Page 34 of Reaper
He motions with two fingers.Move.
I scramble out of the freezing water.
Flint's words echo in my head.Wyatt spent years making money killing people. At some point you run out of ways to call it righteous.
I watch him wipe the blade clean on the first dead man's tactical vest and slide it back into the sheath. I don't feel horror. I feel a dark, twisting knot of awe and absolute, terrifying safety.
We double-time it higher into the mountains. The slope turns to sheer rock. My breathing is a ragged scrape in the back of my throat. I can't feel my toes anymore. My fingers are locked into tight, aching hooks.
"Here."
Wyatt stops at the base of a massive limestone cliff. The rock face is fractured, split by a narrow, jagged fissure.
He slides into the dark opening, sidearm drawn.
I lean against the cold wet stone outside and wait. The shivering starts deep in my core—violent, uncontrollable tremors that rattle my teeth. The adrenaline has burned off, leaving nothing but the brutal reality of the temperature drop.
Wyatt emerges from the fissure.
"It's clear. Goes back twenty feet. Dry."
I push off the rock wall and stumble toward the opening. My right knee gives out.
Wyatt catches me before I hit the ground. His arm hooks around my waist, hauling me up.
"I've got you." He guides me into the fissure.
The air inside is dead and still, blocking out the punishing wind. The floor is covered in generations of dry pine needles blown in by past storms. The ceiling angles upward, forming a natural chimney near the back of the small cave.
Wyatt deposits me against the driest section of the wall.
"Don't sit. Keep your blood moving."
He turns back toward the entrance, gathering deadwood and dry brush from the deep overhangs just outside the cave. He works fast. Within three minutes, he has a small, smokeless fire burning near the natural chimney at the back of the cave. The heat is immediate and agonizing against my frozen skin.
"Take the jacket off."
He's already stripping off his own soaked tactical jacket and heavy outer shirt. The firelight flickers over the hard, scarred lines of his chest and shoulders.
I fumble with the zipper of my jacket. My fingers won't cooperate. The shivering is so violent I can barely stand.
Wyatt crosses the small space. He brushes my useless hands aside.
His knuckles graze my throat as he pulls the zipper down. The contact is electric.
He strips the heavy, soaked jacket off my shoulders and tosses it aside. Then he reaches for the hem of my freezing thermal henley.
I catch his wrists.
My hands are ice against his skin.
"It's soaked through." His voice is low. Gravel. "Your core temp is crashing. If you don't get the wet layers off, the fire won't save you."
I look up into his face. The dark eyes. The hard set of his jaw. The man who just executed a mercenary in the mud without a second thought, now standing in the firelight with his hands on my waist.
I let go of his wrists.
He pulls the henley over my head.
