Abigail had disappeared fourteen months ago.
“I just found Abigail,” he murmured into his comms.
A series of shocked gasps echoed in his ear. The entire team knew Abigail, as a daughter of a SEAL and Night’s only living relative they’d met her several times, and all of them had helped look for her when she first went missing.
But slowly after months with no progress, they had started to lose hope.
Even him.
And his history with Abby was more intimate than the others.
They’d given up on her and she’d been here, trapped in this hellhole, no doubt praying every day that someone would come for her.
That he would come for her.
“You found Abby?” Night demanded. “Here? Is she … is she okay?” he asked in a broken voice. Spider knew that if they weren’t in the middle of a risky extraction that Night would have completely lost it.
“She’s sick,” he said vaguely, not wanting to say anymore because they couldn’t risk this mission getting derailed, and if Night could see the state his little sister was currently in then he would throw everything else to the wind to come to her aid. “But I got her, I’ll get her out, you guys good to finish this without me?”
“We got it,” Owen ‘Fox’ LeGrand, the team’s leader, said. “Get Abby to the extraction point.”
“Look after my sister,” Night said harshly.
“I will protect her with my life,” he promised, and meant every word. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for the fragile woman lying beside him. He would blast his way out, he would shoot his way out, he would kill everyone on the compound, if he had to he would grow wings and fly her out because one thing was certain; Abigail was going to go home.
9:32 P.M.
She was hot.
Too hot.
It felt like a fire was raging inside her, and Abigail groaned as she rolled over, desperately seeking anything that could cool down her overheated skin.
Her fever was getting worse, she was alternating between chills that had her shaking so badly she hurt, and burning up with sweat pouring off her. Unfortunately, once the chills came the sweat on her naked body felt like it turned to ice, making her even colder.
She was dying.
A cold had turned into a chest infection, and she was sure she was now slowly succumbing to pneumonia.
Her lungs seized at the movement, and she broke into a coughing fit that made it feel like someone was stabbing a hundred nails into her chest.
It hurt so badly.
The pain only made her cough more, and the cycle continued for several minutes until she finally sunk back against the hard concrete floor, drained, sore, and struggling to breathe.
It was only after she’d collapsed against the ground that she realized someone was touching her.
Someone was here.
In her cell.
No one had come inside her cell since she was thrown in here over a year ago.
Panic flared inside her.
Was this it?
Were they tired of her and ready to kill her?
Even though she knew she was dying, Abigail couldn’t fight the fear inside her. She didn’t want to die, especially here in the middle of the jungle, all alone, with no one ever knowing what had happened to her.
A large hand covered her mouth, not hard enough to hurt but enough to muffle the sounds of her screams.
Was she screaming?
Abigail hadn’t realized, but now that she thought about it she could hear muffled pleas.
Her pleas.
As she begged for her life.
She had promised herself she would never beg and yet here she was, when push came to shove, begging and pleading for mercy from men she knew would show her none.
She was weak.
Pathetic.
Then slowly she became aware of a hand stroking her hair, and there was warm breath on her ear, and a voice was whispering something to her.
Words.
In English.
Not the Spanish she was accustomed to hearing.
The voice wasn’t harsh or angry, instead it was the opposite—soft, soothing, calming, and comforting.
“Shh, Abby, I know you’re scared, honey, I know you’re hurting, but I need you to stay quiet, I’m going to get you out of here but I don’t want anyone to know I’m here.”
He knew her name?
How?
Wait.
She recognized that voice. It belonged to the man she loved and the man she hated. But Ryder couldn’t be here.
Could he?
Ryder and her brother Eric were both SEALs, but she’d been here for so long, and they hadn’t come for her. She’d given up hope that they ever would, so why would he be here now?
Was she hallucinating?
Forcing herself to relax, Abigail stopped screaming and sensing the change in her the man removed his hand from her mouth. She squinted through the near darkness and saw a large figure looming over her. He blended into the night, dressed all in black, even his face had been covered in something so it too blended into the night, and she wondered if she was looking at some sort of ghost.
She might have believed it if it weren’t for the blue eyes.
They were the bluest shade of blue there was, and she could stare into them forever.
Ryder had blue eyes like that, but why would he be here?
She didn’t even know where here was except that she assumed she had been brought into Mexico.
“Abby,” the ghost man said on an exhale. There was pain behind that single word, guilt too, and she wanted to believe this was really Ryder, but she thought it much more likely he was nothing more than a figment of her imagination.
It sounded like Ryder, and those eyes were his eyes. Could he really and truly be here?
Abigail tried to lift her hand to touch his face, she needed to feel if he was solid and real and not going to disappear into a wisp of smoke the second she reached for him. She was weak and didn’t have the strength to lift it more than an inch off the ground, her whole body was shaking and she hurt so badly, if she was going to die she’d rather it just happened than be hallucinating like this.
“Hold on, honey, I’m going to get you out of here. As soon as I do I’ll get some medicine in you. Here drink some water.”
Her shoulders were lifted off the floor and she was propped against a strong chest. A bottle was held to her lips, and when cool water began to flow into her mouth she eagerly swallowed. There was a tap built into one of the walls, but she’d been too sick to get herself to it.
A hand touched her forehead. “You’re burning up,” Ryder muttered.
It was Ryder.
It had to be.
If it wasn’t it was the most realistic hallucination anyone had ever had.
Locking her gaze onto those blue eyes she licked her lips and croaked, “Ryder?”
“Yeah, honey, it’s me. How long have you been sick?”
“Not sure. Days.” She was tired and wanted to curl back up and go to sleep, but Ryder was here and she wanted to go back home so much more than she wanted to rest.
Ryder picked up her wrist, frowned as he took her pulse, then put his ear above her chest. “I don’t like the sound of that,” he muttered.
“I think I have pneum—” Abigail broke off as another coughing fit seized her. Ryder quickly pulled her into his arms, supporting her as her lungs spasmed, trying to suck in enough oxygen.