Evie wiped her face dry and straightened her spine. “Getting the hell out of here sounds freaking amazing. But?—”
“But?” Beckett’s dark brows rose beneath his helmet.
“I need to see the girls.”
She needed to see with her own eyes that they truly were okay.
“And you will,” he promised. “In fact, if we leave now, we can probably catch up to them.”
“What about the others? The ones who took us hostage, I mean. What if they?—”
“They’ve been handled,” he answered vaguely. “But this place does have a lot of hiding places, plus a rear exit located on the other side of the mountain, which is why I’m keeping my voice down and my eyes peeled. Until we’re in the clear, you need to do the same, okay?”
After posing the seemingly rhetorical question, Beckett pulled himself back a smidge and glanced down. Starting at her feet, his darkened gaze traveled all the way up the length of her body. The assessment wasn’t sexual in nature but rather more cautionary. As if he was checking to make sure she was physically okay.
“I saw you holdin’ your side earlier.” A muscle in his chiseled jaw bulged beneath the strap holding his helmet in place. Studying what she assumed was the dried blood still present beneath her nose and at the corner of her mouth, he asked, “Are you hurt anywhere else, or are you okay to walk out of here on your own?”
“My ribs are sore, but I’ll sprint out of this place if that’s what it takes.”
It would hurt, and she wouldn’t be very fast, but she’d damn well do it all the same.
Beckett’s lips lifted in a sideways smirk as he drawled out a low, “Not surprised, given the way you tried kickin’ my ass just now.”
“Sorry,” Evie whispered back, feeling slightly chagrined. “I thought…I-I thought you were another group of militants wanting to take me captive, too.”Or worse.
The man’s smile fell, and even in the dark, she could tell his expression had once again grown hard. “No one else will lay ahand on you.” His hard swallow was audible. “You have my word on that.”
As Evie stared up into the darkness of his eyes, she found herself believing this man’s word meant something to him, which was good because it meant everything to her.
“I just need to find the girls and make sure they’re okay.”
“Let’s get you out of here, and then I’ll contact my teammate so you can hear for yourself that they’re just fine.”
“Thank you, Beckett.”
“No thanks needed, darlin’.” He flashed a quick smile before detailing his plan to get them both out of the mountain safely. “You stay with me the entire time. No exceptions. If I tell you to do something, you do it without question. Shit goes sideways, and I go down, you take off in that sprint you teased about. And you don’t stop until you find a safe place to hide. One of my men will find you and get you to safety.”
“You want me to leave you if you get hurt?” Evie shook her head in earnest. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. The rest of it, sure. But not that.”
This man had come here to rescue her and the girls. She had no idea how he even knew they were here, and that was a question she’d definitely be posing later. But regardless of the hows and whys, the fact was, he was here, risking his life for her and her students.
For now, that was all she needed to know.
“That’s not up for discussion, Evelynn. You stick around, we could both end up dying, then all this was for nothin’.”
Crap. The man had a point.
“Fine. If you go down, I’ll…leave.”
Maybe.
Probably not, though.
Evie kept her expression steady, hoping Beckett bought the fib. He must have because the next thing she knew, she was being carefully pulled behind his tall, muscular form.
He lifted his automatic rifle and held it out in front of him. Glancing back over his shoulder, he met her gaze before asking, “You ready?”
Boy was she.