Page 19 of Protecting Josie
His brother didn’t need clarification. He simply nodded, then turned back to the helicopter.
Blink stood and carefully picked up Spirit, carrying her about a hundred feet away from the downed chopper. His brother, Pyro, and Kevlar had jobs to do. They needed to make sure no one was able to get any government secrets by dismantling the helicopter. They’d destroy what they could, then torch the rest.
Right now, he was more concerned with the fact that Spirit was still unconscious. He put her back on the ground and inspected the wound on her head. It was bleedingsluggishly, but when he brushed her hair away from the wound, he was relieved to see it didn’t need stitches.
He was carefully inspecting her arms and legs when his skin prickled, and Blink looked at her face—startled to realize she was awake and looking right at him.
“Hey,” he said in a calm tone.
As expected, she didn’t respond, simply continued to stare.
“Can you sit up?” he asked.
He waited, but when she didn’t nod or shake her head, decided to encourage her to move anyway. He got her to a sitting position, and she finally took her gaze from him and looked around. Her eyes widened when she saw the helicopter.
“Yeah, it was a hard landing,” Blink said, with no intonation in his voice.
She made a strangled sound in her throat that he thought might be a chuckle, and he felt ten feet tall that he’d been able to do that. Make her laugh. “My brother is apparently a fucking wizard,” he told her. Then sighed. “Right, so…bad news is that we crashed. But the good news is that we’re not in the ocean, and we aren’t in Iran anymore.”
Her gaze swung back to him, and she lifted a brow. Now it was Blink’s turn to chuckle. “Right, so we’re in Iraq. But we aren’t actively at war with them anymore. So all we have to do is take a little walk through the mountains and I’m sure Tex will have us picked up in no time.”
Spirit tilted her head as if to ask who the hell he was talking about.
“Tex is a former Navy SEAL who has made it his missionin life to watch over those of us crazy enough to do this job. I’ve got a tracker. In my underwear. It’s how my team knew exactly where to find me, and how the chopper found us in the middle of the ocean. It might take a couple of days, but theywillcome and get us,” Blink told her.
“We’re almost ready to go,” Tate called out.
Blink looked at Spirit. “That’s my brother, the fancy-ass helicopter pilot. We’re twins.”
Spirit looked over at Tate, then back to him, then back at his twin. She wrinkled her nose, then shook her head at him.
“What? We are.”
She shook her head again.
Blink couldn’t help but grin. “You don’t think we look alike? Literally no one can tell us apart,” he informed her.
To his surprise, Spirit pointed at herself.
“You can?” Blink asked.
She nodded.
For some reason, he liked that. No, he freakinglovedit. And as much as he wanted to sit here and chat with this woman in their entirely unique way, they needed to get moving.
“Right. Good. Well…that’s my brother. His name is Tate, but he goes by his call sign of Casper. That’s his copilot, Pyro. They have to destroy the chopper before we go, so there will be a loud boom, and we need to be moving when it happens so anyone who might come to investigate doesn’t find us here.”
He wasn’t surprised when Spirit merely nodded once more, then tried to stand.
“Easy!” Blink exclaimed when she swayed on her feet. Hedidn’t feel much more steady himself, but it wasn’t as if either of them had a choice to lay around and eat bonbons.
When she was standing firm, it hit Blink that she was practically naked. Yes, she still had on her bikini, but the cover-up was torn in several places. And when she turned away from him, he saw a nasty red mark on the back of her thigh.
She was hurt. And seeing that mark made him feel nauseous. It was a silly thing to worry about; they werealltotally banged up from the crash. He should just be thankful they were alive. But still, seeing that mark on her leg made him realize how fragile she was, despite her iron will. She’d been tough as hell up until now, and would have to continue to be…and he hated it.
“Tate!” he called out.
His brother turned.
