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The botto her tored she’d fallen in love with Malek during those first few hours, but extending her knowledge of hilorious interaction, deepening the soul-deep bond had been an act of sheer lunacy

She’d had a chance of surviving without him before those weeks She’d thrown it away

She stood staring sightlessly as the Jeepsdespair seeping into her as she made the decision to walk away, today

Suddenly she was distracted as if frohtave way The driver tried to veer off the collapsing slice of mountain, failed and tilted sideways, over and over and over down the ravine leading to where they were

The moment it crashed a dozen hundred feet away, chaos erupted Screa towards the crash, Malek ahead of everyone, his shouts drowning everyone else’s with orders and directions, his speed outstripping the ahead

Get ee This is your turf

She ca to see Malek on top of the Jeep, sending everyone running back to fetch all they’d need to extract their people froot nearer, her eyes riveted on hiet to the injured inside And then she saw it

A boulder rolling down the ht at him

White noise exploded inside her skull, flooded her limbs with the power of desperation She dimly felt she’d fly, as she needed to, to reach him, to shield hie and the detonation of all-encoistered

Malek heard the uproar rising again over the strident panting filling his ears The sheer panic congealing his blood told him it was about Jay

He wrenched around, saw it all at once

Jay streaking towards him, her face a panicked, manic mask The boulder he wouldn’t be able to outrun Janaan stopping in its path up the slope The boulder hitting her with the speed of a racing car, knocking her down and rolling right on top of her before it hit the Jeep, its ainst Janaan’s body Her body

And suddenly he was flying, swooping down on her, her na fro there broken Because of him And he wouldn’t be able to reach her Like he hadn’t been able to reach Majd

“Sheikh Malek”

He heard the shouted ad to snatch him back from the precipice of madness

“Sheikh Malek, she needs you now She needs you”