Chapter Thirteen
Her ears were still ringing.
She couldn’t move her hands or legs, couldn’t get enough air. It felt as though an elephant had sat on her chest and was refusing to move. She’d taken the brunt of the blast in Claire Winston’s basement. She remembered that, but then...nothing. Her team had been there. JC and Evan. Were they okay? Had they gotten out alive? Infierno. It hurt to breathe. She must’ve cracked a—
“Please don’t be dead,” a small voice said.
Every cell in her body stilled, only the sound of a low humming audible over her uneven heartbeat. Ana struggled to open her eyes, met with only more darkness. Not a hospital. Tugging at her wrists, she battled gravity and a headache to pull her head off the floor of wherever she’d ended up. The floor underneath her was cold, but she wasn’t alone. She could barely make out the shape of a small outline resting across her midsection. Her head fell back to the floor. The weight on her chest wasn’t from an elephant. “I’m not dead. Are you?”
“No.” The boy’s voice shook. “But I’m cold and my tummy hurts. And I want to go home.”
“My name is Ana.” Relief coursed through her. He was alive. She’d found him. She pulled at the zip ties securing her wrists and ankles. Where the hell were they? Flashes of memory ignited in the front of her mind. The explosion had knocked her face-first onto the floor. There’d been water pounding down on her back, but over that, she’d heard footsteps. Then he’d been standing over her. The man who’d shoved her through the window at the safe house. Her head throbbed. He must’ve taken her from Claire Winston’s basement somehow and brought her here. Wherever here was. Barely making out a row of shelving beside her as her vision adjusted, she swallowed the chemical burn at the back of her throat. Industrial cleaner? “Your daddy sent me to find you, Owen.”
A combination of excitement and hope bled into his voice. “You know my dad?”
“Yeah.” She nodded but wasn’t sure he could even see the motion. “We’re friends. He’s been worried this entire time you’ve been gone, so he called me and asked me to help find you. I’m here to take you home.”
Pain arced through her as the six-year-old tablet enthusiast with a pension for stealing cookies in the middle of the night pressed his hands into her side to sit up. “How are you going to do that with your hands and feet tied?”
“That’s a good question.” No windows. A slight hint of humidity in the air, like a basement. Bare cement bit into her elbows as she shifted enough to sit up against the metal shelving. There had to be something—anything—she could use to break these ties and figure out where their kidnapper had brought them. In an instant Owen had curled back into her side. If her hands had been restrained in front, she would’ve captured him inside the circle of her arms. But the best she could do was set her cheek against the top of his head. The odor of gasoline and dirt in his hair chased back the smell. “I don’t know yet, but I’m sure we can figure something out. As long as we’re together, we’ll be okay. I promise.”
Short hair bristled against her Kevlar vest, and she imagined he was nodding, but the tremors rolling through him said he didn’t have much time. The boy was alive, but she had no idea what kind of circumstances he’d been held, if he’d been given food and water, been able to sleep. Setting her head back against the metal shelves, she stared up at the blackness above them. First things first, she had to get out of these ties, but she needed his help. She thought back to what Benning had told her about his son. “Okay, Owen, I need you to stay awake as long as you can, okay? Because we’re going to play a game.”
“What game?” he asked.
She had to keep him talking, keep him moving, before the cold set in too deep, and he stopped fighting. “How about a treasure hunt? Do you like those?” He nodded against her vest again. “Great. First piece of treasure we need to find is my flashlight. Do you see where it’s attached on my vest?”
In less than two breaths, he detached the flashlight and hit the power button. Bright light punctured through the blackness surrounding them, and for the first time, she was able to see him clearly. Dark smudges across his features highlighted crystal-clear blue eyes. Just like his father’s. “I found it.”
With one look this sweet boy had reminded her how tightly closed in on herself she’d become over the years—since Samantha Perry’s body had been found—and how very exhausting it was to keep going. Cut off from everyone around her. There, but never committed. She’d been living, surviving by giving her body the basic needs that would keep it going, ensuring everyone she’d been assigned to find got their happily-ever-after, but that wasn’t a life. Benning was right. She deserved more. She wanted more. She wanted...something for herself. Benning had tapped into the things she’d tried burying and exposed them for the world to see, and there’d been a sort of freedom in that. He’d broken her open and shown her what
