, how would he come back from that?
Would he be able to live with always wondering what he’d done and who he’d hurt?
And if he did remember, would he be able to find a way to forgive himself?
For the first time, Cooper let herself wonder if she’d save Cole only to condemn him to something far, far worse.
She pushed the thought away. It didn’t really matter.
Cole might very well hate himself for the things he’d done, but she knew damn well he’d rather die than remain a pawn in someone else’s game.
Whatever the cost, Cooper had to find a way to free him.
He’d do the same for her.
She closed the lid of the toilet and tried to stand. Her head pounding and her legs trembling like a newborn giraffe’s, she tipped to the side and tripped over the edge of bathtub.
She flailed, grabbed for the opaque glass door, then flinched when roughened hands grabbed her arms.
“Easy, it’s just me,” Will said, his voice lax with sleep and slow with patience as he helped her stand. When she swayed on her feet, he steadied her. “You okay?”
She nodded, if only because he expected her to. But no, no she wasn’t okay at all.
Cooper cringed, her shoulders curling forward as she brought her arms up to cover her breasts. Will looked good. Tired, but rested. A sheet print clung to his cheek like the lingering touch of a lover the morning after. This close, she could smell him. Soap and sleep and the hint of sweat that came with tangled sheets, warm air, and a lazy morning.
Standing there, her body wrecked and the scent of sickness still clinging to her skin, Cooper could barely stand to look at him.
And she was ashamed of how badly she wanted to lean her forehead against his chest, close her eyes, and just breathe.
He tilted her chin up, and as if he knew exactly what she needed to hear most, he said, “You’re okay, Cooper.” He met her gaze, brushed his fingers gently across her face, carefully skirting the worst of the bruises and her split lip. “You’re okay,” he reassured her. “Nothing a little time and a handful of aspirin can’t fix.” He cupped the base of her skull, his fingers scratching gently at her scalp. “Nothing you can’t handle, all right?”
She nodded. Exhausted, nauseated, and utterly stunned to find Will standing there, all sleep-mussed and worried and so fucking gentle it flooded her with a renewed sense of shame.
It was so much more than she deserved.
“Oh Jesus, don’t do that.”
Will pulled her close and tucked her head beneath his chin as an ugly sob made a break for freedom.
“Christ, Coop. I’m not trained for tears.”
Yeah, well neither was she. But she was a raw nerve, flayed and exposed and reacting to absolutely everything. And through it all, Will held her, stroking her back and mumbling about how Delta had prepared him for interrogation and torture, when clearly, they should have set aside at least a day to cover a woman’s emotions.
Stiff, his movements awkward, Will was obviously a little uncomfortable. But he held her anyway.
What had changed? Why was he here?
And how the hell could he stand to look at her, let alone hold her? Soothe her?
When Will had turned that syringe on her and thrown her out of his life, she hadn’t expected to last an hour, let alone long enough for the drugs to run their course.
That she’d woken up at all, even with her head throbbing and her body aching, had been a shock to the system. Cooper figured she’d either crawled into some stranger’s bed or been dumped in some cheap room after the fact.
It was the only way she knew how to explain the fact that she was still alive. It had certainly never crossed her mind that Will had found her. Helped her.
Pierce, maybe. Though he’d have been in the room, waiting to flog her with the strands of her own stupid choices.
But Will? He didn’t owe her anything.
When questions finally overrode emotions, and Cooper could no longer bury her head in the warm sand of Will’s arms, she pulled away and searched the room for a towel or robe or discarded t-shirt. Anything to provide a little sense of cover.
“Hang on,” Will said. “Let me just . . .” He left, then quickly returned with a white button-down shirt, one of the things Pierce had picked up, draped over his arm.
Cooper reached for it, but Will didn’t hand it to her. “Let me help you, Coop. I know you’re sore.”
Because she was, and because emotions churned like bile at the back of her throat, she let him pull it open and help her slip it on.
As he worked the buttons, she asked, “What happened?”
“What do you remember?” he asked, pushing the last button through the hole, then rolling the cuffs to her wrists.
“Fighting,” she offered, shrinking into the comfort of cotton.
“In the alley?” he asked carefully.
Her head snapped up. “What alley?”
“You meant us,” he realized aloud and gently squeezed her shoulders. “Anything after that?”
She shook her head, but quietly offered, “You told me to leave. I left.”
His face
softened, and his grip loosened. “I was angry.”
“You had a right to be.” She wouldn’t apologize. Couldn’t, not unless she meant it. Not unless she could say she never should have done it—that she’d never do it again.
The best she could offer was that she hadn’t wanted to, that it shamed her that she had—but that wasn’t anywhere near good enough.
Cooper hadn’t planned to drug him, and she still didn’t agree with Pierce, who’d have done it cleanly, preemptively, and without any sense of conscience or remorse.
But she’d been scared and desperate and, in the end, she’d chosen Cole over her own scruples.
Had chosen her partner over her . . . She didn’t even know how to classify what Will was to her and she was too exhausted to try.
And the truth was, she’d probably do it all again.
So she wouldn’t let a hollow sorry fall from her mouth, not even if it was the polite or decent thing to do.
Whatever else she was, Cooper wasn’t a liar. She’d told Will the truth and for better or worse, she’d stay that course. He deserved that much, at least. So she kept her mouth shut and waited. For his anger. For his condemnation.
“I—” He swallowed hard against an emotion he wore like guilt and carried like sadness. “I needed you gone, Coop.”
“I know.”
“You don’t,” he assured her. “The thoughts that went through my head. The things I wanted to do . . .” He dropped his hands and stepped back, as if just the memory of what he’d considered doing scared him. “I would have hurt you.”
“I don’t believe that.” She said it because Will looked devastated at the mere thought of it, and it was an expression she couldn’t stand. Not on him. Not over her. Not when she’d started it. “It’s not who you are, Will.”
“It’s not who I was,” he corrected her. He ran his fingers through his hair and across the back of his neck. “A year ago, yeah, I’d have handled it differently. I’d have been pissed.” He sighed and dropped his hand, his shoulders slumping as if an albatross had landed around his neck. “But I’d have controlled the anger. Now, though . . .” He trailed a thumb along the edge of her biceps. She couldn’t see them, but she could feel the gentle ache of bruises that lingered there. Knew without looking that they were finger shaped. And though he couldn’t see them through the shirt, Will couldn’t seem to look away, either.
Fearless (Somerton Security Book 3) Page 13