The cloth didn’t come off my eyes. Killian’s voice echoed to me. “I need to see her.”
My heart lurched. He would get me out of this nightmare. Our girl could not have died, and I knew I was not dead. I heard the cry of an infant from far away and tried to jerk on the ties holding me down. The cloth on my eyes slid off and I was looking up into his face, into his green eyes. The words wouldn’t come, though. I had no voice as I fought whatever was sliding through me, whatever drug they were pumping into my spine to keep me immobile.
Killian. Don’t let them take me.
Because that was what was going to happen. Someone was taking me. I didn’t know why, but I knew this game as surely as I knew my own name. As surely as I knew anything in my life.
“Nix,” Killian whispered my name, touched my face, then closed his eyes. “Go then. Take her.”
Take her.
Was he out of his mind? A scream bubbled up in me, but nothing came out, as if I had no control over my body at all. There were fingers in my mind keeping me still, keeping me quiet. Killian turned away, a child in his arms. Maybe she’d survived? But his next words negated that. “I’ll bury them together.”
Together.
I only had to say one word, to tell them to stop, and I knew I could change his mind. Why would he tell them to take me?
“Finally. That man was far too good for an abnormal whore like this one.”
A woman had said that. A nurse maybe? I didn’t know, didn’t care. I tried again to pull against the straps, over and over, but my body didn’t react to my commands and I didn’t know how to get around the drugs in my system.
“She’s trying to burn through it.”
“The handlers will have her soon enough. Give her a heavy dose, it won’t kill her.”
Something was shot into my IV. The tingle started in my left arm and spread upward to my chest and then into my lungs, slowing my breathing. But I was still awake, even if I couldn’t move a fucking inch.
Where were they taking me, and why?
Away from my family, that was where. Rage lit me up and the drugs dissipated as if they’d never been in me. I snapped the straps holding me down.
“Damn it, hold her!”
“I can’t. She’s too strong!”
The shouts were music to my ears as I fought the five men who had thought they could manhandle me into a waiting vehicle. My legs were still unresponsive, but my upper body was doing just fine, even with a brand-new C-section incision stitched up tight. I didn’t feel it, not through the rage that kept me moving.
I punched the one on my left in an uppercut to the balls. He went down and I pulled his weapon—a Taser. I shot it into the guy to my right and he jerked and bounced like a fish on the line.
The problem was there were too many of them, and not enough of me. Someone grabbed me from behind and put me into a sleeper choke. If my legs had been functioning, I could have . . . the thought stuttered as the blood cut off to my head. But that wasn’t what really slowed me.
No, the fingers in my mind were what cut me off from anything I could do.
I slapped at the hands and went limp. I was released and stuffed into an ambulance, or some other similar transport, strapped down to a board, and my IV was jammed into a new bag of something. I stared up at it, blood trickling down the side of my face. An attendant got in with me, lifted my shirt.
“Shit, she ripped the stitches.”
One of those holding me stepped up and sat next to me. My head was again strapped to the board so all I could do was roll my eyes to look at him. He looked to be in his forties, strong build, square bulky jaw like a bulldog. Marine if I was reading him right. At the very least, he was a marine.
He stared down at me. “You aren’t ever going to get out of where you are going. So you’d best stop trying.” His nametag said George.
I didn’t answer him. That was what he wanted.
He settled beside me while the paramedic, or whoever it was, stitched me up. Nurse maybe? My brain tried to tell me that a paramedic wouldn’t be stitching me up.
The marine smiled. “You got that look like a caged animal. I’m going to recommend some things to make your stay easier on all of us.”
“I’ll kill you,” I whispered.
“You might think that.” He didn’t stop smiling, but instead pulled a pack of cigarettes from a pocket and put one in his mouth.
The paramedic/nurse shook his head but didn’t tell the marine not to smoke in that small area where I had no doubt an oxygen tank was hidden somewhere. Maybe he’d blow us all up.
“You see, the handlers want you bad.” The marine drew in a drag, held it, and puffed out a perfect ring. “They think you’re special, but I think you’re just like all the other freakshows.”
“You aren’t supposed to talk to her,” the nurse said.
“The meds they’ve got will wipe her memory of this.” The marine blew smoke into my face. “And this bitch killed two of my men. So let me have my fun.”
He leaned over and pulled his cigarette from his mouth, close enough that he could have kissed me. He lifted the cigarette to my eye. “You don’t need to
