Hawk (A Stepbrother Romance #3)(71)

Fuck that, I have to get to Alexis.

"She's not at your house," Jennifer shouts. "Any ideas?"

"Yeah, get this thing off the road before they call the National Guard."

"Relax. I do this all the time."

"What, is this an extracurricular activity?"

"Yeah," she snaps. "Let's go get your girl."

"Where's hubby?"

"He's busy."

"With what?"

"You know that meth lab?"

"What, the Amish one?"

I could almost laugh. The Amish meth lab. I'm talking about an Amish meth lab riding with an English teacher in a f*cking tank.

"Yeah. He's going to blow it up."

"At least tell me you got something off my father's computer."

"Yeah," she shouts. "We got what we needed."

"What the f*ck are we going to do?"

"Where would they take her?"

"I don't know!"

Think, Hawk. He didn't take her home. He'd have to-

"Fuck," I snap. "The hospital. He'll put her back in the psych ward."

She glances back at me. "You sure? We might only get one shot at this."

"Yes, I'm f*cking sure. Do you know where they took her before? Which hospital?"

"Yes, I do. That's where we're going?"

"Yeah."

She touches her ear. She's talking to someone else.

"Yeah, I read. Where? Good. Got it."

"What was that?"

"Jacob. He has somebody listening to the police scanner. A Paradise Falls cop just called in, trying to raise the police station. Secret's out."

"Shit."

"The good news is, he was at the hospital. Let's go."

"How far?"

She looks at the screen in front of her, like a GPS with detail beyond anything I've ever seen.

"Forty-five minutes by road. Faster in a straight line. Buckle your seat belt."

She's not joking. I pull the harness on and lock it over my chest. Jennifer veers the big machine right off the road, over a ditch and into a bean field, tearing up a big track of foliage and earth behind us.

"We'll pay them back," she says, glancing back at me.

She opens the throttle and the thing speeds up, throwing me around in half a dozen different directions, bouncing me against the seat, while she remains calm as could be, her tightly corded forearms wrestling with the steering yoke.

"We can't go in guns blazing," she says.

"Why not?"

"Because they'll know we're coming. I just hope we can get there before they move the girl. If we don't nail this we'll lose her."

"Have you done something like this before?"

"Yes," she says. "Yes I have. Not far now."





Alexis





Now





Please, please, please.

Help me.

My old prayers come flooding back. The cuffs dig at my wrists, and the straps dig into my body, my stomach, my chest. They just left me in here in the dark. I hear voices outside. People pass by. I see their shadows slide across my wall, flickering into existence and passing back out again, watching and hoping. Hawk is not dead, he's not. I can feel it, like a warm heat in my chest. They took him away from me once, they never will again. He's coming, he's coming, he's coming.

Then the door opens and a doctor walks in.

"Hello," he says, in a voice he might use to approach a strange dog. He's carrying a set of cheap hospital pajamas. "I'm going to need you to change, hon. The nurse is going to stay here while you do."

A nurse follows him in, a heavyset woman with a sour look on her face.

"Listen to me," I plead. "This is a mistake."

"Shhh," the doctor says. "We just have to make sure you don't hurt yourself. I don't want to have to restrain you, now. So I'm going to let you up slowly and step out, and then we're going to come back in and have a talk."

I bite my lip.

Then I nod.

He nods back, and slowly undoes first the straps, then cuffs.

"Go ahead and swing your legs over and stand up for me."

I nod, and do as I'm told. I start to stand up, and the doctor backs up, heads for the door.

"Okay now, just get changed and-"

I punch him in the face. It's not a good hit, I didn't get to really wind up, but it's enough. I shove past him and run barefoot into the hall, turn, bounce off the wall, and bolt. I run full tilt. I run like the devil is at my heels. I run for my life. I run and run.

It doesn't matter how fast you run if they're already ahead of you. Two big men in scrubs run at me from the opposite direction. I skid to a stop on my slippery feet and run back the opposite way, but they have me. I'm surrounded. Big arms loop around mine and my feet leave the floor. I throw my feet up and kick, and my arms torque as they almost drop me as I heel one of them in the face.

Then they've got my legs. Two more join them, six all together now, but I'm strangely calm, writhing, almost pulling my leg free before strong arms lock my thigh in a crushing grip. They have my feet off the ground, I'm in mid-air. A mass of faces and arms. The nurse is there. She has a needle in her hand. She's taking the cap off the needle, testing it. Liquid forms a drop on the tip, breaks, the drop falls.