Free Dying Commitment (Lucky Thirteen) by S.M. Butler Page A

everything inside me shut down. Panic arose. I stumbled backward, tripping over the bed post and fell on my ass. All the sounds of the calm Valonian night disappeared. Those dark eyes that really weren’t so dissimilar from Jack’s stared me down. I shook my head violently as he reached for me, his mouth moving, but his voice never reaching my ears. I cupped my hands over them and scooted as far from him as I could. Logically, I knew he wasn’t Jack. Logically, I knew he wasn’t the man that put two holes in my chest. But emotionally… those two words… with those two words, he shattered me.

CHAPTER NINE
    Dylan
    Long moments of silence engulfed the room. Cady was holed up in the corner of the room, her rapid and shallow breath loud in the quiet. I wasn’t completely sure what had just happened. We had been so close to actually sharing a real moment, and the next, she was rocking in the corner.
    “Cadence.” I used her full name, because I didn’t think she’d respond to my shortened version of it. She swallowed and her jade eyes met mine.
    Panic filled them, anxiety painted all over her face. I’d never actually seen her afraid the entire time I’d known her. But in that moment, I didn’t see Cadence Long, former NSA agent. I saw a woman who was afraid for her life.
    I put up my hands and backed away from her, sitting down in the armchair in the corner. Her eyes tracked me the entire time, never moving away, never blinking. I didn’t like seeing that fear on her, and I liked even less that I’d caused it.
    She pushed herself up to her feet, using the wall as leverage to do so. She swallowed hard, and was breathing like she’d run a marathon. “I… We… this isn’t working right.”
    “Cady… talk to me.” I started to stand, but she tensed, so I sat back down.
    “No. I’m not going through this again.”
    Going through what again? What the hell had happened anyway? She shook her head, and slid her back along the wall until she reached the door.
    “Cadence?”
    “No!” She snapped, and in the blink of a moment, she ran out of the room.
    Something had triggered some kind of anxiety attack. I could see it in her eyes, and I hated it. I didn’t want her to be afraid of anything, much less me. I rubbed my hands over my face. We’d had a good time these last six months. We’d gotten to know each other… except that we hadn’t. She had held herself back at every turn, and now she was starting to unravel. The thing about it was that I wasn’t sure what exactly was making her unravel. Was it chasing after Allen? Or maybe it was having me as a partner? Or maybe she had finally reached her limit with everything.
    Maybe it would be best to give her space, to sit back and let her figure things out on her own. Pushing her was just making things worse. I stood and walked to the door, but she wasn’t in the hallway. I could hear movement downstairs in the kitchen. It was time to let her figure this out, and let her come to me if she needed me. In the meantime, I’d be there for her, as a friend, as a partner. Because that was what we’d become. Thirteen didn’t officially have partners. That wasn’t how the team worked. But this was how we were working, or how we best worked. Maybe that’s what she needed.
    I sighed and flopped back on the bed, staring up at the textured ceiling. If she couldn’t keep herself together, I’d have to call Master Chief and tell him, but I didn’t want to make a premature call. Tomorrow, we’d deal with this. Tomorrow, I’d find out just how far Cadence Long had unraveled.
    ~*~*~
    Cadence
    I didn’t sleep well that night. I couldn’t. I knew he didn’t mean to, but Dylan had awoken a ghost from my past, one I’d never really learned to live with. It haunted me, stalked me relentlessly. It was so well hidden inside my head that I hadn’t realized it was a problem. No one but Jack had ever used that nickname with me, and so I’d associated it with him. Dylan