Seized - Elizabeth Heiter

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from the building. Head back here, guys.”

      Desperate for information on Evelyn, Kyle moved even faster. He told himself to slow down, but he couldn’t seem to do it as he darted from the cover of one tree to the next, following their original route.

      Then a hand slapped him hard on the shoulder, and Kyle spun around, his heart thudding a tempo that sounded like stupid, stupid, stupid.

      But it was just Gabe. “Sorry,” he mouthed.

      In return, Gabe whispered, “Don’t move.” He lifted a fallen tree branch off the ground and held it out a few inches past Kyle’s foot. When he pushed it down, a piece of metal snapped over it, breaking the branch in two.

      Bear trap, Kyle realized, nodding his thanks at Gabe. That would’ve done irreparable damage to his foot. And ended his career in HRT.

      Keeping watch for more booby traps, Kyle slowed down, feeling antsy every second he wasn’t back in the Tactical Operations Center—TOC—set up outside the fence.

      Finally, finally, he followed Gabe back under the fence, then jogged over to the temporary post that would manage tactical decisions. Inside the large tent, his boss looked up, expression grim, at Kyle and Gabe’s entrance.

      “What is it?” Gabe asked from behind him as Kyle’s voice refused to work and fear stampeded through his veins.

      Yankee put down his earphones and stood, his head skimming the top of the tent. “We’ve got at least a dozen voices inside the compound.”

      He moved forward and placed a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “We don’t know any details right now, but they just talked about a dead federal agent.”

       4

      “You brought this on yourself.”

      Evelyn focused hard, trying to bring the world into focus, but pain sliced through her head and Ward Butler seemed to sway in front of her, wavering as if they stood on the bow of a ship. He was still holding his AK-47, and Evelyn felt nauseated as she touched the side of her face, where he’d smashed her with that gun, knocking her out. But first, he’d taken a shot.

      The memory rushed over her, the panic of seeing Butler appear in the doorway, having no time to run, nowhere to hide. The horror of watching him spray bullets, of seeing Jen go down. The fear of thinking she was next.

      She’d run for Jen, anyway, slipped in her blood and hit the ground hard. That had probably saved her life, because Butler’s next barrage of bullets had gone over her head.

      Then he’d strode to her side, and just when she thought it was all over, there’d been a yell and he’d slammed the butt of his AK-47 into her face instead. She had no idea how long ago that had been.

      “Where’s Jen?” she managed to ask. Moving her jaw made pain travel down her neck, but she kept blinking and eventually Butler came into focus.

      The compound was dimly lit, either darker than it’d been before, or her vision was compromised. The coppery smell of blood was in her nose, the residual taste of fear in her mouth.

      “Martinez is dead,” Butler replied, no remorse in his voice.

      Evelyn gulped in a deep breath, even though she’d known. Blood clogged in her throat and Evelyn choked on it, realized the inside of her mouth was bleeding badly, that her jaw might be broken.

      She tipped her head and spat out blood, got a full breath. “Why?” she rasped.

      Butler smiled—a hard, tight, angry smile. “Shouldn’t you be asking if you’re next?”

      Before Evelyn could form a response, he stepped aside, and Evelyn’s range of vision widened. She discovered she was still lying on the ground where she’d fallen. She jerked, trying to push herself up as she saw all the blood surrounding her. Jen Martinez’s blood.

      It was dried on her arms, soaked through her suit. There was a lot, still sticky in places, but much of it hardened, like a brownish-red cast over her skin.

      Just as she was getting off the ground, Butler jammed a booted foot into her chest, knocking her back down. Back into the pool of blood.

      Panic burst inside her, a desperate need to move, to escape the feel of another agent’s blood. To escape the fear that she could have prevented Jen’s death, that she’d signed her own death warrant by following Jen here. She tried to ignore it, and instead focus on assessing.

      How long had she been unconscious?

      She looked around frantically, praying that by some miracle Butler was lying, that against all odds Jen had survived this kind of blood loss, but she wasn’t there. Standing in the doorway where Butler had been when he’d shot her was Rolfe.

      “We need this one,” Rolfe said, and his eyes darted to her, lingering just long enough for hope to bloom.

      They’d kept her alive so far. It hadn’t been Butler’s idea, because he’d tried to shoot her. And that shout she’d heard seconds before he’d knocked her unconscious teased at the edges of her memory. She had to assume it was Rolfe, asking him to wait. She locked her eyes on him, trying to make a connection.

      Butler shrugged at his lieutenant, radiating power and rage and something else, something Evelyn couldn’t quite pinpoint. “So you said. And you could be right, considering what they’ve brought to our doorstep.”

      His grip on his weapon suddenly tightened. “Deal with her. I’m going to talk to everyone.” He glared at Rolfe, almost as though he was daring him to disobey, then turned and moved deeper into the compound.

      As he walked away, her panic began to subside and new sounds penetrated. Some kind of thumping, like metal against wood, and the low mumble of too many voices. So, there were more people in here. The rest of the cultists?

      She struggled to hear, to gauge how many cultists were here, what she might be up against. But her ears were still ringing, and it was hard to tell. There might’ve been a dozen, might’ve been a hundred.

      Evelyn watched Butler go, and the world started to sharpen. She couldn’t see anyone, but they had to be gathered in that large room she and Jen had walked into earlier.

      She saw movement in her peripheral vision and turned to discover Rolfe holding out a hand to her.

      She hesitantly put her hand in his, and he yanked her to her feet so fast that she fell into him. She automatically threw her free hand up to brace herself and landed flush against his chest. He was lean, so she hadn’t expected the taut muscles underneath her hand. Still, there was something else, something that didn’t belong.

      He moved away from her, but not before she realized what he had on underneath his camouflage shirt. A shoulder holster.

      “Come with me,” he said, not giving her a choice, because he hadn’t let go of her hand. He pulled her with him as he began walking in the opposite direction Butler had gone.

      He passed the utility closet where she’d been stuck with Jen, and she felt new hope flare inside her—hope that he’d open that big steel door and just push her outside. After watching Butler shoot Jen, she’d prefer to take her chances in the inhospitable Montana mountains than stay here. Frostbite and death from exposure be damned.

      But instead of opening the door, he suddenly whirled around, and pushed on the wall, which popped open into a new hallway. A door without a handle, practically invisible in the dim light.

      Before she could move, he grabbed her around the waist, then lifted her up easily and set her down on the other side of the doorway. She didn’t have time to protest; he took her hand again and started pulling her along.

      She glanced behind her in time to see the door slide quietly shut, in time to see something shimmer along the ground in that doorway. She squinted, trying to make it out. A trip wire? Inside the compound?

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