Neither is Vasily.

Daniel’s friend has re-stolen Daniel’s sister. Oh no. My heart sinks.

“We need a blood transfusion,” someone yells up ahead, and I forget about everything but Daniel. Clutching at Mendoza’s shoulders, I don’t relax until I’m in the clinic with Daniel.

And then I can do nothing but watch as Mendoza’s doctor goes to work on the man I love.

Twenty-six

Daniel

“SERGEANT HAYS , YOU HAVE A Red Cross call.”

I look up from the picnic table where I’ve got a ten and a five. Rubens, one of the direct assault troops in my squad has a face card and a four. Do I hit or stay?

“Wait,” I say. “Did you say Red Cross?”

The lance corporal delivering the news nods his head stiffly. A Red Cross call is an emergency call, a special number that connects families of troops with deployed soldiers no matter where they are. I’ve never had one in the eight years I’ve been in—not even when I was in theatre and my old man had a heart attack. It was a minor one, but I learned about it an email four days after I’d come back from a mission in Beirut assisting the Lebanese in ferreting out a leading member of Al Qaeda. The U.S. military is enjoying using its Middle East staging ground from Afghanistan to launch all kinds of Special Forces missions. “Hit me,” I tell the other recon sniper assigned to my squad. He lays out an eight. “Fuck.”

“Busted,” Rubens crows and drags in the cigarettes we’re using as currency. Three of them break and the tobacco leaves a trail on the scarred and cracked wooden surface. “Sergeant?”

I jerk my head around. Nothing good comes from a Red Cross call, but I go and lift the phone up like it weighs more than a 50 cal machine gun.

“Your sister’s been kidnapped. You need to come home and find her.” My dad’s voice is hoarse, as if he spent the whole night crying or, more likely, shouting at people. I stagger on my feet, looking for a chair and can’t find one. I slide to the ground.

“When?” I ask. I need details, but there’s silence on the other end. Finally, my dad sighs.

“Two days ago.”

“Two fucking days ago and you’re calling me now?” I scream down the line. My heart is pounding so hard and fast now I fear it will jump out of my chest. This is my fault. All my fucking fault. I was the one who encouraged her to take this spring break trip. I had almost bullied her into going, telling her she needed to spend time with people her own age.

“You need to come home, Daniel.” It’s my mom’s voice, so quiet I can barely hear her. She’s crying and her tears remind me of Naomi. “Daniel, come home.” More tears. Lots of tears.

“Save me, Daniel.”

I see those words in a thousand faces. The hunt for Naomi started in Cancun, but it has taken me everywhere. From the Philippines to Dubai to Russia to London. Girls are being sold everywhere. Their red mouths and tiny hands reach out to me, but before I can reach them they are shot, one by one. I turn around to stop the shooter, but no one’s there. A heavy weight drags down my arm, and I see a smoking gun. I throw it away with a scream.

There’s a fire in my shoulder and another in my waist. I’m burning up. It’s the fires of hell, I think. I’m in hell and being burned for my failure. For my sins.

“Daniel. Stop.” It’s Regan.

“Fighter. Wait for me,” I tell her. “I’m coming for you.”

Wetness falls on my face. “You promised not to leave me,” she screams. Her screams are so loud. I see Hudson above her, his whip hand reaching back to strike again. Grabbing it, I pull him away, but there’s another man and another and I can’t reach her. “Regan,” I scream. “I’m coming. Hang on.”

Arms try to hold me down, but I have to get to her. I’m not leaving her behind. I’ve got to keep my promise.

“Don’t come home until you find her.” The stern face of my father appears next to me. My mother lies in pieces at his feet. Someone’s shaking my arm.

“I’m coming, Regan, wait for me.” They’ve immobilized me, but I’m not being held back. “I won’t leave without you!” I roar. And then a blow across my face renders everything black.

Twenty-seven

Regan

I CLUTCH DANIEL ’S HAND IN mine for hours. He’s asleep, due to the heavy duty drugs they’ve given him, and isn’t aware that I haven’t left his side. I still hold his hand anyhow. They’ve pumped blood into him, and his color is better, his wounds are stitched up, and they assure me he’ll be fine. But I won’t believe that he’s going to be all right until he wakes up and smiles at me and calls me “fighter.” Then, I’ll know he’s okay.

Then, I can tell him that his sister’s gone again.

Vasily has disappeared. Mendoza sent some men to hunt him and try to stop him, but both he and Naomi have vanished without a trace. Mendoza thinks that Daniel will know where Vasily has taken Naomi, and I hope so.

I worry he’s going to be furious at me because I didn’t do enough to stop Vasily from taking her again. And I worry that Daniel will look at me with loathing because I’m still here and Naomi’s gone again.

Mostly, though, I sit and worry.

One of the favela doctors swings in and checks on Daniel. Daniel has a new bruise on his face from when Mendoza came in and clocked him in the jaw to get him to stop yelling. The doctor smiles at me; I think he’s impressed that I never leave. He checks Daniel’s vitals, switches an IV bag, and starts to leave again.

“Is he going to wake up soon?” I ask softly.

The doctor doesn’t look concerned. “Soon. How are your feet?”

“They’re fine,” I say flatly. I have bruises all over, and my feet are torn up from all the glass I had to have extracted from them, but it’s unimportant. Daniel’s all that matters. “How soon is ‘soon?’”

The doctor shrugs and turns to leave. He looks so unconcerned. Maybe he’s used to patching up bullet-holes far too often. He nods at me. “Soon.”

And then he leaves again.

I press my mouth to the back of Daniel’s hand. He’s so still in bed, so lacking that vibrancy that I’m used to seeing. I never realized until now how very alive Daniel is and how much I ache to see that devilish smile of his again.

Instead, I’m here, listening to every breath he takes and hoping it’s not his last.

“You promised you wouldn’t leave me,” I murmur against his hand. “You promised, Daniel.”

He doesn’t respond. Of course not. I press another kiss to the back of his hand, thinking. Then, I smile. “If this was a horror movie, you and I would both be dead, you know.” I pause, as if imagining his outraged response, then nod. “It’s true. Horror movies follow basic stereotypes, and those stereotypes always get picked off. One of the first ones to go is always the slutty blonde. Bad guys love a good, slutty blonde.” I imagine his laugh and smooth my fingers along his skin. “They usually die screaming and running through the woods, only to trip because they wore some ridiculous high heeled shoes. And you, of course, would be the cocky, arrogant asshole stereotype. Those die pretty fast, too. You’re far too competent, too good at what you do, too good looking. I think the movie writers make it their mission to take down guys like you.” I nip at his fingers idly. “Which is ironic because we both know you’d toast anyone or anything that tried to get past you, and you’d do it with a smile.”

“Who lives?”

My head jerks up at the softly worded question, my heart hammering in my chest.

Daniel’s eyes are mere slits in his face, but he’s smiling at me, and the hand in mine squeezes briefly. “Hey, fighter.”

“Hi,” I say, and my vision blurs and more tears stream down my cheeks. I’m so relieved. The doctors said he would be fine, but I don’t trust anyone’s words anymore. All I trust is Daniel.

He’s all I trust, and all I need.

“Hey, hey,” his voice is soft, and he tries to reach for my wet cheeks. “Why you crying, fighter?”

I shake my head, excusing my tears. “Just kinda emotional.”

He looks around the room, dazed. “Naomi?”

I freeze for a moment. I don’t want to tell him what happened. Not right now, not when I know he’d climb out of this bed, unhook his IVs and go after her. He needs to rest. “She’s out,” I hear myself saying and hope he’s not too angry about the lie later.

He nods and relaxes back in bed again, those sleepy eyes gazing at me. “You look tired, fighter.”

I shrug. I’m tired because I haven’t slept a wink since Daniel got shot. But that sounds needy, so I hold it back. “I’ll be fine.”

“How badly was I shot?”

“Once in the shoulder and once in the side. They say that you were lucky it didn’t pierce any organs.” I shudder, my breath catching on the words. “You should be fine in a few days. You lost a lot of blood.”

“Mmm.” His eyes are sliding shut again, and he looks exhausted.

I kiss the back of his hand again. “Sleep, Daniel. I’m not going anywhere.”

He slides his hand out of mine and pats the side of the bed. “Come curl up next to me. I’ll sleep better with your body against me.”

I shouldn’t. There are tubes and IVs and he’s fucking hurt, but I can’t resist. I crawl into the bed on his good side and hope he doesn’t notice that my feet are covered from the calf-down in puffy bandages with big white fluffy socks over them. But his eyes are closed, and when I slide in next to him, my butt leaning off the edge of the bed, he puts an arm around me and nuzzles against my neck.

“Mmm, you smell good,” he tells me.