Page 19 of Secrets in the Deep

The car sank faster.

The river had just swallowed the car, water enveloping her head, when she forced the blinding pain down and urged her body through the open window.

Her injured knee twisted, sending a blinding pain throughout her body. She tried to kick with her good leg, her lungs burning.

The surface was too far.

She wouldn’t make it…

5

Ryan’s jaw tightened as he watched Emily race to the water’s edge. She was hurting. She was hiding it well, but he saw the limp. The small grimace every time she put weight on her left leg.

Fuck, she was talented though. It was like she could flick a switch—one second she was Emily Prior, the next she was another person entirely.

He believed it. The fear. The utter terror. She looked like a woman who was being hunted.

She stopped at the river’s edge, and his feet ached to move. To cross the distance between them and make damn sure she didn’t slip. She shouldn’t be doing this scene. Not with her limp. Not while she was hurt. He didn’t care that she wore a harness or that there were people downstream ready to help if things went wrong. It was dangerous, dammit.

She leaped onto one stone. On the second jump, there was a slight buckle in her left knee. He inched forward. That was as far as he got before a hand pressed to his shoulder, then Zac stepped closer, a warning in his eyes.

And yeah, Ryan was on thin fucking ice with the director already.

Another hop.

When she reached the fifth rock, his muscles began to relax. She was almost there. Almost…

Her foot slid on the sixth leap. She cried out, her arms flying as she swung wide. For a second, the harness caught her…then it snapped. She fell and disappeared into the water.

Ryan moved on instinct, training erasing the hesitation of everyone else, including the men downstream. He tore across the distance. His feet barely hit the bank before he dove into the water.

Cold blasted his system, the current trying to seize him and drag him down. He angled his body instead of fighting, cutting across the flow in powerful strokes.

Her head surfaced ten feet away, only for a second before it disappeared again. That was all he needed.

Three more strokes, then he dove down, finding her easily. He slipped an arm around her waist and drew her back to the surface.

Desperate coughs racked Emily’s body, the river trying to pull her back under.

He locked her to his chest and used his free arm to move through the current, years of training and missions propelling him through a river that fought him. Wanted to suck them both back down.

When he reached the bank, Zac was already there, reaching for her. He lifted her out, and Ryan climbed from the river before dropping beside her and placing her in recovery pose. One hand remained braced on her shoulder to keep her steady as she coughed up water.

Zac, the medic on their team, leaned over Emily. “Airways are good.”

“Is she hurt?” Ryan growled.

“I’m just going to run my hands over your head,” Zac told her, with far more calm than Ryan possessed.

The crew now surrounded them. Murmured whispers cut through the whoosh of the river.

Zac nodded, hands still on Emily’s head. “No obvious bleeding or cuts.”

“Emily!”

Her mother broke through the crowd and tried to drop beside her, but Zac was too fast, on his feet and in front of her. “She needs space.”

“I’m hermother.”