Chapter 739
[ 500 words ]
Chapter 739:
From the sideline, Jarrod saw it all. He saw the stumble. He saw the unnatural, clawing motion of her hands. He saw the angry red rash blooming on the exposed skin of her neck.
His mind, trained in the brutal realities of interrogation and chemical agents, made the connection in a nanosecond. Chemical irritant.
His face, already a cold mask, turned to stone. The temperature around him seemed to drop twenty degrees. A wave of pure, silent killing rage rolled off him, so palpable that Major Nash instinctively took a half-step back.
Jarrod moved toward the chain-link fence by instinct, but his body stopped him before his rage could. His braced right arm remained locked against his torso, useless for the violence burning through him, and the fingers of his splinted left hand flexed once inside the rigid glove before going still, defeated by pain and restraint.
The fence rattled only when his shoulder struck the post. It was not strength that made the metal shiver. It was the sudden, brutal impact of a man forced to stand still while the woman he loved was being hurt in front of him.
Caroline was crawling through the mud now. The gritty water mixed with the chemical, amplifying the agony. Her vision started to blur at the edges. Her body was screaming at her to stop, to just lie down and let the darkness take her.
But then she looked up. Through the mud and the sweat and the tears of pain, she saw him. A tall, unmoving figure in a modified uniform, one arm trapped in a brace, the other hand splinted and useless, his entire body held rigid by a discipline that looked more painful than any wound. He was watching. He wasn’t leaving.
A raw, desperate roar tore from her throat. She found a last, hidden reserve of strength, fueled by pure, stubborn rage.
The mud was a cold, greedy hand, pulling her down.
Caroline dragged herself out of the pit, her body a symphony of agony. The burning on the back of her neck wasn’t a simple rash anymore. It felt like a thousand red-hot needles stabbing into her skin, a deep, neurological fire that made her muscles twitch and spasm uncontrollably.
She staggered to her feet, her legs shaking so violently she nearly pitched forward back into the filthy water.
𝘚𝘁𝗈𝗋𝗂е𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘶 𝘄оո’t р𝗎t 𝗱𝘰wn 𝗼n 𝗀𝘢𝘭𝗇𝘰𝘃е𝗹𝘴.𝘤om
The brutal Maryland sun beat down, baking the mud on her face into a cracked mask. A bead of sweat trickled from her temple, down her jaw, and into the collar of her uniform. The moment it touched the inflamed skin, a fresh wave of chemical agony erupted, so intense it stole her breath.
She bit down on her lower lip, the metallic taste of blood a welcome, grounding pain. It was a physical anchor in a sea of neurological chaos.
Her brain, even in this state of extreme distress, was working. The agent inside her was online, rewinding the last twenty minutes, frame by frame. Every physical contact. Every jostle. Every touch.
.
.
.
If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.