Hawk’s body jerked violently and he sat straight up sweating like he’d run a mile. His jaws hurt from clenching his teeth, his throat was raw from his ragged breaths and probably screaming. His heart beat so fast he felt like he was having a heart attack, so he reached up to rub his sternum.

“Man, dude—what in the hell is wrong with you?” Levi asked, leaning over the edge of the upper bunk to look at him. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“Bad dream,” Hawk replied through clenched teeth. He’d never had a worse one, even when he was in the bowels of hell on a short tour for a mission in the Middle East.

In this dream, he’d just relived the crash he read about in the incident report Max gave him yesterday. He felt Maddie’s fear as she called Mayday, fought with her to regain control of the Little Bird before it slammed into the ground. He saw her bloodied and ravaged face as she lay slumped in the cockpit and he wanted to die with her when he found no pulse in her throat. But she opened her eyes and looked at him through that blood and asked him to help her.

Sucking in ragged breaths Hawk rubbed his sternum, trying to calm his out of control heart, while he fought to keep down the bile that surged up to choke him. For the last six months, Maddie had been alive in his dreams. His mind refused to let her die. Last night had been his most vivid dream, though. One he never wanted to have again.

According to the report, CSAR searched twice for the aircraft by air, sent teams into the jungle to recover her body, but they found nothing except spilled fuel, a few metal scraps and glass at the impact zone. They called off the search after that because they had other priorities. Maddie was dead to them, but she wouldn’t be dead to him until he found her body.

Bodies did not just disappear, even one as amazing as hers, and neither did helicopters. If one of the cartels took the helo, why in the hell wouldn’t they just leave her body there? They’d left Jenson and Smith.

That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, one that had been haunting him, distracting him and driving him insane since the funeral. He could not go on like this, because his distraction was putting himself and his team in danger.

A distracted pilot was a dead pilot.

The thing that stuck in his mind after reading the report was the fact the operators, who said she had no pulse, were not trained medics. They’d survived, made a quick assessment in the heat of the moment and bugged out when they came under fire. From who? A cartel who could have not only salvaged the aircraft, but who could be holding her prisoner.

If that were the case, he almost hoped she was dead. There were things those monsters could do to her that would be worse than death. They trafficked humans as well as drugs through the mountains and jungles to fund their operation.

It was insane, probably a suicide mission, but he had to go to Guatemala to find her or her body because he knew he couldn’t live like this. The odds of him just getting over this feeling in another six months, or even six years, were nil. The longer he thought, wondered and worried would only make it worse.

His hands shook as he threw his legs over the side of the bed and reached down to grab his flight suit to find his phone. He wasn’t going into this alone, and he knew the one man who could help him. He dialed Max Carter’s number and huffed a breath.

“What in the ever-loving hell do you want at three in the morning?!?” Max grumbled when he answered.

“I need to go to Guatemala and find her,” Hawk replied, swallowing hard.

“She’s dead, Hawkins,” Max said, his voice firm but sympathetic. “I know that’s tough to accept. I’m having a hard time with it too—but even if she was alive after the crash, she’s been out in that jungle hurt for six months, so she’s dead now.” He huffed a breath. “I knew I shouldn’t have given you that report.”

“Bodies don’t disappear,” Hawk replied, shoring up his determination.

“No, but two men who are foolish enough to go there in the middle of cartel turf wars do. It would be stupid of us to traipse into that hell to recover a body,” Max shot back.

“She could be alive and held captive by a cartel. Those operators who said she was dead aren’t trained medics. She could be MIA instead of KIA. Doesn’t that thought make your blood run cold?” Hawk knew it sure made his icy with fear.

“Why are you calling me in the middle of the night to drag me into your fantasy world?” Max asked with a groan. “I’m out of the secret mission business as soon as my last day of terminal leave is up. I’m fantasizing of opening a beach bar in Tahiti, not going to Guatemala.”

“I’m calling because you are the only other person on this earth who cared—cares about her. Show it and come with me.”

“Fuck me,” Levi groaned from the upper bunk. “I’m going too—and Caleb will probably want to go. Someone needs to be there to save your stupid ass.”

“No—this is my problem,” Hawk replied. “Logan needs you here for assignments.”

“If this is your problem, why the hell are you bothering me?” Max asked, and Hawk pulled the phone away from his ear to glare at it.

“Logan needs you here for assignments too,” Levi shot back. “Without you and the bird, we’re grounded anyway.”

“I’m not taking the bird,” Hawk informed. He’d come up with a plan that stretched his savings account to the max, but he could pull it off. If they found her pretty quickly.

“What? Are you walking to Guatemala?” Levi asked with a snide laugh.

“No, I’m leasing a helo,” Hawk growled, rolling his eyes as he put the phone back to his ear. “I’ll meet you at the hangar at Falcon Field at ten o’clock.”

Mickie’s brother Dante was a former Black Hawk pilot, and unemployed since the FBI terminated him, so he’d ask him to fill in while he was gone. That could be a while, because Hawk was not leaving Guatemala without Maddie, or her body.

“I didn’t say I was going with you,” Max said.

“You didn’t say you weren’t going with me, either,” Hawk shot back. “And if you don’t, you’ll be living with my death, along with your sister’s, for the rest of your life.”

“What makes you think I would care one way or another if you got yourself killed?” Max asked gruffly. “You can’t save stupid.”

“But you’ve tried enough times that the left-hand side of your uniform is ten times heavier than the right.” He’d heard about that for years from Maddie, but saw the medals for himself on the man’s dress blues at the funeral.

Max sighed. “Yes, I’m the Stupid Asshole Rescue Specialist, so I guess I’m going.”

“Good, I’ll meet you at the hangar at ten.” Hawk hung up the phone and his insides felt lighter than they had in six months.

I’m coming to find you, baby.