“I can’t get that close,” Mason said. “But this time, he carried two objects.”
“Okay.” My mind was fully revived. “Get the plane, we’re headed over there.”
Mason rushed past me. A second later, he came to a dead stop. The large raindrops pelting the windows came into range like the sounding of war drums. Before us, the plates of glass blurred as the brewing storm came into view. “It’s fucking raining.”
“So what?” I asked. “Planes fly in rain all the damn time.”
“Big planes.” His green gaze came to me. “I’ll check the radar.”
Laurel entered from the other direction with her phone in her hand. “Storms. They’re coming from the south. Dubois is recording fifteen lightning strikes per minute.”
“No.” My head shook. “We have to get there. What if she’s there? What if she wasn’t in that building?” A thought came to mind. “I know.” I grabbed Mason’s shirt. “The explosion, it was for you. It was a trick to get you to go after her. The Order, they want Laurel and the way to get her is to eliminate you.”
Mason took a deep breath and pulled my grip from his clothes. “We’ll take the truck.”
“It will take too long.”
“What fucking choice do we have?” he countered.
“Where are the capos?” Laurel asked, a calming voice in the storm.
“Near Anaconda,” I said.
“Ranch hands?” she asked.
“I’d have to contact Seth,” Mason answered.
“Let’s go in the truck,” she said.
“Laurel, you don’t...” I didn’t finish.
Her blue eyes came to me as they had outside. “I stayed to help. I’m not a medical doctor, but I know a few things. Let me grab the first-aid kit and I’ll meet you both out front.” She looked at Mason. “Make sure the tank is full. We’re not stopping.” With that she turned and headed for the stairs.
When I looked back at Mason, I grinned. “She’s good for you.”
He nodded. “And Lorna is for you. Come on, we’re getting my sister back.”
When I stepped outside, I stared at Mason’s truck. It was bigger than a normal truck, and there was an ATV loaded in the long bed.
“What’s that for?”
“In case we need it.”
I nodded.
As we all piled into the truck, Mason driving, me riding shotgun—literally, we were carrying—and Laurel in the back seat, I called Romero. He answered right away.
“We need you to head back this way. The truck was just spotted in the same area where Mrs. Sparrow was found.”
“Sir, we entered the one building.”
I put the phone on speaker as Mason fired up the engine, and we headed down the long lane toward the main roads. “Why?”
“I told him to,” Mason said. “The booby trap was already sprung.”
“What did you find?” My elation began to slip away. “Who did you find?”
“No who, Mr. Murray. This place was...fuck, there were two cells on a floor underground. Like actual jail cells—no bars, but doors that lock, beds, toilet, and sink.”
My stomach twisted. “Did you find anything in them?”
“No personal possessions. They were both...well, both looked as if they’d been recently occupied. And we found blood splatter on the floor in one. It seemed recent.”
My eyes closed as I tried to rein in whatever fucking emotions were going through me.
“We’ll text you the exact coordinates of where Mrs. Sparrow was found,” Mason said. “If you get close first, call while you still have cell service.”
After the call ended, I leaned back against the door and seat. Big fat raindrops pummeled the windshield as the headlights cut through the darkness.
Reid
At nearly midnight, we were three miles from our destination when Mason’s phone rang. Christian’s name appeared on the dashboard screen. The three of us exchanged glances as Mason hit the green icon.
“Talk to us,” he said.
“We are about there. Cell service is spotty and the rain is coming down.”
“Do you see anyone?”
“No, not yet. We have our flashlights. I have you on Bluetooth.”
Fuck, cell service didn’t work the other day. “Aran—Mrs. Sparrow,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm, “was near a large rock south of the road. Keep talking to us.”
“I see the rock,” Christian said. “We’re walking that way.”
“Over here,” Romero yelled from a distance.
“Fuck, I see them,” Christian said.
Them?
“They look...” Static filled the line just before we lost his signal.
Mason’s gaze went between the poor excuse for a road and me. “Don’t jump to fucking conclusions.”
“They?”
He shook his head.
I couldn’t speak. My jaw clenched as I glared straight ahead.
The next two miles took hours or days. That was the way they seemed until we finally caught sight of the capos’ car. My pulse thumped in my veins as my fingers itched to free myself from the truck. It was the headlights shining through the darkness and illuminating the large rock that became clear.
Mason brought the truck to a stop, seconds after I had the door open.
What had been hard, dry ground yesterday morning was slick and wet. Rain saturated my hair and clothes. My boots sank in the deepening mud, splattering my jeans as I ran toward their car.
Christian and Romero were soaking wet, standing beside the open back doors.
“Where is she?” I called, reaching the car a few seconds before Mason.
Within the back seat was not one but two women, both unconscious.
I didn’t concentrate on the one I didn’t know. Instinctively, I reached for my wife.
Tears came to my eyes as I laid two fingers on her neck.
A long breath escaped my lungs as I detected a pulse.
Now that I knew she was alive, I took in her battered body.
My wife’s beautiful red hair was a wet, tangled mess littered with grass and twigs. I tenderly pushed rogue strands away from her battered face, running a finger gently over her dark and swollen cheeks and eyes. “Get a fucking blanket,” I yelled, noticing the way her saturated shirt clung to her small frame, covering her panties. Her legs were bare and along with bruises, were covered in angry small red lesions.
Mason brought a blanket from behind the seat in his truck.
Lorna groaned as I lifted her, yet she remained unconscious.
In the illumination of the headlights, I noticed more puss-filled red dots on her arms. Her fingernails were ragged and her hands bruised. Her feet were as Araneae’s had been, cut and dirty.
Mason laid the wool blanket over his sister.
“Is she?” he asked.
As I shook my head, Romero answered, “She has a pulse. It’s weak.”
“Bring her to the truck,” Laurel said as Mason stared into the back seat of the capos’ car.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
My wife was as light as a feather, lighter than I remembered. Cradling her in my arms, I carried her to Mason’s truck. My eyes met Laurel’s. “I don’t want to leave her.”
“Lay her down in the back seat. I need to check her, and then you can ride in the back with her.”
I nodded as I laid her gently on the seat. “What are the spots?”
“I can’t be sure, but I suspect insect bites of some kind. We need to get her on an antibiotic as soon as possible. Too many bites, even from nonpoisonous insects can be...”
Deadly was the word she didn’t say.
I couldn’t peel my gaze away from my wife as Laurel helped her and talked with me.
Finally, I noticed Mason standing near the car and staring. His arms were crossed and his neck stiff. There was something in his demeanor. I’d expect more jubilance at finding Lorna alive. And then I remembered the stranger found with her. I
walked over to my friend. “Is she...” I bent down and looked closer at the other person, placed my fingers on her neck. I did as I had done in searching for Lorna’s pulse.
There was none.
Not only was she dead, but she looked as if she’d been that way for a while. Not as in decomposed, but as in emaciated. Hell, she looked like a skeleton.
“Fucking dead,” Mason replied.
The dome light in the car illuminated her gaunt features, dark circles around her eyes, and thin skin. “Why does she look familiar?”
“Because she looks like Lorna,” he said. Turning his stare to me, he added, “She’s our mother.”
Lorna
It had been three days since I awoke to the sound of beeps and the handsomest, most loving gaze I’d ever known. It was as if I’d fallen asleep in his arms and awoken under his gaze. I had sparse memories of Mason and Laurel’s ranch, yet nothing was solidly fixed in my recollection after our safe life in this tower.
Nearly two weeks of my life were gone or hidden by an unmovable veil.
I wasn’t without clues.
My body ached in places I hadn’t known existed. I had multiple broken ribs, my left cheekbone had been surgically reconstructed, and I had an appointment to have a broken tooth repaired.
My skin was covered in medical creams and still the bites over my arms, torso, and legs continued to itch. I’d lost over ten pounds, yet I had trouble keeping food down. A step or even reaching for a glass of water was painful. My temples ached from an incessant ringing in my ears that had only recently begun to fade. One look in a mirror told me that I’d lived through a nightmare—one I couldn’t recall.
While the particulars of what had happened weren’t in my mind, there was a looming sense of terror just outside my reality. It was with me, lingering and waiting to pounce. I couldn’t see it, nor could I escape from it.
Even in the apartment where I’d lived with Reid for the last nine years, a simple noise set me on full alert. I jumped at the beep of the microwave and startled at the whistle of the tea kettle. A blinking light set my pulse racing, and perspiration dotted my brow as I tried mostly unsuccessfully to sleep.
All that I knew of my ordeal was what I could see and feel, as well as what I’d been told by Reid and the others.
Araneae and I were taken from Mason’s ranch.
It was believed that we were kept in a mostly underground bunker.
We were found nearly two days apart in the same area.
If there was more to the story that anyone knew, I hadn’t been told. I also hadn’t pushed. The doctor said my body needed to rest and heal, and in time, my mind would catch up. The resulting black hole in time left me as uneasy as the injuries I’d suffered.
At least, I wasn’t alone in my loss of recall. Araneae couldn’t remember what occurred either. Our questions were met with platitudes and offers of food, drink, and rest. Reid and the others walked around both of us as if there were eggshells scattered about the floor in danger of cracking.
I spent hours peering out at the Chicago skyline and the blue of Lake Michigan, hoping that something would come back. I have sat and paced within the safe confines of our tower. The answers seem so close, yet out of reach.
“Maybe it’s better this way,” Araneae said, as she lay her head on the sofa and rested her hand on her growing baby bump.
The two of us were sitting in her living room, the cobalt-blue sky and waves of the great lake sparkling beyond the windows.
“I hate not remembering,” I confessed.
Araneae turned to me. While her expression was filled with concern, her face had been spared the same signs of our captivity as mine.
Some of my dark bruises were lightening, turning from deep black and purple to shades of green with yellow halos. Both of our feet were affected. She had hers, covered in bandages, up on the edge of the coffee table.
“When I was younger, too young to drink,” she said, “my friend Louisa and I snuck some vodka into a party. I woke up in the bathroom of her parents’ house.” Her head shook. “Besides puking my guts, I couldn’t remember what had happened or how we’d gotten there. I hated the feeling and didn’t touch alcohol for years after that.”
“Even wine?” I asked with a smile.
“Well, it takes time to develop the taste for good wine.”
“I’ll take good wine over cheap vodka.”
Araneae laughed. “I never said it was cheap.”
“You were a teenager. It was probably cheap.”
Private school.
I shook my head, wondering where that thought had come from. “I’ve never blacked out from alcohol.” I said.
“Never? Even when you were young?”
“No. I was kind of boring.” Working to keep a roof over my head. I didn’t say that. “I didn’t need a bad personal experience to keep me on the straight and narrow.”
Araneae groaned as she leaned forward and lifted a glass of lemonade. “Oh, I wish I could take stronger painkillers.”
My temples throbbed as sunlight glistened on the lake surface below. Each deep breath reminded me of the ache in my ribs. “I won’t take them either.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Oh, Lorna, are you...?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not pregnant. I think we have enough pregnancy hormones in this tower for right now.”
Araneae ran her finger over the condensation of the glass. “May I ask you then why you won’t take the painkillers?” She looked over and grinned. “Because if I could I would with a wine chaser.”
I feigned a smile. “It’s no real secret. Mace and I grew up with an alcoholic, drug-addicted mother.” I shrugged. “And believe it or not, those weren’t her worst qualities. Anyway, I refused to follow in her footsteps even when I was younger.”
“I’m sorry.”
I waved my hand. “Don’t be. It’s old news. I haven’t seen her since before my high school graduation. It’s even longer for Mace.” I sighed. “I’m not sure why I brought her up.”
“I’m not pretending to know what that’s like,” Araneae said, “but I do get losing parents young. It...there’s a hole.”
“Your story is a lot happier.”
Her light brown eyes met mine. “Lorna, we’re both here, in our home, after God knows what happened. If you ask me, we both have happy endings.” She laid her hand over her baby bump. “With many more stories to come.”
Lorna
Later that night as I settled into bed next to my husband, I turned to Reid. “I wish you knew more about what happened to us.”
His deep voice overpowered the distant ringing within my ears. “Has anything come back? Do you remember anything else?”
I shook my head. “It feels like the information is close, yet I can’t find it.” I let out a long sigh. “You know, it’s like when you lose something, yet you’re sure it’s right there.”
Reid gently encouraged me to lay my head on his broad shoulder as he wrapped his arms around me. “I have you back.” He kissed my hair.
While he was gentle, I winced at the pressure on my tender scalp.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be.” I turned my gaze to his and as my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I took in his handsome features—his loving gaze, the flawlessness of his mahogany complexion, his high cheekbones, and his strong chin. I ran my finger over his lush lips, imagining them on mine or other more sensitive places. As my insides twisted, I said, “I’ll take your affection, no matter how much it hurts.”
Reid’s brows knitted together. “I never want you to hurt, not from me or anyone else. Whoever did this to you will pay. I promise, you’re safe and they’ll never hurt you again.”
Sighing, I settled into the crook of his strong arm. “I don’t care if they pay. I would like to know they can’t do this to anyone else.”
“I love you, Lorna. I didn’t need to lose you to know that.”
A smile crept across my face
as I hugged his arm. “I love you too. I feel” —I searched for words— “...safe, secure, loved...” When our gazes met, I confessed, “When we’re together, I feel like I’m somebody.”
“You, Lorna Murray, are definitely somebody.”
I ran my fingers over his forearm, feeling the warmth of his dark skin under my fingertips and relishing in our familiar differences. The sounds of our breathing filled our bedroom. His breaths became spaced and rhythmic, alerting me to the fact that he’d fallen asleep. Knowing my husband, I doubted that he slept much when I was gone.
Savoring the security of his embrace as well as the fresh scent of his recently showered skin, I cuddled toward his side and listened to the beat of his heart, reminding myself of my safety as I drifted into a fretful sleep.
All at once, I woke with a start.
“What is it?” Reid asked, leaning over me.
With his close proximity, the white orbs surrounding his dark eyes were all I could see in our lightless bedroom. Before I could respond, gently and reassuringly, his lush firm lips came to mine.
“Sweetheart, you’re fine. You’re here.”
A moan came from my throat as I pushed closer, returning his kiss.
His large hands roamed down my lower back and over my behind.
Heat flooded my twisting core as I reached for his cheeks, holding his lips to mine as my tongue sought entrance, ready to dance with his.
My desire waned as a wince replaced my moan when his weight came over my ribs and bruised hip bones. My pulse quickened and breathing stalled as perspiration dotted my forehead.
Before I could analyze what had happened, Reid pulled away.
His stare penetrated mine. “No, Lorna, I won’t hurt you.”
“You aren’t,” I said, not being fully truthful. “You’re loving me.”
Holding his toned and hard torso above me, Reid teased a strand of my hair away from my face as he scanned my bruises. “I do and will forever love you. You are still the most beautiful woman in this world. I fucking want to show you that by bringing the head of whoever did this to your feet.”
My lips curled upward. “I don’t want anyone but you.”
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