"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 f**king 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 f**king save your hide and you keep running."