Page 5 of Fighting for Lucy

It was nothing short of a miracle.

Whatever game Zander was playing, he’d gotten them safely down onto the ground in one piece.

Well relatively speaking.

There was a headache raging between Lucy’s temples, and her chest sent stabbing pains through her with every breath. One of her arms felt broken for sure, and then there were bumps and bruises littering everything else in between.

But she was alive.

Everything else could be fixed.

Eventually.

If they could find their way out of the jungle.

“Did you get a mayday out before we crashed?” Lucy asked.

The blue eyes that looked back at her were odd. Not the color, it was perfectly realistic, but because she’d seen the man’s photo almost every day as there was a picture of a teenage Zander andScarlett on her friend’s desk in the lab, and she knew he had brown eyes.

It was a stupid thing to worry about at the moment, but she wanted to see the real Zander. There was nothing to do about his darker hair color, and she kind of liked the tanned skin, but she wanted to see his real eyes.

Maybe it would make her feel a little less like this man was the enemy.

Was he?

Honestly, she had no idea.

There was every chance that there was a perfectly logical reason for why Zander had faked his death, and it had nothing to do with the Reactivator, Raul Castillo, and Athena Team.

Or she was clutching at straws because if Zander was working for the enemy, then that was not good news for her.

The two of them were alone out there. There was no backup. She had no idea where exactly they’d crashed, and injured as she was, she had no idea how she was going to get herself out of the jungle and back to civilization.

She needed Zander right now.

An annoyance on top of being scary since she had no idea if she could trust him. Growing up with a condition that impacted her day-to-day life, her parents had been overly cautious when it came to her doing pretty much anything. They coddled her, her siblings, too, even her little brother and sister, and getting them to see her as a strong, competent woman, one who didn't need a keeper had been hard. She’d fought for her independence and didn't want to give it up for anyone.

Realizing Zander hadn't answered her question, she repeated it. “Did you put out a mayday before we crashed?”

“We were on the phone with your friends when it happened, I think everybody knows and will be looking for us.”

Not an answer.

And it didn't pass her by that he had called them her friends, with no mention that one of her friends was his twin sister. Was it guilt over faking his death that made him want to put distance between himself and Scarlett, or was it something more?

Like he knew he had played some part in what had happened to Scarlett at the hands of the weapons trafficker?

No matter what, it was hard for Lucy to believe that Zander would have stood back and done nothing to stop his sister from being tortured regardless of what else he had done. She knew a bit about how Scarlett and Zander had grown up. Parents who refused to give up military careers for their kids. Raised by grandparents who were beyond strict. No real time for fun or all the silly things kids did.

The twins were all each other had, and she knew it had torn Scarlett apart when, upon their grandparents’ deaths, she and her brother had been separated and put in foster care. Even during those five years before they aged out of the system, the two had tried their best to keep in contact, and it had been another loss for Scarlett when, upon graduating high school, her brother went and enlisted, following in their family’s footsteps. If Scarlett found out her brother had known what was happening to her and not done anything to help her, it was going to kill her.

“My phone might have survived the crash,” Lucy said, wondering if there was any chance she could get some reception out there even if the phone wasn’t totaled. One miracle a day was probably all she could hope for, and they’d already used theirs up in surviving the crash. Still, she used her good hand to unsnap her seatbelt and scanned the floor of the wrecked plane in search of her cell.

“You shouldn’t be moving around until we’ve assessed your injuries,” Zander said, putting one of his large hands on her shoulder and using his superior size and strength to keep her in her seat.

“I don’t think the paramedics come out this deep in the jungle,” she quipped.

“Haha, sassy girl. I'm serious, Lucy. Stay still. You were unconscious for a while, you probably have a concussion.”