We hurried through the tunnels for another fifteen minutes before Craig finally shined his light on a ladder leading up to another manhole cover. “We’ll take this one.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“According to the map on my phone, we should be hidden pretty well. There should be a motel right around the corner from where we are. We can lay low there while we get another plan in place.”
“Let’s do it.”
“Alright, I’ll go up first, and Jamie, you follow. Alec will follow you up.”
Craig climbed the stairs and slowly started lifting the cover, his face straining as he pushed the heavy cover up. He peeked out and then gave the signal for Jamie to follow him up the ladder. Once they were up, I shifted Florrie and started climbing the ladder. Craig and Jamie took her from me, gently laying her down on the ground while I climbed out. I glanced around quickly, checking all the dark corners to make sure that it was safe. When I didn’t hear anything, I picked up Florrie and started carrying her in the direction that Craig led us. We stuck to the shadows as much as possible, and when we reached the motel, Craig casually walked into the office in his tux and asked for a room. The manager didn’t even bat an eye at him from what I could see.
He jerked his head for us to follow and I shifted Florrie in my grasp again, pulling out my gun to hand to Jamie. “Do you remember how to use this?”
“Yeah.”
“Point and shoot. Just don’t shoot me,” I said as I stepped out of the shadows. “Stay on my right.”
Jamie nodded and followed me out of our hiding spot across to where Craig was waiting, watching for any sign of someone watching us. Luckily, it was dark and this was a pretty empty part of town. We hurried over to Craig and slipped inside as he opened the door. I laid Florrie on the bed and quickly examined her head. She had a pretty sizable cut on her head that was still oozing blood. That wasn’t necessarily a bad sign. Head wounds always bled a lot, and while I knew that in my head, I just couldn’t get my heart to catch on to that. I ran to the bathroom and grabbed a towel, hoping it was actually clean, and pressed it against her forehead.
“She’s going to need stitches,” Craig said, examining the wound. “We have to get her to a hospital and get her checked out.”
“Not here. Blakely will be watching out for us at the hospital. He’s probably already figured out that none of us are dead.”
“So, what do we do then?” Jamie asked.
“We call it in. We don’t have any transportation,” I answered.
“What about your SUV?”
“No, they’ll be expecting us to show up at the hotel. We have to stay away from anywhere that they might look for us. They might not know yet that we work for Reed Security, so our best bet is to call in for help.”
“I’ll call Cap. See what you can do to clean her up,” Craig said.
I was impressed how he was taking the reins. It made me feel better about walking away from my team when this job was over. But I wasn’t surprised. Just because Craig wasn’t the team leader didn’t mean he wasn’t qualified. I cleaned up the cut on Florrie’s head as best as I could and waited it out with Jamie and Craig.
I ignored the fear settling in my gut. I knew that she could be severely injured, but there was also a very good chance that she was okay. I just needed to push aside everything else and focus on what needed to be done, because if I started thinking too much about what it would mean if something was wrong with Florrie, I would go insane. When the SUVs finally pulled up outside the motel room, I was relieved to see Hunter and Rocco hurry over to the room, followed by Derek.
“How is she?” Hunter asked, rushing over to Florrie’s side.
“She’s been unconscious for over an hour now. She hit her head in the blast, but was conscious immediately after. We made it down the manhole and walked for a few minutes before she passed out. She was stumbling around, but seemed to know what was going on around her.”
Hunter checked her over, flashing the light in her eyes and checking her responses. “Alright, we need to get her to the hospital. Craig, you need to get Jamie to safety.”
“I’m going with you,” I insisted.
“You need to stay with your team,” Hunter reminded me.
“I’ll take his place,” Rocco said, nodding in my direction.
“I’ll take Florrie’s,” Derek added. “You two get Florrie to the hospital and Craig, Rocco, and I will make sure Jamie gets safely back to Reed Security.”
I nodded my thanks and helped Hunter get Florrie into the back of the SUV. They had laid down the back seats and placed a stretcher in the back that we could transport her on.
“You’re going to need to drive,” Hunter said, starting a line in her arm.
“Okay.”
“Listen,” he said, snatching my shirt in his fist. “I get that you’re scared right now, but I need to focus on making sure that she’s okay, and I need you to focus on getting us to the hospital, understand?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. I got in the front seat and pushed aside what I was feeling right now. He was right. Florrie needed me to do this, and I needed to trust that Hunter was doing everything he could for her.
✯✯✯✯✯
We had been waiting in the emergency room for a half hour when Craig called to check in. “Everything good?” I asked.
“Jamie’s currently filling Cap in on everything he knows about Blakely. I just slipped out to find out about Florrie.”
“They took her back, but we haven’t
