Chapter 19

Chapter

Nineteen

April 20 th

11:04 A.M.

While he was extremely glad the cavalry had arrived, it sucked to be stuck on this stupid gurney.

Axe wanted off it, and he wanted a weapon in his hand.

More than that, he wanted his wife where he could see her, where he knew that she was safe.

Unlike him, she wasn't a sitting duck, he was sure someone from Prey had located her and she was already safely tucked away somewhere. But it wasn't the same thing as knowing he was with her, he was protecting her.

Not that he doubted anyone on his team or anyone else from Prey. Axe knew they would protect Beth as though she were their own, but he still wanted her in his arms.

It wasn't just for her benefit, or just her safety that he needed to be with her, it was equally for his own sanity. Seeing the pure determination in her face as she refused to partake in a duel had damn near broken him .

She wasn't going to do it.

That had been evident.

Beth had reached a place where she was prepared to accept death rather than let anyone else control her, and it was terrifying. He'd known that the only way to keep her alive long enough to give his team a chance to find her was to take the choice out of her hands.

Not an easy thing to do when she'd told him she would hate him for it.

But at least she'd be alive to hate him.

If it had come down to it, he would have happily sacrificed his life for hers, and he wouldn't have regretted having to hurt her to do it. Not that he ever wanted to hurt his wife, but they were talking life and death here and he'd be damned if he killed his wife to keep himself alive.

What had Beth expected him to do when faced with an ultimatum like the one they'd been given?

Just let her die?

Unacceptable.

A bullet whizzed past his head close enough that he could feel it. With this smoke everywhere, it was almost impossible to see more than an inch or so in front of your face.

Throwing all his strength into it, he managed to free his right hand, he'd already gotten his feet free shortly after the shooting started. With no one to stop him this time, he made quick work of freeing his remaining hand and rolled sideways. Taking the gurney with him as a shield he had no choice but to stay there. With no weapon and the smoke still filling the room—although it was quickly dissipating—he was more liability than he was help.

Finally, the room fell silent.

Most of the smoke had cleared and he was able to make out multiple figures dressed all in black. He didn't have to be able to see their faces to know they were Prey.

Their timing couldn't have been more perfect. If they'd been just a couple of minutes later raiding the facility, he would have already ended his own life to save Beth's. Just because it was a sacrifice he would be willing to make it wasn't like he wanted to die.

The opposite.

What he wanted was a future with his wife free from having to look over their shoulders. He wanted Beth to be able to do whatever she wanted with her life, go to college, get a job, or start her own business. With the money from his trust fund that he'd never spent and invested wisely over the years, nothing was off the table. When she was ready, he'd love to have a family of their own. Whatever they did, he just wanted them to be happy and wanted his wife to be happy. She deserved it more than any other person he knew.

"Needed a hand I see," Tank said, appearing before him, grinning.

"Took you guys long enough to get here," he shot back, shoving to his feet, and shaking out his cramped muscles. Hours of lying on that gurney had driven him insane. Not that he felt sorry for the man, but he had no idea how Leonid Baranov had lasted over a year and a half chained up like that.

"Hey, we came as fast as we could. You're the one who got himself kidnapped," Rock teased.

Since there was no snappy comeback he could think up—he absolutely had allowed himself to get kidnapped by making sloppy decisions—he glowered instead. But it quickly morphed into a smile. "You guys have perfect timing."

"Course we do," Scorpion agreed. "Now put some clothes on."

Taking the pants and T-shirt his friend held out, he quickly began putting them on. "It wasn't Baranov," Axe told his team.

"Leonid Baranov wasn't here?" Eagle asked, appearing behind Bravo Team dressed in full gear. Knowing that Eagle himself had come to help take down the infamous serial killer because of Baranov's connection to not just Prey Security but also to him and mostly to Beth, should hopefully remind her just how very loved she was. While her own family might be the stuff of nightmares, her Prey family would walk through fire for her.

"Oh, he was here all right," he replied. "But he was here as a prisoner. Tomas Butcher decided to stage a takeover. He's had Baranov here this whole time, that's why there have been no sightings of him since Beth was taken. Butcher then pitted Baranov's loyal men against Beth, made her fight them to the death." They already knew that part since Beth had remembered that she'd been made to kill or be killed, but he filled in the missing pieces Beth had never even known about.

"Damn," Eagle muttered, and every single man around him looked like they would love to rip Butcher to pieces with their bare hands.

"Butcher has some drug that induces pain, he gave it to the men to even things up, to give Beth an edge since they wanted her to kill them anyway," he explained.

"So, Baranov was here?" Panther asked.

"Yeah, he was here. They made Beth kill him," Axe answered.

"So little Bethie got to take down the notorious killer, good for her," Trick said.

"Wait, you said they . Who's they?" Eagle asked.

"Butcher and Sarah Sanders. They're partners, in on this together."

"Sarah isn't a victim?" Tank asked.

"Nope. Not even close. Woman has completely lost her mind. She thinks she's in love with Butcher because, apparently, he wanted to keep her alive after Baranov finished playing with her. Don't know why Butcher cared about her, but they're married, and he killed their daughter because he viewed the kid as an inconvenience."

"I get Sarah losing her mind, but why take Beth? She was a fellow victim, hurting her seems cruel, even for someone who had snapped after going through a traumatic ordeal," Rock said.

"Think they wanted to torture Baranov, showing him how unbreakable his favorite doll was while reminding him he'd never get to play with her again. I don't know, and honestly, I don't even care. Who has Beth?" he asked. Since he wasn't wearing comms like everyone else, he didn't know which of the four dozen or so Prey operatives who had come to rescue him and Beth had taken her someplace safe.

Eagle frowned for a moment then spoke into his comms. "Who has Beth?"

The growing look of concern on his boss' face had fear springing to life inside him. Had something happened to Beth? Had she been shot? Hurt somehow? Just because she had been standing when Butcher dragged her into the room didn't mean she hadn't been injured when all hell broke loose. Or maybe she was hysterical after once again being kidnapped and tortured, goodness knows, nobody could blame her for it.

"What's wrong?" Axe demanded. The need to see his wife, hold her, kiss her, assure himself they were both alive, was too strong to ignore. He felt like if he didn't have her in his arms soon, he was going to spontaneously combust.

"Nobody has eyes on Beth," Eagle told him gently.

"What?" he growled. Nobody had Beth? Then where was she? "She was in here when you guys came bursting in. Butcher and Sarah wanted the two of us to fight to the death. I know they intended for me to kill Beth because Sarah said she wasn't going to drug me first. Beth refused and no way was I going to kill my wife, so I made a deal with Butcher that I'd kill myself so I could buy time for you guys to find Beth."

There was no need to explain further, Axe knew there wasn't a man in this room who wouldn't make the exact same choice.

"Beth?" he called out, rushing around the room in search of his wife, while the others also began to look for her. "Beth? Where are you? Answer me, wisp."

Only there was no answer.

They searched the whole room and found no sign of her.

"Where's Sarah?" he asked, already beginning to search the room filled with Butcher's now dead guards.

"Anyone got eyes on Sarah Sanders?" Eagle asked into his comms.

There must have been a round of negatives because his boss shook his head at him, and the fear inside him raged to new heights.

"I think Sarah must have taken Beth," Axe said slowly. Why did he feel like his wife in the hands of fellow victim Sarah Sanders was worse than her in the hands of either Tomas Butcher or Leonid Baranov?

April 20 th

12:21 P.M.

What was piercing through her skull like an arrow ?

Groggy as she was, it took a while for Beth to figure out it was sunlight.

Far too bright against her closed lids, she scrunched her eyes tighter shut in an attempt to block it out only to wince as the pain inside her head intensified.

Something kicked at her hip, and she groaned as pain flared not only through the joint but through her entire body.

The shoulder that had been dislocated when she fought against Leonid Baranov was pure agony, the pain from her bruised ribs screamed at her, and there was an assortment of what felt like new bumps and bruises littered across her already abused body.

What had happened to her?

And when had she gotten outside?

Wasn't she in the facility where Tomas Butcher and Sarah Sanders had taken her and Axel?

She remembered waking up in the little white cell, she remembered killing Baranov, she remembered being separated from her husband and the absolute terror that induced, and she remembered …

After that, things got a little fuzzy.

Another kick, this time to her stomach, made her groan as a sickening wave of nausea rushed through her system. Beth only just managed to turn her head before she threw up, thankfully missing vomiting all over herself.

"Eww!"

The furious voice was important. The answer to why she was here. To what had happened to her.

When a wave of darkness threatened to pull her under, Beth fought against it. Even if she wasn't quite sure where she was or what was happening, she knew instinctively that she needed to stay awake.

She wasn't safe.

Was in danger once again.

Story of her life.

"You threw up on me!" the voice shrieked.

A familiar voice.

Her mind struggled to place it, then … it clicked.

Sarah .

The voice belonged to Sarah.

Memories trickled back in. She had been taken to the arena, Axel had been there. Tomas had declared she had to fight her husband to the death, but she had refused. Axel had made a stupid bargain to kill himself to spare her life and she'd told him she hated him.

Were those going to be the final words she ever spoke to the man she loved?

Regret swamped her, but she couldn't go back, couldn't do it over, couldn't apologize and tell him she'd only said that out of fear.

The only thing she could do was stay alive.

Fight.

Same thing she always did.

Gunfire had broken out before Axel could follow through on the deal and end his own life. Someone had grabbed her, tried to drag her somewhere but it had been hard to see who it was through the smoke.

Then she remembered agony tearing through her skull before blackness stole her.

It must have been Sarah who had knocked her out. Since they were outside now, she assumed the reason she felt like there were dozens of new bumps all over her body was because the woman had dragged her out there.

But where was there?

And how close was it to the place Prey had just raided?

"You're not tough and strong, you're disgusting," Sarah snapped, throwing in a few more kicks for good measure.

Pain could either be her enemy or her friend right now. Beth could allow it to overwhelm her and shove her into unconsciousness leaving her vulnerable to a woman who was no longer in her right mind and completely unpredictable. Or she could use it to focus, keep her mind sharp, remind herself that she was still alive and as long as she had breath in her she was going to fight for herself and her future.

You can't give up.

Not now.

Not when Baranov is dead.

The freedom you want is within your grasp, all you have to do is stay alive long enough to grab hold of it .

The pep talk was enough for her to summon the strength to pry her eyes open. The too-bright sunshine felt like a thousand knives stabbing into her brain, but she pushed away the worst of the pain and used the rest to make her mind sharp. Sarah might be the most unpredictable opponent she had ever faced, but she wasn't the scariest. Not even close.

Prey had found them, and Sarah was a similar size to Beth, and given that she had been deadweight she doubted the other woman could have dragged her all that far away. The others were somewhere close by, and as soon as Axel realized she was missing, he would go all out to find her.

All she had to do was stay alive until then.

There were trees surrounding them, they were clearly in the woods, but she and Axel had both been unconscious when they had been brought to the place where Tomas and Sarah had held them captive, so she had no idea how far away from home they were. She was lying flat on her back and the sky above was a clear, bright blue. Not only was it bright but the sun on her skin brought warmth as well. It felt warmer than it should have for New York State at this time of year, so she suspected they had been brought further south.

Blinking to try to clear her somewhat blurry vision, Beth saw Sarah standing above her. There was blood on the other woman's T-shirt, and she wasn't sure if it was hers or Sarah's. Hair disheveled, face streaked with dirt and sweat, puffing and panting, the woman was a mess.

But what freaked her out the most was Sarah's eyes.

They were wild.

There was a detachment to reality there that chilled her to the bones despite the warmth of the sun's rays.

Was there any chance Beth could get through to her?

Convince her not to do whatever it was she had planned?

"I always told Tomas you weren't as perfect as he and Baranov seemed to think you were. One little bump on the head and you're throwing up everywhere," Sarah snarled.

There was true hatred in the woman's tone. It seemed like Sarah had decided they were adversaries for some reason. That wasn't how Beth saw things at all. They were on the same side. They had both survived Baranov's sick and twisted games. They were both lucky to be alive, they had both been given a second chance at life, and for the life of her, Beth couldn't understand why Sarah had squandered it.

Of course, she understood trauma and recognized that Sarah's mind had fractured much the same way her own had shut down, blocking everything out and giving her amnesia. But why did Sarah seem so intent on hurting her? She hadn't done a single thing to the other woman.

"Never said I was perfect," Beth croaked. Maybe if she could show Sarah that she had struggled to cope after being rescued, the woman would understand they were the same. There was no need for Sarah to punish her for some perceived sins on Beth's part.

"No, of course not," Sarah mocked. With her hands on her hips and a pout on her face, she looked more petulant toddler than anything else. But a fully grown adult petulant toddler, and a dangerous one at that. "You only shoved it in my face every time you failed to break when Baranov was hurting you. Nothing would break you. Nothing . I watched as he whipped you, strangled you, drowned you, burned you, cut you, hit you, raped you, and you never once bowed under his torture."

That might be true, but it certainly wasn't because she was perfect.

It was just because she had already learned how to shove pain away, how to blank her mind, how to cling to her sanity when everything else urged her to give it up and fall apart. She had survived too much from childhood to allow one sick monster to break her.

But she wasn't perfect.

Not even close.

"I see through you, you know," Sarah continued, obviously not requiring a response. "I see that you're not as strong as you pretend to be. Inside you're broken, every bit as broken as I am."

"Didn't say I wasn't," Beth told her. No one knew better than her how many cracked and shattered pieces she had. It was only because of Axel's love and support, and the unwavering acceptance of his friends that she had been able to take all those cracked and shattered pieces and somehow stick them together.

Continuing as though Beth hadn't spoken, Sarah said, "It won't save you. Pretending to be perfect isn't going to save you from the same fate as them."

At that, she nodded to the side and automatically Beth turned her head in the same direction, then immediately wished she hadn't.

Beside them was a large hole.

Inside the hole were bodies.

Lots of bodies.

Lots of dead bodies.

A mass grave.

"Your future isn't sunshine and rainbows. It isn't happiness and love. It's this." With that, Sarah kicked her again, this time hard enough to shove her sideways and Beth went tumbling down to join the pile of dead bodies, of which she would soon be one.