Navy SEAL Noel. Liz Johnson

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СКАЧАТЬ could only mean one thing.

      She’d have served her purpose. In eight days, she’d be expected to release the toxin.

      And then she’d likely be killed.

      Unless she escaped.

      Something like fear and dread clawed at her insides, leaving a twisted trail of pain in its wake. She fought the sudden need to vomit, and gulped in great quantities of oxygen.

      “Up!”

      Pushing her hands into the mud, Jess made it to her feet, and her gaze fell squarely on a man in a tattered gray suit twenty yards away. Two armed guards held his elbows as he glowered at another one, who seemed to be in charge. The man in the gray suit turned a blank stare on her, his pale face cloaked in a five-o’clock shadow. And devoid of any recognition.

      But she knew him.

      She’d known him more than half her life, though she hadn’t seen him in years.

      At least...at least it looked like Will.

      Her heart leaped to her throat, lodging there as she tried to call out.

      Manuel stepped into her line of sight, and by the time she’d scrambled to look around him, the familiar face had disappeared.

      Maybe the heat and humidity were causing hallucinations. Maybe she’d simply imagined him, hoping someone would come for her.

      But why would her mind conjure Will Gumble?

      “Vámanos.” Manuel nudged her toward the giant house that took up nearly half of a security wall. Its golden stucco walls and clay-tile roof were out of place among the host of intentionally unremarkable buildings in its shadow. It had to be home to the man or men in charge, although she’d yet to see them.

      She followed the path around the big house to the storage shed, pushing all thoughts of Will Gumble out of her mind. She had eight days—less, actually—to make it out of this place alive. And dwelling on her former best friend wasn’t going to rescue her. She had to find a way out on her own.

       TWO

      Jess huddled in the farthest corner of her cell, behind the bed where she’d managed to filch only a few hours of sleep the past few nights. The lumpy mattress and loose bedsprings stood like a sentinel between her and the doorway now, but they wouldn’t be much protection if anyone came in.

      She grasped the foot-long wrench she’d stolen off a maintenance cart three days before, holding it vertical and ready to swing if her worst nightmare crashed through that door. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the windowless room enough that she could make out the rotting slats of the lower part of the door by the crack of light seeping beneath it.

      Despite plenty of threatening noises every night since her arrival, no one had unlocked the bolt on the outside of the door. Not yet. But if someone did, she’d be ready for him.

      She crouched for what felt like hours, unable to tell the exact passage of time, but the transition from screaming pain to a dull ache to numbness in her thighs was better than a clock.

      In the loose haze between alertness and the siren call of sleep, her mind began to wander to the familiar face she’d seen that afternoon. Of course, it couldn’t possibly have been Will. She hadn’t seen him in ten years. She probably wouldn’t recognize him even if they sat face-to-face. The man had just resembled him. Dark brown hair and a jaw chiseled into a blunt point. From that distance, she’d only gotten the impression of dark eyes that probably bore no resemblance to the milk-chocolate ones she remembered. And the man who’d entered the compound today had worn a very dark, very handsome five-o’clock shadow. Will had never been able to grow much facial hair.

      Well, eighteen-year-old Will hadn’t, anyway.

      A gentle thud against the door sent her heart into overdrive, all traces of sleep tossed aside. She leaned forward, her grip on the wrench sending spasms through her fingers. Taking a shaky breath, she blinked into the darkness as the telltale rattle of a doorknob sounded. The inside lock held. But for how long?

      A shadow briefly blocked the light seeping beneath the door, the feet there moving soundlessly.

      She gasped for breath, the heavy, humid air like a wet towel draped across her nose and mouth.

      It was now or never. She could wait for the man to enter, to investigate the room and find her in the corner. Or she could face him with the element of surprise.

      She scrambled toward the entrance, the sound of her shuffling feet echoing against the cinder blocks no matter how she tried to muffle her steps.

      A hiccup surprised her, and she slapped her palm over her mouth to mute the obnoxious noise.

      The lock clicked, and she held her breath as she slipped behind the door, painfully swallowing another hiccup. The sound of her pounding heart seemed to fill the room as the flimsy wooden slats swung open, leaving a narrow beam from the courtyard security light spilling across the floor. The shadow of a broad man filled the gap. His movements silent, his motions sure, he closed the door after stepping inside.

      This was her only chance. Her only hope of protecting herself.

      If Jess could fight him off now, maybe word would spread that she wasn’t to be trifled with.

      The wrench weighed more than a school bus, and was almost as unwieldy, as she swung it toward his head. She had to knock him out, or at least to the ground. Then maybe she could even make a run for it.

      Just before the metal connected with the barely visible outline of his skull, he ducked and lifted an arm. The tool glanced off his shoulder, grazing his neck. In a flash he grabbed it, and before she could let go, he jerked it behind her back, leaving her arm twisted and useless. Fire screamed up to her kinked shoulder.

      He promptly cut off her shriek with a callused hand clamped over her mouth. His steely arm pinned hers to her side and pressed her body against his chest. She writhed and shook, trying to free herself, but the wall of muscle at her back didn’t even seem to register her struggle. Her frantic effort only made her lungs burn for the oxygen he was depriving her of.

      When her head began spinning in earnest, her muscles went limp and her fight ebbed away.

      Only then did she realize that the man was speaking softly in her ear, his whispered breath fanning the trembling muscles of her neck.

      “Jess, calm down. I won’t hurt you.” The words made no sense to her muddled brain, but they continued, quiet and assured. “Don’t scream. It’s all right. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

      It wasn’t the words that made her sink into him, but the voice that, even after all this time, she’d recognize anywhere. Her eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on her that afternoon. Will Gumble was in this compound. In her very room.

      He must have sensed her acquiescence. He slowly loosened his hand from over her mouth and rested it on her upper arm. His firm grip was the only thing that kept her standing.

      “What are you—” Her words were little more than a frantic sigh as he spun her around. Pressing one finger to his lips, he raised his eyebrows СКАЧАТЬ