Chapter 28 – Jensen
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jensen
I had never felt such relief as having Kenzie in my arms.
She was alive.
She breathed hard as she collapsed back against me. Her chest heaved up and down harshly as she sucked in air.
All I could do was relish holding her in my arms. But only for a second. We weren’t out of this yet.
Ever since we’d learned about the threats Alan had been voicing toward her in jail, I’d feared the worst. I was afraid we’d be too late.
And we almost had been. She was out here running from five men barefoot, for Christ’s sake. She wouldn’t have lasted much longer.
I owed Ian DeRose, the owner of Zodiac Tactical, a man I’d only met briefly, everything I owned and then some.
When we’d found out Jada Moyer had bought a secluded cabin based on emails Alan had sent her, we knew this had to be where they were taking Kenzie. We hadn’t had enough proof for local law enforcement to be willing to send someone all the way out here. Plus, we’d known that could quickly get botched—a cop coming in lights blazing might’ve caused Alan to do something deadly.
Ian had offered his private jet, and a few hours later, we’d been here.
Not a moment too soon.
Kenzie was alive and back in my arms. I refused to think about ever letting her go again.
“Jensen.” She gripped my cheeks, her voice choppy and stuttering with the violent shivers that racked her body between the cold and the adrenaline. “You’re alive. I didn’t know… I didn’t… I was so worried…”
I kissed her softly. “Me too, City. But be quiet now. We’re not out of danger.”
I slipped off my jacket and wrapped it around her then picked her up. She was barefoot, and it was freezing out. “Are you hurt?”
“Just c-cold. And I cut my foot.”
I wasn’t so worried about the cut, but with these temps and what little she was wearing, even in my jacket, hypothermia was a real concern. Not to mention she was going to cool down quickly now that she wasn’t running for her life. I set her down on a log behind a large tree. It was as secluded as we were going to get.
I pressed the comms earpiece. “I’ve got Kenzie. Fast movement is not much of an option.”
“Roger,” Lucas responded. “Keep her hidden. Some of these guys are trained.”
By trained, Lucas probably meant former military. But it definitely meant they knew what they were doing, hunting people out in the wilderness in the dim light of barely dawn.
“I wish we had the rest of the team here,” Daniel muttered. “I’m moving around the south side of the cabin.”
The Resting Warrior team was spread thin. Everyone had been off following different leads, doing what they could to find Kenzie. Lucas, Daniel, and I had been the only ones close enough to make the Zodiac Tactical jet when it arrived at the nearby regional airport.
“We’ll head that way too, Jensen,” Lucas added. “Try to lead everyone away from you guys. Hunter?”
“Roger.”
Oh yeah, and we had Lucas’s cousin. Dude was even quieter than me—I wasn’t sure I’d heard him speak a whole sentence yet. I didn’t know anything about him or even why he’d shown up in Garnet Bend, but he’d been willing to help, and that was enough for me. Especially since he was former Special Forces.
Kenzie was pulling at my arm. “You guys have to be careful. They’re armed. And Alan is out for blood.”
Every once in a while, Alan yelled out some threat, obviously trying to intimidate Kenzie.
“As long as he’s running his mouth, he’s giving us an advantage. Letting us know exactly where he is.” I kept my voice low, just slightly louder than a whisper. A whisper actually carried farther to others than a consistently low tone. “It’s the quiet guys he’s hired we have to worry about.”
“One man down.” Hunter’s voice came through my ear. I wasn’t sure exactly what down meant coming from him. “Southeast side of the cabin.”
Apparently, Daniel wasn’t sure what Hunter meant either. “Let’s try to keep the body count to a minimum, if possible.”
“Affirmative,” Hunter replied.
That still didn’t tell us if he’d killed anybody or not. But honestly, I didn’t care. The only thing I cared about was getting Kenzie out of this safely. If some bad guys didn’t survive, that was their own problem.
But just as I’d feared, shudders were racking Kenzie’s body. She was slumping over against me, her system shutting down. I ripped off my black beanie and pushed it down onto her head before pulling her as close to my body as I could .
I was no medic, but I knew enough about survival situations to know we were fighting a losing battle as long as she was out in the elements. She was losing heat from too many sources, plus her body was already run down from lack of sleep and God knew what else.
I sat next to her and pulled off my boots and socks, then crouched down to put them on Kenzie.
“N-no.” She tried to push my hands away. “You need them.”
I cupped her cheeks and put my face right in front of hers. “This is not just me flirting, okay? I’m not being gallant. We need to get you warm if we want to get out of this alive.”
“But—”
“City, I need you to trust me.” We didn’t have time to debate this.
She nodded. “I do. I do trust you, Jensen. Tell me what to do.”
Her trust meant everything to me.
I took the socks and boots and put them on her feet. The boots would hardly stay on, even with the ankles laced up as tight as they could go. But it at least meant she wasn’t leaking heat from either her feet or head now. That would mitigate at least some of what she was up against physically.
“You have to be cold, Mackenzie,” Alan called out, much closer than I would like him to be. “You can’t survive out here on your own, dressed like you are. Come back to the cabin, and we can talk. I lost my temper. You always make me lose my temper.”
“Then get some self-restraint, asshole,” she muttered.
I grabbed her hand and pulled her in the opposite direction from the cabin. I did my best to ignore the biting pain shooting through my feet from the cold, but without my hat and jacket, it wouldn’t be long before I was the one in trouble.
We would have to deal with that when we came to it. Right now, Kenzie was in the more dire shape of the two of us.
Keeping her hand in mine, I moved us as quietly as I could through the trees. Her lack of energy, combined with the boots that were much too large for her, caused her to keep stumbling. She would’ve fallen multiple times if I hadn’t had hold of her.
“Another down.” Hunter spoke again.
But again, no definition of what down meant.
“Going off comms,” Hunter said, slightly out of breath, as if he was running.
“Hunter, no. Stay on comms.” Daniel was the team leader. The guys listened to him.
But Hunter wasn’t on the normal Resting Warrior team. And evidently, he had already disconnected his communications unit.
“Fuck,” Daniel said. “Lucas.”
“On it.” Lucas’s voice was breathier now too. He was also running.
I couldn’t worry about family politics at the moment. Hunter was on our side, and that was all I cared about.
I cursed as a rain/snow mix started to fall. Conditions were deteriorating, which could be deadlier than the men with the guns if we weren’t careful.
“I’m moving Kenzie to the vehicle. Body temp is critical.”
I wasn’t sure if I was talking about hers or mine, but it didn’t matter because we were both in trouble.
“Roger.” Lucas was obviously still running by the sound of his breathing.
“Roger that,” Daniel said. “We’ll handle things here.”
We’d parked the car about three miles away and had come in on foot in order to make sure we were not detected. Now, I wished we had just barreled in hot.
Kenzie stumbled again. I wrapped my arm more tightly around her waist, trying to take as much of her weight as I could to help her. “Hang in there, City. You’re doing great.”
She didn’t answer. Her feet were dragging more with each step. We were going to be in real trouble soon .
And we hadn’t heard anything from Alan in way too long. That did not reassure me. The only reason I could think of that he would stop taunting Kenzie was if he was up to something.
Or maybe he was the second man Hunter had taken down—hopefully permanently. I wouldn’t lose a bit of sleep over that.
But either way, I pulled my Glock from its holster and kept it low at my side. Kenzie and I were making way too much noise not to be tracked if anyone was nearby.
We made it another half mile at a pace way too slow before I lost feeling in my feet. Just trying to keep us both upright was getting more and more difficult. Kenzie stumbled again, and I started to estimate how far I could carry her. Although I already knew the answer.
I would carry her however fucking far I had to.
There was no way I was leaving her. We would walk as far as we could, and then I would manage from?—
The tackle caught me completely unaware. My gun flew in one direction, and I pushed Kenzie in the other.
“She’s not worth it, you know.” Alan’s words penetrated my brain right before his fist connected with my jaw. He got in two more punches to my gut before I could react and roll to the side.
“I have to admit, I didn’t think Mackenzie was going to have her own rescue party here. Good thing I brought super soldiers of my own. How about if we let my guys take care of your guys? I don’t think it will be a problem for me to get rid of you.”
I didn’t wait for Ard to pull up his weapon and point it at me—I dove for him from my half-crouched position on the ground, knocking his gun from his hand.
I trained with the Resting Warrior guys on a regular basis, so my hand-to-hand combat skills were pretty finely honed. But the time in the cold with inadequate clothing was taking its toll. I was clumsy and slower to react than normal .
When he pulled out a knife, I knew I was in trouble. Even more so when one of his guys stepped out into our small clearing.
Once again, I didn’t hesitate to jump for the tackle. If the man had a chance to get his weapon up, it was all over for me and Kenzie. He was bigger than Alan, but I focused and used as much agility as I could muster. I would only have one chance to neutralize him as a threat. If I allowed him to get up, I’d be fighting a battle on two fronts.
And I’d lose.
I got in two punches to the gut while the guy was still stunned by the tackle. A third one had him winded enough that I was able to hop to my feet and grab the guy by the collar of his jacket. I put every bit of strength into my haymaker punch. It knocked him out cold.
But before I could turn around to face Alan, he had the tip of his knife at my throat. “Not so fast, lover boy.”
“I’m not here alone, Ard. Your men are being taken out one by one, and then you’ll go down too.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” His voice was smug. “But I’m afraid you won’t be here to witness that.”
“Fuck off, you coward.”
“Look at you. No coat, no shoes. You gave them to Mackenzie, didn’t you? What a Boy Scout.”
I shifted my weight slightly, ready to spin and try to take him down. But he wasn’t falling for that again.
“Nuh-uh-uh.” He pressed the knife into my neck. I could feel the tip piercing my skin, blood starting to flow. It stopped my movement. “If you’d kept your stuff, maybe you’d be in better shape to fight.”
But then Kenzie would be dead or close to it by now. That hadn’t even been an option.
“And look,” Alan continued, “all for nothing. That selfish bitch ran off to save herself.”
As the knife slid into my neck even farther, I couldn’t feel anything but relief that Kenzie had run. I wouldn’t make it, but hopefully she would. That was all that mattered.
“Mackenzie!” Alan yelled. “If you care about your friend at all, you’ll come back here.”
“Don’t do it, City!” No matter what Alan did, I didn’t want her coming back here.
But I couldn’t stop myself from crying out when Alan slammed his knife into my shoulder. The pain and motion of it forced me down to my knees.
“Do you want him to die, Mackenzie?”
“He’ll kill me anyway!” I knew that much was true, but the words got me another burning stab from the fucker.
“I don’t think she’s coming for you,” he said as I attempted to breathe through the pain and gather what remaining strength I had. “I thought she had feelings for you, but I guess I was wrong.”
“Or maybe she’s just too smart to fall for your bullshit.”
“I tell you what. Let’s try a different route.”
I expected another stab, prepped myself not to let out a sound, but it didn’t come.
“Maybe I won’t kill him, Mackenzie. Look what I’ve got—Jada’s little memory drug. How about we make sure that even if he survives, he never remembers anything about you.”
What the fuck? I had no idea what drug he was talking about, but I knew he wasn’t bluffing. I could see the syringe in his other hand.
There was no way I was letting him inject me with that stuff, but I knew I was down to my last reserves of strength. I couldn’t feel my feet at all, and the rest of my body wasn’t in much better shape. That stab with the knife had pretty much rendered my left arm useless.
The guys would hear all the yelling and be on their way. They wouldn’t be able to help me, but maybe I could buy some time for them to help Kenzie.
“See?” Alan leaned close to my ear and lowered his volume. “I keep trying to tell everyone what a bitch she is, but nobody believes me. She left you to save herself, and now you’re going to pay the price.”
“Fuck. You.” My voice sounded weak even to my own ears.
“I’m going to finish what I started with her. She’s not going to live to tattle on me again.”
I waited for the knife or the syringe, but neither came. Instead, Alan cried out in pain then crashed to the ground beside me, holding his head.
Kenzie swung the large branch at him again, striking him on the head, causing him to fall flat, completely out. “I don’t think so, asshole. You’re never going to lay your hands on me again.”
She dropped the heavy branch and rushed over to put her arms around me.
“You didn’t leave me,” I managed to mutter. The world was going in and out of focus.
“Never.”
It was the last thing I heard as I slumped to the ground.