Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

January 22 nd

5:30 P.M.

Check on Zander or run?

Lucy knew the sensible answer to that question was to run.

Now.

As fast as she could.

If she wanted any chance of getting away from the shooter, she couldn't afford to waste a single second.

But …

It was her fault that Zander had fallen.

Because of her trying to get away from him, he'd gone over the side of the cliff and possibly even gotten shot first.

She had to see if he was alive. If he was, then maybe she could run, lead the men away from there, and then circle back and help Zander.

Maybe that was stupid of her to even want to help him when her entire goal had been to get him out of the way, but he'd tried to save her life.

Twice.

That bullet would have hit her if he hadn't knocked her down, and when they'd both been going to fall, he'd pushed her away, knowing it would speed up his own momentum and take him over.

He had been prepared to sacrifice his life for her.

That had to mean something.

Didn't it?

Creeping on her stomach to the edge of the cliff, Lucy looked down. Dressed all in black as he was, it took her a moment to spot him through the trees, but there he was, lying on a small outcrop.

But was he alive?

"Zander?" she hissed, trying to keep her voice quiet so it didn't carry. Since she wasn't a field operative and didn't have the training everyone else at Prey did, she couldn't make her voice that same wisp of sound all the guys and the Artemis Team girls could. It was way too loud, and she flinched at the sound, sure anyone in the area would have heard it and know that she was alive.

The man she was calling out to didn't flinch though.

Didn't so much as move a single muscle.

From her vantage point, there was no way to tell if he was breathing or not, and she couldn't check his pulse, so she had no choice but to assume the worst.

Zander was dead.

Because of her.

She'd as good as killed him.

Tears blurred her vision as she shakily managed to get to her feet. The pain in her body was forgotten as an ache spread out from her heart. She'd killed a man. A man who, while she knew was untrustworthy, had demons he was fighting. That was something Lucy knew for certain. She felt his pain somehow and spotted the shadows lurking deep in his eyes that he tried so hard to hide. Whatever he'd gotten mixed up in wasn't because he wanted to, it wasn't for greed or selfish purposes, she believed that.

Deep down, she believed Zander Madden was still a good man.

A good man who had made some bad choices, and if he'd just told her what was going on she would have found a way to help him.

Only now it was too late.

He was dead, and there was still a gunman out there somewhere.

Choking on a sob, Lucy turned away from the cliff's edge and started running.

All those hours she'd spent plotting how she was going to get away from Zander and go this alone, now that she was alone, and she'd gotten Zander out of the way, it didn't feel so great after all.

Fear was chasing her every bit as much as whoever had shot at them.

Self-doubt, too.

Had she made a mistake in trying to get away from Zander? What if he hadn't told her what was going on because he couldn't and not because he didn't want to? What if he and his team were working some deep-cover mission and that was why his death had been faked? What if she'd been safe with him all along and thrown away his protection because she believed she couldn't trust him?

There was no point in playing the what-if game. What was done was done. She'd gotten what she wanted, she was on her own now and had to figure out a way to survive and get back home.

It felt like she'd been running for hours when she first heard it.

The sounds of someone running behind her.

Not just someone. Multiple someones if she was correct.

A whimper slipped out as she continued to drag in rough breaths. The stitch in her side kept her slightly hunched over, and her ribs protested every ragged breath she was able to draw into her lungs. Her broken arm was pure agony, and keeping it tucked against her stomach did little to protect it from jostling with each step she took.

She wouldn't be able to go on much longer.

The thought was terrifying, and images of Scarlett's injuries superimposed themselves in her mind over the image of Zander's big body lying so still. So much death and pain and suffering, and Lucy knew she could be seconds away from enduring her own hell on earth.

Turned out she was indeed seconds away from capture.

Because less than a minute later, she was knocked to the ground.

Heavy weight pressed her down into the ground, her broken arm crushed between it and both their bodies sending pain shafting through it. A cry fell from her lips, and she thrashed about, trying to throw her attacker off.

If any of the guys from Prey, who had spent hours drilling her in self-defense could see her now, they'd be so disappointed. Her movements had no technique, just plain old panic and fear.

It was one thing to practice in the safety of the gym, it was quite another to have to do those same moves when you were actually fighting for your life.

All at once, the pressure on her body was gone. Meaty hands wrapped around her biceps, pulling her up until she was standing.

Six men stood around her, one leering at her as his grip on her arm tightened. Despite the terror pounding her chest, Lucy glared at them. Just because she was afraid didn't mean she intended to back down from these men.

They were bullies, plain and simple.

Over the years, she'd had plenty of practice dealing with bullies.

Kids could be cruel, and when you had something that made you different, they latched onto it. Didn't help that her epilepsy hadn't been very well under control back then and she'd had several seizures at school. While she'd never seen herself having a seizure, Lucy knew it could be scary for those watching, and it was no wonder the other kids had treated her as a freak after that.

But she'd never cowered before them.

Not once.

Her parents had drilled into her that she had nothing to be ashamed of, she just had a medical condition, she was no freak. They might have coddled her and worried over her, but they had always told her that just because she had epilepsy, she could still get out and live her life, doing whatever she wanted. They'd just prefer that the things she wanted to do weren't so dangerous.

Drawing on that strength now, honed since childhood, Lucy yanked her arm free and squared her shoulders. Just because she couldn't fight her way out of this didn't mean she had to fall at their feet and shake in fear.

"Leave me alone," she snarled, shooting daggers at them with her eyes and wishing she had a real weapon on her. Wouldn't do much good against half a dozen armed men, but she was not going to go down without a fight.

That wasn't her style.

"You are scientist girl," one of them said, his lecherous gaze roaming her body, making her feel dirty.

By scientist girl, she assumed he meant one of Athena Team, a safe assumption she was sure. That meant they weren't just cartel members who happened to be out here, they had to have tracked her and Zander from the plane. While she was sure he wouldn't have left much of a trail, she'd been hurt, exhausted, and plotting to get away from him the whole time. She would have pretty much left arrows pointing to the direction she'd walked in.

If these were Raul Castillo's men, they weren't leaving here without her.

"You'll come with us," the same man said, his voice confident.

While she would love nothing more than to refuse, that would be stupid. They were armed, they were bigger than her, and they weren't injured. If they wanted to take her with them, they could and they would.

"Come with you where?" she asked, wanting confirmation so she could make a plan.

"Boss wants to talk to you," one of the other men said.

"Boss?"

"Mr. Castillo," another man replied.

So they were Raul's men, which meant he hadn't given up on getting the formula for the Reactivator. They didn't think he would, but knowing for sure that he hadn't made her skin crawl. Not only was she in danger, but so were her three best friends because Raul could go after any one of them.

It also meant that Zander really was working for the man.

It was the only explanation as to how they knew she was out there and had been able to find them.

Stupid, but as she was dragged off through the jungle, the thing that hurt the most was knowing that she had been right not to trust him. All those things she'd thought she had seen in him were nothing more than her trying to make excuses for a man she was attracted to.

January 23 rd

12:31 A.M.

Black spots danced in front of his eyes.

Bats?

No.

Spiders?

No.

Birds?

No.

Zander crashed to his knees, and with the thud of pain that echoed through his body, the answer to the question filtered through his mind.

The black spots were the beginnings of unconsciousness. He was pushing himself too hard, too far, almost going beyond the limits of what his trained body could endure.

It might not even be forty-eight hours yet since he'd climbed into his plane, but in that time, they'd crashed, he'd argued with himself incessantly about what the right thing to do was, he'd hiked through the thick jungle for hours, gotten no more than snatched pockets of light sleep, fallen off a cliff, and gotten shot.

No wonder he was struggling to remain on his feet.

But he had to.

There was no other option.

Lucy was out there, and she needed him.

It was his fault that she was in danger. Just because he thought he could use this situation at Prey to his advantage didn't mean that he hadn't known there could be repercussions. Not that he thought anyone would sabotage his plane and cause him to crash, but he'd known things could go horribly wrong.

There had been no time to analyze the crash and why someone had tampered with his plane. If it was Raul, then there was every chance his plans had already been discovered, and he, too, was walking into a trap. If it was the mole at Prey, then there was a chance that they were acting alone and had simply planned to kill one of the Athena Team members possibly as a way to scare the others into coughing up the formula for the Reactivator.

Personally, Zander couldn't care less about the drug. That had nothing to do with his goals, and he was proud as hell of his sister and her friends for creating something that could save the lives of men and women serving their country.

Not that it would have done his team any good.

Their injuries had been so brutal there was no chance of them surviving.

Seven good men, friends, his family, all gone now.

There was no way he was losing Lucy, too.

For some reason, he knew losing her would crush him differently than losing the rest of his Delta Team.

If he wanted to save her life, he had to keep going. It didn't matter if his body was running on empty, he had to get back on his feet and keep following the trail.

Somehow, he managed to force himself into a standing position, although he swayed precariously and very nearly ended back up on the ground.

Thankfully, the night vision goggles had been undamaged in the fall, and he'd put them on as soon as it got dark so he didn't have to stop for the night. The trail wasn't overtly obvious, but he had a lot of training and could follow the marks Lucy had left behind. The same marks the men who had shot at them had also followed.

Seven people.

Why did that number continue to haunt him?

Only this time, six of them were the enemy, and one was …

Important.

That was the only word he would allow himself to consider right now, although it didn't feel nearly big enough to explain the myriad of tangled emotions he felt when it came to the smart, sexy blonde with the bright baby blues.

It was those feelings that had him following the trail again. Even if he was stumbling, he was at least on his feet, at least moving forward and making progress.

Although what he was going to do when he found Lucy he had no idea.

There was only one of him, and since they were close to Raul's turf, he had to assume it was the weapons dealer who had sent his men out to retrieve any survivors from the crash. Raul was a smart man, and more than that, he'd been forced to give up two of his properties in the last month because of kidnapping Scarlett and the rescues. If Zander had to guess, there would be at least two dozen of Raul's men guarding the property, possibly more.

Two dozen minimum against him.

With recon gathered intel, a proper plan, and no injuries, it was possible he could have mounted a solo rescue.

But …

Like this?

Injured, weak, and teetering on the edge of exhaustion, it wasn't likely he could get Lucy out on his own.

More like impossible.

It wasn't like he had backup, though. His team was gone, he was off on a mission of revenge, alerting Prey would ruin everything he had worked so hard for.

So he guessed it boiled down to one thing.

Was Lucy's life more important than vengeance for his team?

Calling Prey was an option. Just because he'd broken Lucy's phone so she couldn't use it to call for help didn't mean he didn't have a satellite phone of his own tucked away in his pack. Back then, he hadn't wanted anyone to know they'd survived, he'd thought he had everything under control and didn't want interference that could mess up his plans.

But things had changed.

Because of Lucy's injuries, they'd had to walk slower than he would have liked, which meant they hadn't hit his destination. There was no way he could have known Lucy would try to kill him, so he hadn't anticipated the two of them being split up.

Nor had he intended for Lucy to get captured.

Now that she was, he had to do whatever it took to get her out because the thought of her beautiful body marred with the marks of a self-obsessed maniac and her strong soul stained with the psychological trauma that would leave deeper scars made him feel ill. It had been bad enough learning what had happened to his sister, in fact, he'd promptly thrown up when he'd learned about it. But allowing it to happen to Lucy when she was supposed to be under his care was too much.

Another burden his already struggling psyche would struggle to bear.

Seven deaths on his conscience were enough.

No more.

He wasn't losing Lucy as well.

So, he had no choice but to keep walking, forcing his body beyond what it could cope with. A single-minded focus the only thing keeping him vaguely upright.

As he continued searching for evidence of how Lucy and the others had gone, he kept images of her in his mind as motivation. The way her fingers had curled around his when they'd shaken hands upon meeting that first time several years back. The way her laugh could brighten a room with its sweet melody. The spark in her eyes as she sassed him.

The panic and guilt in her eyes as he went over the cliff.

No.

That memory had to be shoved away.

If he allowed himself to think of Lucy, scared and hurting, the magic was gone. He had to picture her as she should be, all serious logic and practicality. All that wildness she kept bottled up inside allowed her to run free only when she had designated time to let her hair down.

Zander wanted to make her let her hair down and see her all wild and free, head thrown back, laughter tumbling from her lips, and her eyes shining with the freedom of not having to carry around the pressure of always proving you were capable.

He wanted the real Lucy, the one who didn't worry about how others saw her.

Wanted her free.

Completely and utterly free.

And his.

Because no matter how many times he reminded himself that he couldn't date his twin sister's friend he still wanted her. Still craved her with an intensity that was only growing. The last few days together had only made it worse. She was so strong and stood up for herself no matter how scared she was. She was tough and so beautiful, and brave enough to do whatever it took to protect herself.

And she was out there all alone.

Captured.

He'd seen the evidence of the men catching her, dragging her away with them, and was using it to feed his fury.

But it was also feeding his fear.

Just because Lucy could never really be his, he wasn't worthy of a woman like her, his soul was too black, too dirty, it didn't mean that he wouldn't do whatever it took to save her.

Anything.

He had to.

This was his fault, and he wouldn't allow another person to be hurt because of him.

Die because of him.

On and on he walked, his focus narrowed down to only following the trail, there was no energy left in his body to worry about anything else like the predators lurking in the jungle.

Zander walked until he couldn't anymore.

Until his body fell and he was unable to push back up to his feet.

Until the black spots grew until they consumed his vision.

Until unconsciousness stole him away, and his last thought was that, once again, an innocent person was going to pay for his mistakes.