No pain could come close to this. No horror could ever compare to staring into Lance's dark eyes as she pushed the goggles from his face, and seeing the knowledge in his eyes.
"No…" Her moan joined the distant cry of the wind, the sound of explosions around her, a loud hum throbbing in the air.
None of it mattered.
"Shhh." Lance's expression twisted with pain as she tried to stop the blood flowing from his chest. It fell over her fingers, a silky, heated fall of life that blistered her hands.
"No. No. No. Oh God. Don't leave me. Don't leave me." She was crying. She could feel the tears running down her cheeks as she watched a single droplet slide from his eye.
"It had to be," he whispered sluggishly. "I knew it had to be." Screams echoed around them. Gunfire. The sound of a motor. She didn't know what was going on, she didn't care.
"Don't leave me." She gagged at the thought of being without him now. Of being alone.
"Please, God. Lance. Please."
His face twisted with pain as she felt her stomach cramping with the cold, horrible knowledge that this was her fault.
She had killed him after all.
"I'll follow you," she cried. "Just as I swore, I'll follow you."
"No… Live free…" His expression twisted in pain.
"I'll follow you," she screamed. "You made me care. You made me feel, damn you. I won't do it without you. I can't do it without you."
As she moved to touch his face, hard hands jerked at her shoulders, attempting to drag her from him. Enraged, feral, she fought back, seeing the shadows merging around them. Death was taking him, jerking her from his side to tear his soul from his body. Her payment. This was her payment for taking innocent lives as a child. Life was being taken from her now.
"Take me," she screamed, fighting the clawlike hands pulling at her, fighting to hold back her blows. "Take me. Kill me. Don't take him. Please… please…" The sharp blow to her face barely registered, but the voice screaming at her ear did.
"Harmony, goddammit, let us help him."
Jonas!
Shadows cleared, and suddenly the brilliance of the heli-jet's lights struck his tormented expression.
"He's prepped. Let's fly."
She swung her head around. Rule, Merc and Lawe were standing protectively around Elyiana and the two Breeds lifting the stretcher they had strapped Lance onto. She jerked from Jonas's hold.
"Move!" Grabbing her arm again, he forced her to the heli-jet. "We have more of those bastards that attacked you coming up the mountain."
She jerked, staring behind them as the others moved ahead, some sixth sense warning her. Dane stepped from another shadow, his face streaked with dirt and grime, his expression furious. Concerned.
Lance was being taken from her because of this. Because of a past that wouldn't die, and a future that had never been meant for her. Because she was weak, because she had cared more for others than she had cared for his safety. As she watched, Dane moved through the shadows before stopping and retrieving the satchel she had tossed aside.
Keeping step with Jonas, she turned her back on him, she let the last tie she had to her past free. Jonas wanted Dane, and he had to know Dane was there. But he was saving Lance. Lance was all that mattered.
"Go. Go." Jonas all but threw her into the heli-jet as she turned back, stumbling, scrambling to get to Lance.
"Hold onto him, Harmony," Elyiana barked, grabbing her hands and placing them at his head as she stared into her eyes fiercely. "Don't let him go. Talk to him. It's bad. Real bad. Fight for him now, Harmony."
His eyes were open, but dazed, shocked. She held his head and as she cried, whispered the only thing she knew that mattered.
"I love you. Please, Lance, don't leave me. You don't want me to follow you, you really don't. Please, please don't leave me."
He had to live. He had to live for her, for their child, because Harmony knew that without him, there was no life, no love, there was no freedom.
CHAPTER 24
The flight to Boulder took only minutes. Harmony cradled Lance's head as Elyiana worked at the wound on his chest, attempting to halt the flow of blood, barking reports over the link at her ear, to the hospital surgeons awaiting them.
"I love you. Don't leave me…" Harmony whispered the words over and over again as she held his glazed gaze with her own.
She smoothed his hair, still feeling the power in his incredible body, the force of the man that he was. God, why had he done something so insane?
"We're landing, Ely," Jonas snapped as the heli-jet began to bank. "Surgeons are awaiting to assist and they have a room ready. Let's get ready to haul ass."
"Don't leave me," she whispered again, shaking, feeling the horror of the night as it echoed through her veins. "Don't leave me, Lance."
He stared back at her, his eyes clearing for a second, just a second.
"I love you… Harmony."
Her tears rolled faster at his words. She hadn't truly believed, not wholly. So much blood had stained her soul that she hadn't believed he could really love her. That she could love.
"Move." The doors whipped open as hands reached for the stretcher and she was torn from him once again."Let's go." Jonas was there, helping her from the heli-jet as she stumbled again, fighting to keep up with Lance, and yet unable to.
"They're taking him straight to surgery," Jonas growled in her ear. "The best surgeons in the city were called in the minute we landed in the forest. We have three of the nation's best trauma surgeons here plus Ely."
His arm was wrapped around her shoulders, his other hand holding her arm as he practically carried her into the entrance from the heli-pad.
She was shaking. Harmony could feel the shudders tearing through her, could hear the ragged growls at the back of her throat, and she couldn't stop them.
"He wouldn't run," she whispered. "I begged him to run…"
"You would have run into a trap," he snapped. "There were men coming up the mountain behind you. Alonzo was more than prepared for this, Harmony. Do you actually believe no one knew what you took from those labs? Why do you think those fucking Council soldiers and Coyotes were always after you?"
Lance would have known there were more men coming up the mountain. The winds would have warned him. Why had he done this? It made no sense. They could have run, sent Dane or even, God forbid, Jonas after the information if he had warned her of what awaited them. There had been many other ways to go rather than this one.
"I told him not to go." She trembled as they raced to the elevator. "I wanted to call Dane. He should have called Dane."
"Yeah, running would have been a good idea," he snarled, furious. "Goddammit, I try to fucking save your hide and you keep running."
"Save me?" She jerked back. "You call bargaining for a friend's life saving me?"
"He's the first fucking Leo, you stubborn woman." His canines flashed at the side of his mouth. "I have to find him, I have no choice. And you're so friggin' hardheaded you would have never bargained with me."
She jerked as though he had slapped her.
"I gave you my life," she sobbed then. What did pride matter at this point? None of it mattered. "I stole that information, I killed those scientists and Breeds to save your life." Before she realized what she was doing, her palm flew out, slapping at his shocked, bewildered face.
"She ordered your death," she screamed. "Ordered it and they were going to carry out her demands. They lied to you. They betrayed you. I killed them to save you, you bastard."
Jonas jerked back.
"They would have found a way to warn me."
Her laughter was cruel, hard. God, how she hated him at that moment. Hated every moment she had run, every bullet she had taken and every cold night she had ever spent, alone, because she had loved her brother. "The Breeds plotting to escape with you told her about your plans for escape," she snarled. "The bold idea you hatched to use them to hold the scientists hostage while you connected the communications to an outside line and told the world about us. They used you. Just as Madame LaRue used you."
His eyes narrowed then, his expression turning stony.
"I saved you." Her lips twisted mockingly. "And you never fucking cared, did you, Jonas? You never suspected."
"I cared once I knew the truth," he said, his voice quiet as his quicksilver eyes darkened.
"All I needed was the truth, Harmony, and you had it hid. Why, little sister, didn't you come to me after the rescues instead of running from me?"
Her lips twisted painfully. "Because you should have trusted me. What use do I have for someone who always requires proof? When does the trust begin, Jonas?" The elevator doors slid open as Harmony's head began to pound with the years that stretched behind her. She had wanted to save him for what?
Flinching back from his touch, she stepped from the elevator, wiping at the tears that stained her face, giving no thought to the blood that marred her hands and now streaked her pale expression. She moved woodenly, her concentration on the operating room that lay just beyond the waiting room Jonas led her to.
She could hear Ely's voice, the murmur of the supporting team of surgeons and nurses, the beep of life support. What was said around her didn't matter. She wrapped her arms around her chest and leaned against the wall just outside the operating room and fought to hold onto the only link she had left to Lance.
He was her soul. How had she not realized that he had become her soul in such a short time? That all the barriers she had believed she held in place had dissolved beneath his touch? How had she missed it?
She lowered her head, feeling the loss of the hard, cold core of resolve she had once used to get her through each day. There had been no dreams before Lance. No hopes and no fears. There had been a daily fight to survive, to do what she had set out to do so long ago. She had saved Jonas, and she had been biding her time.
What then?
Harmony realized she had no plans after that. For ten years she had survived on that final goal, had fought mercilessly for it. Alone.
Nights spent killing, days spent trying to sleep through the nightmares that haunted her, and through it all, she knew, she had no plans after that end goal had been achieved. She would have died. Eventually. It wouldn't have taken long for her enemies to tire of attempting to capture her. Eventually, they would have killed her.
And perhaps that would have been best. If she had died before now, Lance would have never felt this need to sacrifice himself.
What had she done? Silent sobs shook her body as she fought to brace herself against the pain.
"We're not going to make it."
Harmony felt her heart stop as she heard Ely speak from the operating room.
"The wound is too severe…"
"The bleeding is growing worse…"
"BP is falling…"
"We can't repair the damage fast enough…"
"BP is critical…"
The hard signal of the heart monitor began to flatline as Harmony's agonized, feral scream tore from her throat.
_________
Lance felt the winds. They whispered over his body as he stood beneath the hot desert sun, his arms widespread, his head lifted to the gentle caress. It reminded him of Harmony. Her scent was in the air, honeysuckle and roses; he could almost taste the soft, delicate treat of her kiss.
He was dying. He could feel the chill racing through his body, competing with the warmth of the sun, and the sorrow that filled him was like a fiery ache. Then he heard his son's laughter and Harmony's gentle voice calling him in. There was no fear in the tone; there was amused indulgence, a comforting, maternal sound he had always loved hearing from his own mother.