Ah, Christ. The M-word. Why couldn’t she be happy with what they had now? Why throw something like a marriage into the mix to really fuck things up? They’d known each other a week. It was a bit premature to be making wedding plans. “Listen, Charis—”
Without warning the driver’s side window shattered, spraying glass everywhere.
“Shit! Get down!” David threw himself on top of her. “Get us out of here!”
“I’m on it.” The driver gunned it, whipping them off the pavement and down a gravel road. They veered left. David held her as they slid on the leather seat, slamming into the door with their heads and shoulders. Then the car veered right. They slid across the seat and slammed into the other side. Hard.
The next shot broke the window above them and showered them with little squares of glass. Charis screamed and covered her head, fighting against his hands already sheltering her. He buried his face into the crook of her neck and pushed her head down.
Another shot sounded and the car took a sudden jump. He stole a glance at the driver, who slumped over the steering wheel, a gaping hole in the back of his head. Fuck. Fuck! The shooter just took out the driver. David’s heart stopped as the car accelerated and swerved down a steep embankment.
Don’t roll. Don’t roll. Don’t roll.
The car lifted, the weightlessness sending his stomach to his throat. Charis screamed again. He pulled her tighter against him.
The car went airborne. They rose up off the seat, suspended in the air as the car seemed to float. And then they descended. Fast.
“Hold on!” He held her tight, bracing them both for the impact. When the car slammed to the ground, it landed with such bone-shattering force it sent them flying inside, bouncing off the doors, the floor, the ceiling.
Then it rolled. And rolled. And rolled.
They were like pinballs against the rubber bumpers. Only they didn’t hit anything as soft as rubber. This hurt like hell and beat the shit out of them. When he smacked his shoulder into the door, he growled and clenched his jaw. His arm went limp and Charis slipped from his hold.
She screamed his name and reached for him. He almost had her when the car flipped again, throwing them in opposite directions. He smacked his head on something hard and little black dots invaded his already blurred vision.
The car rolled down the embankment, spinning them around like clothes in a dryer. He found her and pulled her to him just as the car rolled again, slamming her elbow into his ribs. He felt the crack, even heard it. Shit. How many ribs did he just break? He grunted against the pain but didn’t loosen his hold on her.
That was when he realized she no longer screamed. In fact, she no longer did much of anything. During the commotion she’d been knocked unconscious.
Please God let her only be unconscious.
The car finally slammed them down one last time before settling with a groan. An eerie silence followed. He blinked through the fog in his brain and looked out the window. They’d landed upside down.
Fighting against the blackness, he pushed himself off Charis, immediately checked for a pulse and found a strong THUMP-thump. THUMP-thump. Thank you God.
His strength faltered and he almost fell back on top of her. The black spots grew with intensity. Throbbing at the base of his skull. Roaring in his ears. Blurred vision. He had maybe a minute before he passed out. His stomach stirred and his saliva glands activated. Shit, he was going to be sick on top of everything else.
“Charis, sweetheart.” It hurt to talk, to breathe. Glancing at his midsection, he spotted the bloodstain growing steadily where something stabbed him. Christ, that hurt. Pushing against the pain as he applied pressure so not to bleed out, he tried to wake her by brushing her hair out of her face, the glass out of her curls.
“Charis, baby?”
Nothing. Probably for the best. The knot on the back of her head would definitely give her a headache. He scanned her for any other injuries. Aside from the enormous lump on her head and a hell of a lot of cuts and bruises, she came through unscathed. He dropped his head to hers and drew in several steadying breaths to ward off the wave of nausea and blackness fighting to pull him under.
The sound of twigs snapping broke through the deafening silence. The car didn’t move, which only left one other cause for the noise.
They weren’t alone.
He reached for his weapon and clenched his teeth. Shit. His shoulder was dislocated. No wonder it hurt so goddamn bad. He reached again, ignoring the overwhelming pain, pushing him that much closer to passing out.
His weapon wasn’t in its holster. Of fucking course. He scanned the vehicle but came up empty. It must have flown out the window during the crash. Crash? Hell, that wasn’t just a crash. The inside of the vehicle looked it had gone through the masher. He could only imagine what the outside looked like.
More twigs snapped, followed by deep voices. Male. Fifty yards out. Closing in fast.
Please let them be the Neely brothers. He wouldn’t be able to fight off an attack, at least not unarmed. The voices grew louder as two, make that three men approached the site.
“Charis.” He gently shook her. Her eyes fluttered open then closed again. Ah hell.
He spotted a pair of boots, then two others, right outside the driver’s window. They sure as hell didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry to check for survivors.
“Better get them out,” a male said. No accent, but that didn’t mean shit at this point. Surreal had a hell of a reach. “Good shot on the driver.”
“Told you I wouldn’t hit her. I only hit what I aim for.”
“But you don’t know if she’s alive.”
“I don’t know if she’s dead, either.”
David cursed as the owners of the three sets of boots made their way toward the back of the car and stopped a foot from his head. Closing his eyes, he leaned over Charis and said a prayer.
“This one’s bleeding pretty good,” the shooter stated.
“Is it the man or the woman?”
Leaves rustled as one of them shifted to kneel and look into the car. David felt the man’s breath, hot and putrid, on the back of his head. Jesus, this guy’s BO smelled worse than his breath. “It’s the guy. I don’t see the girl. Maybe she got thrown?” He stood.
“Ah shit. You know he won’t pay us if we don’t have her.”
Oh shit. They wanted Charis. The smaller pair of the boots shifted and David lowered his head just as he spotted him kneeling down.
“No, she’s in here. His body is on top of hers. Get them out.”
“Both? But the guy said he only wanted the girl.”
The smaller man, obviously the brains in the operation, sighed impatiently. “We can’t get to the girl until we get his body off of hers.”
“What if he ain’t dead?”
“We’ve got guns, moron. If he didn’t die in that crash, we’ll shoot him. But I seriously doubt either survived.”
More shuffling feet. He felt hands under either side of his arms before the man gave him a quick jerk. His shoulder popped into place. He clenched his teeth against the pain. Another jerk—OhJesusGod that fucking hurt—and the man had David’s limp body out of the wreckage. He dragged him away from the car and dropped him face down in the dirt and underbrush. He then walked back and knelt to pull Charis out.
David pushed at the ground, desperate to get up, to fight off these dickheads and save Charis. Shaking, weak, he fell to the ground. Damn it. Physically, he just didn’t have any more to give. He was in serious danger of passing out any second. Any excursion on his part hurt like hell and pushed him to the border of unconsciousness. Even blinking took effort.
“You got her?”
“Yeah. She isn’t dead, but he’s going to be pissed when he sees that lump on her head.”
“He said to make sure she didn’t get hurt,” the third one finally spoke.
“Too bad,” the smaller one barked. “For only twenty Gs, he’s lucky she’s in this good o
f shape. Now go get the ATV so we don’t have to carry her up the hill. He said to meet him in half an hour.”
Shit! He had to do something. Dizzy and exhausted, David tried to push himself up again. His mouth watered as his throat worked to purge the contents of his stomach. He swallowed over and over until the urge to vomit passed.
The sound of the ATV caught his attention. The bigger of the men stopped something that looked like a small truck, flatbed and all, right next to Charis. Together the three men loaded her into the back of the ATV.
Nooo! He blinked them into focus and struggled to get up. It felt like they parked that damn ATV on his back.
“We need to get to the truck. Let’s go.” The smaller one jumped into the passenger’s seat of the ATV, the third in the back with Charis.
David tried to shout out, to get their attention. Anything to get them to stop. “Hey!” It came out barely above a whisper.
One knee. Then the other. Okay. Still on his elbows, but at least on his knees, he pushed himself, ignoring the excruciating pain in his shoulder. He lost his balance as the sudden onset of vertigo sent the entire hillside spinning.
Not able to hold it, he became violently, and audibly, ill. He tried to swallow it, but he just kept retching. When he finally collapsed, he rolled to his back and looked up.
Right into the barrel of a rifle. The third man shook his head as he cocked the gun.
“No,” David grunted and reached for the gun. He seemed to be moving in slow motion.
The man easily shifted before David even came close to touching it. “Sorry, man. I’ll make it quick.” He raised the rifle to David’s forehead.
“Charis.” Her name fell from his lips just as the crack of the shot sounded, echoing through the air.
Then nothing.
TWENTY-THREE
“Snyder?”
“Oh man, he looks like shit.”
“Shut up, man. He can hear you.”
“So? It isn’t like he’s in any shape to do anything about it.”
Dead. He had to be dead. He had to be. No way could he have dodged a bullet to the frontal lobe point blank. Opening his eyes, he looked up at the two ugly mugs of Rich and Ron Neely.
Not only was he dead, he was in hell.
“Wha—” He blinked his vision into focus.
“You fainted,” Ron stated quite cheerily. The bastard.
David grunted and closed his eyes. “Did not.”
“Yes,” Rich joined in, equally as cheery. “You did.”
Opening his eyes slowly, he looked up at them. “Passed...out.” He held in a groan as another wave of nausea hit him. No doubt he had a concussion, and a pretty good one at that. “There’s...a difference.” He closed his eyes again. Keeping them open just took too much damn effort. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?” He couldn’t tell which one said it and didn’t give a shit.
Knowing better than to shake his head, he grunted his answer. He remembered a car. A gunshot. Rolling over and over and over. Three men.
Charis.
They took her. He tried to sit up. It didn’t take much effort for the two men to hold him down. “Let...go.”
“Dude, you are seriously hurt,” Ron stated. “You need to get to a hospital.”
“They’ve got her.” Son of a fuck. After everything he’d done to protect her, he failed. Surreal still literally took her right out from under him.
“We figured as much. After Rich blew the head off the guy ready to do the same to you, the others took off on that ATV. We couldn’t shoot or we might have hit McKoy.”
“You let them get away?” He found the strength to sit up and lean back against the tree behind him. He pushed to his feet, staggered, then straightened.
Holy shit. He felt like he’d just been hit by a freight train at top speed. The entire scene shifted and he swayed to stay upright. Focusing on the car to hold the rest of the world in one place, he gave a shudder. It looked like he’d been hit by a freight train at top speed. His gut twisted.
“Get me to a phone.” He started up the hill, ignoring the way his legs shook to hold his weight. He had to call for backup. Surreal had Charis. The fucker had her.
The Neely brothers helped him. It took over twenty minutes to reach the top. He had to stop several times to ward off the threat of passing out again and puked twice. By the time they crested the top the cavalry had arrived. Rigs of every shape and size surrounded the scene everywhere. Two huge SUV’s blocked the road on either side of them.
Weber stepped out of the latest arriving rig before it came to a full stop. He hurried over to David. After giving him a quick once over, he rested his gaze on his midsection. “You’re bleeding.”
“You’re late.”
The steady bap-bap-bap of helicopters pulled his attention to the sky. Three TREX birds shined an undeniable force as they flew into sight. The one in the lead lowered. The wind from the blades kicked grass and leaves everywhere. He squinted to see through it all. The cold wind stiffened up what mobility he had left in his shoulder.
As the bird landed, Weber looked at him. “We placed a tracking device in the button of McKoy’s pants. Yours, too. When you two didn’t show at HQ as expected, I activated them.”
“That means,” he paused to take a breath and gather enough strength to finish. “Surreal can track me, too.”
Weber grinned. “Nope. The Gadget Master came through for us once again. He created tracking devices that work on some frequency that can only be picked up by the monitor matched to the device. It’s pretty ingenious.”
Thank you, Pedro. David’s strength returned with every passing second. If he could just get his brain to focus, his sight to clear, and for the world around him to stop spinning, he’d be fine. Just fucking fine.
“Are you up for this?” Weber yelled to be heard over the helicopter rotors.
David eyed the bird on the ground. Up for what? If it had anything to do with finding Charis, then hell yeah he was up for it.
“I’m giving you something I never had.” He opened his arm and motioned toward the bird on the ground. The two in the sky. The rigs. The agents.
The entire cavalry.
David blinked. “Are you shitting me?”
“I owe you one. Here it is. Now we’re even.”
“Weber, I don’t know what to say.” His admiration for his director—his best friend—swelled.
Allen poked his head out of the bird on the ground. “Are we doing this or what? I have a date with my wife tonight and she’ll be pissed if I miss it.”
David grinned. “Be right there.” He regarded Weber. “Thank you.”
Weber’s lip twitched. “Let’s go get your girl.”
He didn’t need to be told twice.
* * * *
It was cold. Little goose bumps washed over her. Charis blinked her eyes open and into focus as best she could without her glasses. Wiggling her fingers and toes to make sure she didn’t have any spinal injuries, she sighed in relief when all twenty digits moved as commanded.
Where was she? Judging by the bed, she must be in a hospital, which would make sense after the accident. Why did they have the heat so low? She’d catch a cold at this temperature. Not good in a hospital.
She moved to sit up. Dizziness took over and kept her down. Why did her head pound? Did she hit it? Images flashed through her mind like rapid fire. David. Car. David. Gunshots. David. Rolling.
David.
Where was she? What happened? Forcing past the vertigo, she sat up. Shivering, she reached for the blanket and stopped, baffled. There wasn’t one. She didn’t even have a sheet to cover her. No wonder she couldn’t stop shivering. After all, a silk negligee did nothing to keep a person warm.
Silky negligee?
Slowly, she dropped her gaze to her frame. She’d spent enough time in hospitals to know a black teddy was not part of the dress code. Looking around, fear gripped her when she realized she wasn’t in a hosp
ital at all.
It looked more like a warehouse. Big. Open. Dark. Colder than a welder’s ass in a drift. Or was that a well digger’s ass? Drift or draft? She must have hit her head harder than she thought.
Curling her legs to her chest, she closed her eyes and lowered her head to her knees as the realization settled in. Someone had undressed her. Someone had had his hands on her while she was unconscious. Every muscle in her body tensed. That someone was now staring at her.
“Oh good. You’re awake. I’ve made tea.”
She focused on the man approaching the bed. As he came into focus, her pulse slowed.
Oh shit. He found her first. Surreal. And in his hands, a giant silver platter of tea and little finger sandwiches. “Surreal?”
The tray in his hands shook, the cups clanking against the saucers. He smiled, though the gesture didn’t reach his eyes. “I told you not to call me that.”
“Sorry,” she hurried out. Always better to keep your capturer happy. She needed to stay on his good side if she wanted to get out of this alive. “Thomas.”
“That’s better.” He set the tray down on a small table and poured a cup of the steaming liquid. “One lump? Or two?”
She felt like she had at least four. “None for me thanks. I like my tea straight.”
He paused, the sugar cube between his fingers, his emotionless gaze on her face. Who was this man? He had none of the warmth Thomas Macy had. He looked every bit the cold-blooded killer he was.
Lowering his eyes to the tea, he dropped the cube in, then another. “You can’t fool me, my love. I know how you like your tea. I’ve been making it for five years now. You like it sweet.” He brought his gaze back to her and smiled. “Just like me.”
Just as she’d feared, his grasp on reality was long gone. “Thomas, listen to me. I haven’t even seen you in five years.”
He kept a smile frozen on face as he stirred the tea. “I have the milk right here. What is it you always say?” He chuckled as he nodded and poured milk into the tea. “That’s right. I like my tea like I like my men—with all the trimmings.”
Seek and Destroy (TREX, #5) Page 29