Aftershocks (40 page)

“You are the point, Zoe Ardmore. You stole my power from me. All those years of hard work and preparation, the long wait. All gone. For good this time.” He stood between her and the door, picking at the end of the knife with a fingernail. He projected an air of indifference that she knew was fake. Somehow, he’d learned to bury his emotions deep, hide them from anyone around him. Given what he’d said, he should be furious—but that fury wasn’t going to make him lose control.

Too bad for her.

She shuddered, then pulled herself together to study the empty shack. It had almost no roof and let in plenty of light now that dawn had broken completely. The walls were solid with small, high windows that she’d never have time to get out of. But the wood underneath them was weathered and splintered. She might be able to pry off a big enough piece to use as a weapon.

Apparently her thoughts showed on her face, because Pat grinned at her.

She wasn’t going to live through this.

Stop it. All you have to do is hold on until they come for you.
Except she knew it wasn’t that easy. Kell was no woodsman, and Grant wouldn’t dash in after her with no recon. It might have taken them time to find the trail, and they’d have followed carefully so they didn’t spook Pat. So no, all she had to do wasn’t hold on until they came for her. All she had to do was rescue herself.

Impossible
.

Shut up. You didn’t give up then, and you won’t let him win now. Just bide your time. There’s always an opening.

She drew a fortifying breath and swallowed to loosen her voice. He had buttons. She just had to find them. “You’ve got to be crazy if you think those totems had any power to give you.” She watched his reaction. His grin became more of a smirk, but he didn’t move, and his eyes stayed as intently unemotional as they had been since they entered the shack.

“You felt it,” he reminded her dispassionately, lifting his knife to study the blade, or his reflection in it. Her blood stained a couple of inches of metal, and she shuddered. “Crazy is an ill-chosen word, Zoe, and not just because the power was there for the taking.”

“If by power you mean electromagnetism,” she sneered. “I know how you did all that.” Well, not all of it, but it didn’t matter anymore.

His gaze flicked up to meet hers. “Haven’t you wondered why I am the way I am? Why I’ve made the choices I’ve made?”

She really hadn’t. “I’m not a psychologist. Empathic justification isn’t in my repertoire.” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off, not caring if it made him mad.
She
was mad, dammit. “I don’t care, either. I’m sure you have a tale of poverty and abuse or something, but you know what?” She drew herself up, ignoring the stinging pull where he’d cut her across the chest, the throb in the palm of her right hand. “When I was twelve, some psycho abducted me!” She advanced on him, so incensed he actually backed away a couple of steps. “He and his common-law wife kept me for a year, while she acted out some sick Mommy fantasies and he prepared to sacrifice me in an insane quest for power. But hey, you don’t see me dragging people into the woods and threatening them with sharp knives, do you?” She thumped him on the chest. “
Do you?
Well, maybe I
should!
” She swept her arm across her body, her hand closing over the hilt of the knife, and before Pat could even blink, she’d snatched it from him. Hate tried to make her backhand it across his throat, but that wasn’t in her. That was the whole point of her rant, after all.

Instead, she shoved past him and ran out into the dawn.

A moment ago, she had been grateful for the light that allowed her to see her surroundings and her abductor. But now, that same light dappling through the trees would reveal her location to him. The long shadows cast by the sun’s low angle would help, but her movement would be obvious.

So would her path. She had a general idea of the direction of the clearing, but that was exactly where Pat would expect her to go. And he was already chasing her—unlike his stealthy, slow progress to get here. He yelled her name, emotion finally clear in his tone. Footsteps crashed through the underbrush. He had longer legs, a better knowledge of these woods.

Amazingly, all the terror that had paralyzed her
while he dragged her out here was gone. She could think clearly, breathe easily. The clearing was somewhere to the right, probably not as far away as it seemed. To her left, the ground rose at an angle to a slight ridge. She dug in her toes and scrambled up the slope, elated when she saw the steep drop on the other side. She slid down and hunkered behind a rock outcrop. Her heart pounded and sweat gathered along her hairline and the back of her neck. Something felt so familiar about this, but it was nothing like her last escape. She swallowed the saliva pooling in her mouth, and her dry throat protested like sandpaper on rubber.

Then it hit her. This was like her recurring nightmares. The ones where she was being chased. She’d hide, and they’d find her, but she’d get away and hide again. She’d learned in college that they were normal stress dreams, that a lot of people had them, and they were very different from the ones that had been based on memory and experience.

How ironic.

A loud rustle at the top of the hill startled her into stillness. Pat had followed her. He must have recovered his senses and gone stealth again, because she hadn’t heard him after she went over the ridge. She could almost feel his laser gaze on her back and fought the urge to press closer to the ground. It was movement that would give her away, not location.

Elation seeped away as Pat stood up there, surveying the woods. Gone went the clear thinking and easy breathing. Her spine tingled between her shoulder blades, and she was certain the knife was going to plunge into it any second. She struggled not to pant, squeezing her eyes tightly closed, listening so hard all she could hear was a loud, internal ringing.

Cool it, Zoe.
You
have the knife, you moron.
The ringing faded a little. Her palm throbbed and fingers ached where they clutched the knife so hard it shook. But she relaxed them too much and the blade scraped on rock.

Pat heard it. She could tell.

And she had no fucking idea what to do next.

Chapter Twenty

Through everything that had happened over the last few days, Kell would have said he’d hit “worst nightmare” several times. He’d have been wrong.

Nothing came close to watching that madman drag Zoe into the woods at knife point. Or the look in her eyes, a sorrowful goodbye that turned the similar look when he left her at the airport into an obvious lie.

He yelled to Grant as he lurched after Zoe, ducking around one of Neely’s team and pushing off into a run and then
wham
. An arm bar slammed into his collarbone and knocked him onto his back. One of Rhomney’s stupid fucking followers stood over him, laughing. Kell couldn’t even wheeze, the lack of air making the rest of him weak. Another moron joined the first, and Kell flailed at their feet and fists, as effective as grass waving in a breeze.

Then his lungs unlocked and he sucked in hard, coughing, and managed to curl into a protective ball. Once his head cleared, he could tell the blows were half-hearted. One of them kept glancing around, as if putting on a show and wanting to make sure they were—or weren’t—being watched.

He grabbed a raised foot near his head and pushed, knocking the kicker off balance. That gave him enough space to allow him to struggle back to his feet.

“Not fully committed to the cause, huh?” He glared at them, upper body heaving. He raised clenched fists and balanced on the balls of his feet. “I’m not letting him take her. Try to stop me.”

“Fuck that!” Grant appeared holding some kind of assault rifle. Kell’s opponents muttered and backed up a few steps, right into a cop with a handful of zip ties. “Are you an idiot, or what?”

“He took Zoe,” Kell growled. It gave him some satisfaction to see panic flash across Grant’s granite face. “He dragged her into the woods. He cut her. I’m going after her.”

“Hold on.” Grant surveyed the clearing. “We can’t go alone.”

“I’m going! The longer we wait, the further he gets! It’s still dark, and if we don’t pick up the trail—”

Grant glowered at him. “I know how it works. But if you go charging after her, he’ll just kill her. Look what we did to his plans.” He waved a hand at the table. “We have to be smart about this.”

Kell clenched his fists, barely feeling the slice in his palm, and stared hard at the trees Zoe had slipped between a couple of minutes ago. Grant was right, dammit, and he
did
have experience with this shit. But God, Zoe. He couldn’t stop the images of gushing blood and empty eyes, couldn’t stop hearing her screams while Rhomney tortured her. And he knew they were nothing compared to reality if Rhomney did start carving her up. What if he had a vehicle somewhere on the other side of the woods? Kell had no idea where they were or what was around them, but he bet Rhomney did.

“What’s the plan, then?” he ground out.

“We need help.”

But even though the chaos was contained, everyone seemed to have their hands full. Trying to mobilize the FBI or gather Grant’s scattered team would take too long. They had to get on their trail now.

“We can’t wait,” he told Grant, who finally nodded.

“All right. Let’s go.”

An hour later, Kell was ready to howl. Grant was sure he had the trail, but they moved way too slowly for Kell’s sanity. He got the logic—don’t provoke Pat into acting, wait until they had an advantage—but the passing minutes throbbed like a heartbeat, surging blood through knife wounds onto the ground. Zoe’s wounds, Zoe’s blood. Zoe’s death. He couldn’t take it anymore.

“Neely.”

Grant stuck his fist in the air, tight and fast. Kell froze. His hearing sharpened as he focused, and he heard tiny rustles. The kind you’d attribute to animals, except slightly more rhythmic. Footsteps.

He strained to see through the early dawn light and the second-story trees that waved in a light breeze. Grant slowly pointed toward the left, and Kell twisted his head to look. Brown, boxy, bigger than trees—it was a shack of some sort. Dark inside, he saw when he tilted right and glimpsed a gaping doorway.

Now everything was still. Grant eased to their right, uphill. Kell followed but kept his distance. He knew the high ground was an advantage, but it also made them a bigger target. Let the merc take point, draw fire or whatever. If Rhomney was out here alone, and he engaged Grant, that would leave Kell free to rescue Zoe.

Not that he cared who rescued her, just that she was safe.
Please
let her be safe.

Then suddenly Grant was running along the top of the ridge, full out, and Kell’s heart decided to leap up and choke him. He dashed up the hill and paused. About a hundred feet down the ridge, Grant charged fast enough that his silence was eerie. Kell couldn’t see past him, didn’t know what he was running toward. Rhomney? Zoe? Both? A body? He picked up his pace to follow, braced for some kind of impact. Physical or emotional, he didn’t know what to expect, but it was obviously coming.

Then it did, but not at him.

Grant suddenly dodged left, and Kell saw something snap up off the ground, flinging dried leaves everywhere. Grant’s speed and the slope of the hill made his left foot skid, but it didn’t save him from the spike that hit his shoulder. Kell bit back a yell and ran harder, trying to scan the ground and trees for other booby traps. Grant had already run this way, so at least the ground on this side was clear.

Kell dropped to his knees next to Grant, not knowing what to do first. Grant blinked, so he was conscious. Kell needed to know if there were other imminent threats. He peered through the camouflaged, spiked, hinged, trellis-like thing that had flown up and now stood still, bristling lethally. He could see a light-colored splotch against the tree trunks and squinted to make out a man standing at the top of the hill, looking down the right-hand slope, away from them. Rhomney?

Kell turned to Grant, keeping half his awareness on the other guy to make sure he didn’t come closer. Grant’s black jacket was wet with blood, the hand he held to his shoulder covered with it.

“Leave it,” Grant ground out when Kell tried to peel back the cloth. “It didn’t go all the way in. That’s Rhomney down there, and I think Zoe is down the hill.”

“Shit. Is he armed?”

“Probably. He didn’t see me until I sprung the fucking trap. Saw the trigger too late.” He lay back and glared at the sky. “You need to get down that hill and circle around below Zoe without Rhomney seeing you. Look for wires and odd shapes in case he has other shit out here. The way he was moving, though, I think this might be it. You only need one to slow down pursuit, because they don’t know there’s only one. Fucking bastard.” He grunted and pressed harder on the wound.

“Okay. Then what?”

“Then wait and watch.”

Kell didn’t like that. It meant Grant wasn’t going to lie here and let Kell dispatch Rhomney and rescue Zoe, then drag him out of the woods to medical care. “You can’t—” he started, knowing it was fruitless.

“I can,” Grant growled. “Go.” He hauled himself up to sit, then rocked to his feet, blocking Kell’s view of Rhomney and therefore, hopefully, Rhomney’s of him. Kell cursed silently and backed up, low to the ground, until he reached a row of brush that zigzagged down the hill. He slid behind that and flattened himself to the ground, where a gap between branches gave him a clear view. His heart sank.