Luis Perez was a dangerous man, he wouldn’t have just kept a gorgeous woman like Abigail in a cage for over a year. He could have gotten too much money from selling her to do that, and if he wanted to keep her for himself, he wouldn’t have just stuck her there and left her.
Now wasn’t the time to worry about that though, now he had to focus on getting her out of here.
The team should be here soon, not his team, there had been some complications when they’d gotten the Burns girls out of Mexico and they’d had to divert which meant that a different team would come to evac him and Abigail.
Giving Abby the morphine, he checked her vitals and checked her temperature, which still wasn’t going down any further, but at least it wasn’t climbing and he had to believe the worst was over now.
Weapon in hand, he moved to the doorway and looked out. So far everything had gone smoothly, he had made the four hourly check-ins, and no one had questioned him once he gave the codeword and said that he hadn’t seen any activity. Just because everything had gone smoothly so far didn’t mean that it would last. For all he knew they had picked up on the fact that he wasn’t one of Perez’s men and were simply planning an attack.
If that was the case then he would go down fighting.
And if the men closed in on them, would he do as Abigail asked and kill her rather than letting Perez get his hands on her again?
No.
He couldn’t do that.
Wasn’t sure that he had it in him even knowing what might happen to her.
Did that make him weak?
A coward?
Taking a life changed you in ways you couldn’t comprehend until you’d been put in that position. He loved Abigail, would do anything for her, would lay down his life for her, but killing her …
The slightest of movements deep in the trees snagged his attention.
Partially closing the door, he slipped his NVG on and aimed his rifle.
There.
He spotted three people approaching.
His or Perez’s?
Only one way to find out. Wait and see.
His finger hovered on the trigger of his rifle, ready to fire if it wasn’t his men who broke through the tree line and approached the shack.
The seconds ticked by in excruciating slowness.
One by one until his skin crawled with anxious anticipation. He was more than ready to get out of here, and he prayed that he was about to see friendly faces.
The green figures were coming closer, any second now he would have to decide whether to fire or not.
Spider realized he was holding his breath and forced himself to exhale slowly, clearing away everything until his whole focus was on the approaching men.
As they stepped out from behind the trees Spider relaxed.
Sliding off the goggles, he opened the door wider and greeted the other team. “Hey, Wolf, Abe, Cookie.” He nodded at each of the three men.
“Spider.” Matthew “Wolf” Steel nodded then gave him a big grin. “You ready to get out of here?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, finally allowing himself to believe that the worst was over. All they had to do was get Abigail ready for the trek through the jungle to the new evacuation point and then they were home free.
“Mozart, Dude, and Benny are keeping watch,” Christopher “Abe” Powers informed him as the three men followed him into the shack.
“How’s our girl?” Wolf asked, crossing the room to the bed where Abigail was sleeping. He and Night and their team weren’t the only ones who had been hunting for Abigail when she disappeared, every SEAL team in the country had been in on the search. SEALs stuck together, they were family, and Abigail was Night’s sister which made her family to all of them. They had checked out every lead, all lost sleep questioning anyone and everyone who was even vaguely related to Abigail from her colleagues and friends, to her neighbors, to her dentist, to the baker at her favorite bakery where she bought a loaf of fresh bread every day.
“She’s hanging in there, she’s tough,” he said as he followed Wolf to the bed.
“Course she is,” Wolf said. Perching on the edge of the bed beside Abigail, he touched the back of his hand to her cheek. “Hey, Abby Girl,” he said softly.
Abigail’s eyes opened with far more effort than anyone should have to use to do such a simple task. When she saw who was sitting beside her she shot Wolf a winning smile and Spider couldn’t not be jealous that she never smiled at him like that.
At least not anymore.
Didn’t matter that Wolf was happily married and only looked at Abigail as a little sister, the green-eyed monster cared only that Abigail would probably never smile at him that way again.
“Hey, Matthew,” Abigail whispered, “you our ride out of this awful place?”
“Sure am, ballerina girl.”
“You got any injuries we need to be worried about, Abs?” Abe asked.
“No, just …” she broke off as she began to cough, horrible harsh sounds that had the four SEALs in the room wincing in commiseration.
Spider moved to sit behind Abigail, holding her against his chest as she wheezed and struggled to regain control of her breathing. “Pneumonia,” he said to the others, glancing at the red speckles on her pale palm when she lowered it from her mouth.
Three sets of concerned eyes met his and then moved to Abigail lying limply in his hold.
“Okay, Abs, I’m going to give you a dose of antibiotics before we move out,” Hunter “Cookie” Knox said calmly.
Despite everyone’s concerns no one wanted to say or do anything to make Abigail stressed, they didn’t want to elevate her heart rate anymore than it already was. It was already battling to keep her alive.
While Cookie gave Abigail a shot of antibiotics, Spider held Abby like he could infuse his life into her. Will her to keep living just because he needed her and he wasn’t ready to let her go for good. Maybe at the back of his mind he had always hoped that somehow, someway, they might reconcile, now that he’d made up his mind to make it happen he didn’t want to lose her.
“You ready to head out?” Wolf asked, his dark brown eyes troubled.
“What’s wrong?” Spider asked.
“We’ve got company coming,” the other man replied.
Everyone moved quickly, preparing themselves for the trek through the jungle and removing any evidence that suggested anyone other than the man Spider had killed last night had been here.
Just as he was scooping up an unconscious Abigail into his arms, Spider heard the sound he had been dreading.
Gunshots.
8:01 P.M.
Gunshots.
Abigail tried to lift her head off Ryder’s shoulder. “Was that gunshots?” she asked.
“Yes,” Ryder said shortly, already moving with her in his arms.
“Put me down, carrying me will slow you down,” she said, wriggling vainly in his hold.
“Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but letting you walk will slow us down more,” Ryder told her with an apologetic smile.
She hated that he was right.
She didn’t want to be a burden, didn’t want the fact that she was sick and weak to put the others in danger, but it was out of her control and that gave her that out of control feeling that she hated.
“Hey,” Ryder said, waiting till she met his gaze before continuing, “we got this, this is what we do, we’ll get you home safely.”