Chapter 16 #2
She wanted to stand up and scream for help, but she knew they’d never be able to hear her over the motor. She had to pray they’d turn down the street she was on so she could get their attention.
“Please, please, please,” she whispered. “Kane, help’s coming. Hang on just a little longer,” she told him. She’d been talking to him for the last couple hours, believing that even though he was unconscious, a part of him could still hear her.
When the motor got louder, Aspen slowly stood. She wobbled a bit and grabbed onto the wrought-iron railing to keep herself from falling face first into the murky water a few steps down.
She fumbled with the buttons on her BDU top. She had to get it off to use it to flag down the boat. They’d never see her otherwise. Her fingers shook with adrenaline and cold. She’d been submersed in the chilly flood waters for hours.
She shrugged the camouflage jacket off just as she saw the boat turn down the street.
Holding onto the railing with one hand, she waved the jacket over her head with the other. “Here! Over here!” she cried out, her voice sounding weak to her own ears.
Taking a deep breath, she screamed as loud as she could. “Helllllllp!”
Miraculously, the boat picked up speed and came hurtling toward them. For just a second, Aspen thought they were going to plow right into the steps, but when it got close, it slowed, sending a wave crashing onto the step she was standing on.
The sight of Trigger, Lefty, and Oz at the front of the boat made her knees go weak.
She collapsed back onto the step and reached for Kane. “They found us,” she told him. “Your team found us! Just keep hanging on. We’ll get you some help and you’ll be fine.”
Then Trigger was there. Crouching next to her on the step. He put his oh-so-warm hand on her cheek and turned her to look at him. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head frantically. “No, but Kane is! Derek said there was a pregnant woman out here who needed help, and we were at the front of the boat looking for any sign of her townhouse when he swung an oar at Kane and knocked him in the head. He fell overboard and was facedown for I don’t know how long.
He wasn’t breathing, and I gave him rescue breaths.
I managed to get him here, but he hasn’t woken up.
I’m so scared something’s seriously wrong, Trigger!
” Aspen knew her words were slurred, and she was talking way too fast, but she had to let someone know what happened, especially when Derek was still on the loose.
“Take a deep breath, Aspen,” Trigger ordered.
She did.
“Another.”
After the second, she felt a bit better.
“Are you hurt?” Trigger asked again.
“No. Cold, tired, and scared to death, but not hurt. The second I realized what Derek had done, I bailed out of the boat. I wanted to get to Kane, but I also didn’t want Derek to get his hands on me.
He’s gonna make up a story to spin this,” she warned Trigger. “But I’m not lying! He ambushed Kane.”
“I believe you, but Derek’s—”
Aspen interrupted him as she thought of something else. “And Kane knew something was up,” she continued, her voice filled with anguish. “He was hesitant to get in the boat with him, but I didn’t give him a choice—”
“Derek’s dead,” Trigger said bluntly. Then he gently moved her out of the way as Lefty and Oz stepped out of the boat and came toward them. They lifted Kane as if he weighed no more than a child, carrying him to the boat.
Aspen watched worriedly…until Trigger’s words sank in. “What? How?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but it looks like he ran over a live wire. It got tangled in the boat and it blew.”
“Are you sure he’s dead?” Aspen asked.
“I’m sure. His torso was dangling over one tree branch, his arm over another, and his leg was hanging from a third. He’s dead, sweetheart.”
Aspen wanted to feel bad. At one time, she’d actually liked Derek. But after what he’d said to her the other day, and especially after what he’d done a few hours ago…she couldn’t feel anything but relief that they didn’t have to worry about him retaliating against them ever again.
She nodded at Trigger and tried to step into the water to get to the boat, but once again, her body betrayed her. She staggered and would’ve gone down if Trigger hadn’t picked her up. One arm went behind her back and the other under her knees.
“I’ve got you,” he said as he carried her to the boat.
Lefty and Oz reached for her and easily got her settled in the bottom of the inflatable boat next to Kane.
She put her hand on his chest, where it had been most of the last few hours, and closed her eyes in relief when she felt his heart beating.
She leaned over him, listening as Lefty talked to the rest of the team via walkie-talkie.
Telling them they’d found Kane and her, and requesting they meet up at the next street over.
“We’re safe,” she told Kane. “Trigger found us. You can wake up now.”
But he didn’t.
Someone draped an emergency warming blanket across her shoulders, and another over Kane, but she didn’t move her hand, keeping her eyes on his face.
She prayed for a flicker of his eyelids or any movement of his lips to indicate that he’d heard her, but he stayed still and silent in the bottom of the boat.
“We need an ambulance to meet us at the boat launch,” Trigger told someone over the radio. “We’ve got a man down.”
Closing her eyes, Aspen rested her head on Kane’s chest once more and let herself relax for the first time in hours. The men surrounding her might not be her team, but they were her friends. They’d take care of Kane. They’d make sure he didn’t die.
Aspen didn’t know what she’d do if he didn’t make it.
He had to be all right. He just had to.