Nova (The Renegades Book 2)

Sri Lanka

I turned my baseball hat backward and closed our suite’s door behind me as I left. An extra hour of working on my paper for Civ meant I’d missed the bus to Nuwara Eliya, but I’d already made arrangements, so I wasn’t stressed.

I walked down the hall and knocked on Penna and Rachel’s door. Rachel opened the door, her cheeks flushed, a slight panic in her eyes. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” I replied, my heart jumping at the sight of her. Hopefully I’d start getting used to seeing her again, but so far it had hit me like a lightning bolt every time.

She rolled her eyes and pivoted, giving me a fantastic view of her ass in tiny board shorts. The neck of her bikini top was knotted just above the tank top she wore. All it would take was one little tug and the fabric would slide so easily—

“Talk some sense into her before we’re late!” Rachel yelled back.

Right. I wasn’t here to ogle my ex. I walked down the hall to see Penna on the couch, her leg elevated and a book in her lap. “Let’s go, Rebel.” I threw her stage name at her, hoping it would spark some of the fire she kept banked lately.

“And do what?” she asked. “They changed out the cast into what? Another non-weight-bearing one. What the hell am I supposed to do while you guys are in the jungle doing giant slip-and-slides?”

“Just be with the team?” I suggested. The glare she shot me suggested that I might need to duck if I opened my mouth again.

“You’re so right. It’s always been in my nature to tag along and watch.”

I got down to her level, staring at her until she looked me in the eyes. The normal sparkle in her baby blues had dulled to a defeated matte. “Penna,” I whispered. “You have to stop blaming yourself for what happened.”

“I can’t.” The straightforward way she said it sent a lump into my throat.

“I’m not going to be the jackass who tells you to get over it, or that I understand, because I don’t. I’ve never been through what you’re enduring. But I know what it is to nearly take this team down, and you did nothing wrong.”

She curved her shoulders, hunching in on herself. “I just don’t feel like me.”

I took her hand and brushed my thumb over her knuckles. “Well, the thing is that we don’t feel like us without you. Take all the time you need, but know that we’re here. We’re going to be here, knocking on your door, asking you to come with us, leaving your seat vacant.”

“Landon…” Her eyes squeezed shut.

“We’re going to beg, bribe, and everything short of bully you into getting back out there with us. And that seat will stay vacant, Penna. No one can replace you. But if you’re telling me that you’re not ready, that you still need to work some shit out, then I’ll respect it.”

She lifted my hand to her forehead and took a stuttered breath. “Thank you. I’m so sorry.”

I leaned forward, kissing her on the temple. “I love you, Pen. We all do. No matter what.”

“I love you, too,” she said with a sad smile. “Now get out of here before you miss the whole thing.”

My stomach sank, knowing that she was saying no. I’d never seen her so down, so unreachable. Brooke had destroyed more than Penna’s leg when she’d sabotaged us, and I had no clue what it was going to take to bring her back.

Rachel’s eyes were soft as she leaned against the wall in the hallway, watching me. For that second, her guard was down and I simply saw her, not the walls she’d hidden behind since I discovered her on board.

She blinked rapidly and cleared her throat. “Yeah, so we should go.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Penna, you sure you’ll be all right?”

She waved us off, her mask firmly in place. “Absolutely. Take pictures.”

I headed for the door, Rachel following. We were silent as we made it to the thankfully empty elevator. The last thing I needed was any more of the girls I’d slept with on this boat getting near us. Oh, yeah, I was reaping what I’d sown, and it tasted rather bitter every time Rachel lifted an eyebrow at me in that knowing way she had.

“You really do love her,” she said softly as I hit the fourth deck so we could disembark.

“Of course I do. She’s the closest thing I have to a sister.”

She adjusted her backpack, the black straps thick above her swimsuit’s halter neckline. “It’s just nice to know that you are still the same in some ways.”

The numbers lit as we passed through a few floors, and I tried to gather my thoughts. To say something that would give me half a chance of Rachel being real with me at least for the next few hours. “I’m the same in almost every way that matters.”

“And those that don’t?” she asked as the elevator dinged.

“Some better, some worse, all the aftereffects of what happened with us.”

She stiffened, but her eyes didn’t. “I get that,” she said as she walked out in front of me.

We made our way quietly through the disembarkation area, empty since everyone with access to the VIP exit was already gone. Once our IDs were scanned, we headed down the ramp off the Athena.

Rachel’s shoulders slumped as we looked over the port of Colombo. “We missed the bus.” She turned, bumping into me.

My hands steadied her bare shoulders. Shit, her skin was just as soft as I’d remembered. I immediately lifted my hands, knowing our small truce would be over if I touched her when she clearly didn’t want me to.

She stepped backward, making my point.

“Yeah, we’re about an hour and”—I checked my watch—“twelve minutes late. Don’t worry, I had Little John get me a car.” A quick search of my pockets and I dangled the keys in front of her.

“You knew?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

“Knew that I’d miss the bus? Yeah, I had a paper due for Civ. You missing the bus is just an added bonus. Want a lift to the slides?”

She chewed on her lower lip while the gears in her brain turned. The impulsive Rachel I’d loved didn’t appear much around me. This one thought through every decision she made if I was involved. “It’s a two-hour drive.”

“A little over, actually.”

She groaned, rolling her neck.

“Hey, no pressure. I’m just a guy asking a girl if she needs a ride.”

She arched an eyebrow. “You ask a lot of girls that.”

Shots fired. I was going to need a hell of a lot thicker armor if I wanted to get close to her. “Maybe, but you’re the only one I know I don’t have a shot with.”

Something flickered across her eyes. Was that disappointment? Please be disappointment!

“Fine. I’ll ride with you.”

She spun and walked down the ramp, leaving me to follow. Once we hit the pavement, she let me take the lead, finding the Jeep Little John had arranged for us. Top and doors off, it was perfect for the muggy heat.

“How about I drive?” Rachel asked, tossing her backpack in the backseat.

“How about we both live through the drive?” I joked. “See, even the port agrees,” I said, pointing to the Safety First sign that hung at the gate to the pier.

She huffed but hopped in, fastening her seat belt as I did the same. As soon as I’d entered the GPS coordinates Pax had left me, we rolled out.

The city was busy, but we found the highway easily enough. My stomach wouldn’t settle, and my nerves wouldn’t calm. It was worse now than it had been the spring I’d fallen for her. Being this close to Rachel was like setting a magnet next to a compass—everything I thought I knew started spinning, and I couldn’t tell which way was up.

“Music?” I asked, needing any distraction from the way her smooth legs stretched out from her seat.

“My phone’s worthless for everything but iTunes out here,” she said, plugging it into the jack that wired to the vehicle’s sound system. Fall Out Boy came to life in the speakers, and she pulled her sunglasses over her eyes, then fought to tie her hair back against the wind whipping through the Jeep.

The lush, green hills rose around us as we headed farther inland, and it wasn’t long before she pulled out her camera and started snapping pictures.

When Tom Petty came on, I shot her a questioning look.

She shrugged. “It’s on random,” she said, and went back to focusing her camera through the door space.

My life had been full of moments that burrowed into my soul, the memories crisp and detailed—the smell of the snow as I won X Games medals, the rush of wind skydiving over Madagascar, the taste of her lips the first time I’d ever kissed Rachel. This…sitting next to her halfway across the world as she took pictures, her hair falling from its tie, a smile playing at her lips, the warm morning sun shining through the top, even the music coming through the radio, all imprinted on my memory, and I knew I’d replay it often.

This was what I’d always thought we’d be. Seeing the world together, laughing, fighting, making up, pulling stunts—it was everything we’d talked about, and what I knew we were really meant for.

Hell, sitting next to her, even knowing she’d rather toss me from this Jeep than let me kiss her, was more fulfilling than the last half a dozen girls I’d taken to bed. I just had to find a way to break down her walls somehow and see if there was any part of her heart that could still feel something besides hatred for me.

Because I was still fucking wild over her.

The song switched, Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” coming on, and she immediately tensed. I started to sing, but through quick side glances I saw her fumble for her phone and skip the song. Halsey’s “Gasoline” came through the speakers, and though it was pretty much a perfect song for Rachel, I turned it down.

“Why did you skip it?” I asked.

She looked my way briefly before putting her camera back to her eye.

“Rachel,” I prompted. “I thought you liked that song.”

Hell, I’d always loved that song because—

“It…” She shook her head and gave a self-deprecating laugh. “It reminds me too much of you. Of us. I just never took it off.”

Exactly.

My grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Do you do that with everything that reminds you of me? Turn it off? Throw it away?” I asked just loud enough for her to hear me over the road noise.

“Yeah,” she answered, but there was no snark to her voice, no sharp bite. “It was the only way I survived.” She propped her feet up on the dash. “What about you?”

I passed a slower bus and pulled back into our lane, letting the speed take away some of the sting in her words. “No. If it’s on, I let it play. If I see a picture, I look. I learned a long time ago that the only way I could avoid thinking about you would be to shut off my brain or cut out my heart. Since I need both of those to live, I’ve always just dealt with it.” I took a steadying breath. “When did you get it removed? I saw your back in the hallway. I know it’s gone.”

She sucked in her breath like I’d wounded her when, in this particular case, the opposite was true. “When I finally realized you weren’t coming back.”

She turned away, focusing on the rising hills around us, and I knew this line of conversation was done for now.

It was pretty apparent that we’d handled our breakup differently—not that I could blame her. What had happened…what I did, well, it was unforgivable. There was a reason I’d never called her, never tracked her down after she’d blocked me on every form of social media. Rachel had always been one to burn the bridge, salt the earth, generally walk away without looking back, and there was nothing I could say or do that would make up for the past.

But she’s here now.

I held onto that small flame of hope as we made it another hour and a half toward Kitulgala.

She looked up as the first raindrops hit the windshield. “Well, I didn’t see that one coming,” she muttered.

“Storms come in fast off the ocean,” I said, looking for a place to pull over. The outcropping on the right worked just fine, and I brought us to a standstill. “Remember how to do this?” I asked her.

We locked gazes, and a dozen memories assaulted me of when we’d done the same for the Jeep she’d owned back in L.A.

“Yeah, I think I can handle it.” Damn it, her voice was sharp enough to cut again.

We made quick work of pulling the canvas top out of the back and snapping it on. The doors came next.

“I guess it’s been the rainiest fall they’ve had in twenty years or something,” I told her as we climbed back in, both splattered with raindrops.

“Really? We’re going to talk about the weather?”

“Seems the safest topic,” I said as we pulled back onto the road.

Rachel messed around with the defrost until she found a setting that kept the windshield clear. God, I’d missed how well we worked together, how she anticipated every need before it even became one. “That might be true.”

We made the turnoff onto the road that led to the slide site. The road cut so sharply into the steep hill that I was sure Rachel could reach out her window and touch the hillside if she tried.

“So, like I said, they’ve had some pretty torrential rain, so that’s why the slides are epic. The rapids are a bitch, but Pax has everyone suiting up in life vests. I guess the pools between the slides are wicked deep.”

“As long as he keeps Leah safe, that’s all I care about,” she said, looking up the hill.

“She’s his number-one priority right now.”

“I figured that out. Shocked me, honestly, seeing as the Wilder I remembered never saw past his need for an X Games medal.” She leaned forward in her seat, staring up through the windshield.

“He’s changed. We all have,” I said, defensiveness creeping in. “You know, I get it. What happened was horseshit, but we’re not the same as we were back then. It’s been two and a half years, Rach. Don’t you believe in change?”

“Sure. I just think people have to be capable of it. From what I’ve seen in the media, you’ve only gone from bad to worse.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I squinted against the driving sheets of rain, trying to focus on the road. The last thing we needed was for me to drive off the edge of the road.

“Want me to take over?” she asked.

“Ha. I’ve seen you drive. You’re far safer with me behind the wheel. So is the entire population of Sri Lanka.”

“Weren’t you just the one telling me that people change?” She went back to staring up at the hillside through the windshield.

“And you were just telling me that my change didn’t live up to your standard.” My muscles tightened, and I tried to breathe through my flash of anger. I needed every spare ounce of concentration for the road.

“Live up to my standard? Damn. At least I have standards.”

“What? And you’ve been a nun since we…”

“Since you left me?” she snapped. “No. I’ve had boyfriends. I’ve had sex. Really good sex. I just didn’t chase every penis I came in contact with.”

Of course she’d had sex with other guys. She was gorgeous, funny, smart, and fully in control of her sexuality, which was hot as hell. But that sure as fuck didn’t stop me from wanting to beat the other guys to shit for touching what was mine.

Not yours, moron. You gave up that right.

“You know what? Let’s just back out of this line of conversation,” I suggested, flicking the windshield wipers on the highest setting. “Apparently we both have some pretty strong feelings—”

“Landon,” Rachel whispered.

“No, it’s okay that we have strong feelings. We should. That means there’s hope. I’d rather you hate me than to not care—”

“Landon!” Rachel screamed. “Look!”

I lurched forward, ducking my head to look up the hillside where she pointed. Wait…was that…?

“Holy shit!” I slammed on the brakes, sending us into a skid as half the mountain came down in front of us.

“Landslide!”

The roar was deafening, and all my powers of speech failed. Rocks, trees, chunks of the earth plummeted, all carried by a deluge of mud. I’d never seen anything so terrifying in my life. The car in front of us by fifty feet or so was in the clear.

My eyes darted to the hillside above us that held steady, and the instinct to flee took over. “We have to get out of here.”

There was no chance I was dying on a remote road in the middle of Sri Lanka, or that I was letting anything happen to Rachel.

I slammed the Jeep into reverse, put my hand behind Rachel’s seat, and hit the gas. Thank God there was no one behind us. The rain still pummeled us, but at least the canvas top didn’t cover the back portion of the Jeep. I could see out. Barely.

Adrenaline flooded my system, my body familiar with the hormone, and everything became sharp, clear, like I was in the middle of a snowboarding run or a stunt.

I’d just never had Rachel’s life in my hands before.

“Oh my God. Landon, go faster!”

I looked forward only long enough to see that the small barricades to keep us from falling off the road were helping to channel the debris flow, and it was headed straight for us.

Thick trees, green branches, and that little white car ahead of us had all been picked up by the raging river of mud.

“Shit! Watch that.”

I set all my concentration to the road behind us and prayed that my driving skills were enough to get us out of this alive. There had been a small outcropping right after we’d come through the bend in the road. We just had to get—

“It’s gaining on us,” Rachel said quietly, the calm in her voice almost eerie.

I skirted around a car that was trying the same maneuver, passing him on the left…the right. Shit, it was all jumbled.

“Tell me if it gets to that car.”

“Okay.”

The engine protested the high speed in reverse, the whine almost enough to drown out the sound of the landslide approaching. The road was the worst possible place for it to channel—the liquefied soil would carry debris far faster than without pavement.

I sure as hell wasn’t telling Rachel that.

“It’s picked up the second car.”

I chanced a look back and saw it coming at us with only twenty or so feet to spare. This is so not good.

Turning my attention back to the road, I saw it. “There!” I yelled. “Hold on tight!”

I spun us into the small outcropping, flipping our direction. Before we came to a stop, I had the clutch in and the car ready for second gear.

“Now!” Rachel instructed.

As I straightened the wheel, I popped the clutch and launched back into the road just as the mud took the outcropping. Then I hit the gas and we sped down the road as quickly as I could safely get us down in the driving rain. Third gear. That was all that was safe on these winding roads, and I had no clue who could be waiting around the bend.

Who might be driving into their worst nightmare.

“It’s not going to stop,” I told her, knowing we were only halfway down the mountain. “Find another road. We have to get off this one.”

The glove box clicked as Rachel opened it, taking out a map. Her fingers flew over the accordion-folded paper. “Where are we…where are we?” she muttered.

I knew better than to answer her.

A quick look in my rearview mirror told me the slide was picking up speed, and we were the next obstacle in the chute.

“Here!” she exclaimed, pointing to the map. “There’s a road a half mile on the left. We should be able to get to the highway if this one…isn’t available.”

She sucked in her breath, and I caught her looking in the rearview as I slammed the car into fourth gear. “Don’t look.”

“Kind of impossible, seeing as the mountain would like to eat us.”

“Yeah, I know.”

I cursed, braking through a steep turn, knowing it cost us precious seconds. A glance back confirmed it. I couldn’t see the end of the landslide, only the two cars a little farther back in the debris, which meant we were in serious danger of hydroplaning and becoming part of the slide.

“There!” Rachel yelled, pointing to the road on the left.

“Hold on!”

“Never stopped,” she whispered.

We locked eyes for a precious millisecond, and then I ripped the car to the left, braking at the last possible second as the car skidded around the ninety-degree turn. I threw it into 4×4 low for the steep incline and tore up the gravel road, the rain forming a creek exactly in the middle of where I wanted to be.

“Landon!” Rachel yelled.

I punched the gas and prayed, thanking God when the tires caught and we lurched up the hill.

I didn’t stop until we crested the small hill, leaving at least thirty feet between us and the slide as it rushed by beneath us.

Flinging my door open, I jumped down, immediately drenched by the unforgiving rain. My feet carried me to the back of the Jeep, where I could see the massive river of…fuck, everything flowing down the road.

Rachel stumbled around the back, and I grabbed her to me, clutching her tiny frame against my chest. “Tell me you’re okay.”

She shook violently, and I couldn’t tell if she was nodding or not.

“Rachel?” I tilted her chin so I could see those brown eyes.

“I’m…f-f-f-fine,” she stammered, raindrops hitting her face.

I sat on the bumper and pulled her with me, cradling her as carefully as I could. “Good. That’s good.”

As I relaxed my muscles, the adrenaline fled, draining everything from me but the relief that we had somehow miraculously survived. My breath came in great gulps, and I knew that I held on to Rachel more for myself.

I replayed the last minutes, everything that had happened since we saw the ground give way, and my heart pounded against my ribs. “We’ll have to take the other road back. There’s no way that one will be passable.”

She nodded against my chest, her head tucked into that perfect notch just under my collarbone. It might have been years since I’d held her, but she felt exactly the same, her sun-kissed citrus scent still invaded my senses, and for just this moment, she held onto me as if we’d never been apart.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked, needing to hear it again, needing to know that I hadn’t gotten her hurt.

She nodded.

I tilted her chin again so I could see her face. She looked up at me with wide, wild eyes and parted lips that I had the nearly undeniable urge to kiss.

But I didn’t. Not like this. Not because we’d almost died.

“Rachel?” I asked. “Say something.”

A shaky smile played at her lips. “I’m really glad you didn’t let me drive.”

We both burst into laughter, washing away some of the terror, and I hugged her close, savoring the contact and the beat of her heart.

Even if this was all we ever had—these few moments where we’d sought comfort from each other—it would be enough. Just having her not hate me for fifteen seconds was a hell of a lot better than the last couple of years.

Okay, that was a lie.

It would never be enough.