Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
One second the woman from the cage was lying propped up beside him, a vacant look on her face, the next she was tumbling out of the moving vehicle.
“What the hell,” Thunder exclaimed as he scrambled to reach for her and missed. “Pull over.”
Usually he would be the one driving, his ability to run at an enhanced speed seemed to translate into an ability to drive a vehicle at top speeds with great control, he’d never crashed, and he liked the control of being the one driving.
But not today.
Today he hadn't been able to separate himself from the woman from the cage.
Something about her drew him in, a need to protect that ran deeper than he had thought he was capable of.
This woman was another victim of the man he hated with a burning passion, and now he had another reason to want Dr. Gardner to suffer.
“Thought she was out of it,” Lion exclaimed as he slammed on the brakes, bringing the vehicle to a screeching stop.
“She was. At least I thought she was,” he replied.
Thunder had been pretty sure she was catatonic, no longer even capable of registering the world around her.
Her eyes hadn't shifted, hadn't focused on anything, and she didn't seem to hear any of the reassurances he’d been whispering in a constant stream.
Guess she’d fooled him.
There had been some measure of consciousness left in her because she’d been prepared in that cage for Dr. Gardner to walk into the room. She wasn't completely lost, but he had underestimated how much she was taking in.
It was clear she had no interest in trusting or believing him, and while he didn't take that personally, he did wish he could get through to her.
Not just because he wanted to get intel out of her—in fact, that idea was quickly shifting to the back of his mind—but because he hated knowing that she was locked inside her own head, trapped in a world of fear and horror.
As he climbed across the seat and went out the same door the woman had just thrown open, he scanned the side of the road.
Had she even survived the fall?
The woman was tiny, skin and bones, and already covered in evidence of prolonged abuse, and the vehicle had been moving quickly, all of them anxious to get the woman off this island and someplace where they could get her the treatment she needed.
It wouldn't have surprised him to find her dead body lying in a crumpled heap, he was almost expecting it, but what did surprise him was seeing a naked woman stagger to her feet and stumble off into the trees.
She’d not just survived the fall but capable of moving. She was one strong woman.
“Dragon?” he asked as he hurried to follow after her. Even though he could easily reach her, he didn't want to spook her more than she already was. He did need to know if she was badly injured, though, and hoped that Dragon’s sense of smell would tell him that.
“Nothing life-threatening,” Dragon replied.
“What's the plan?” Steel asked, and for a moment Thunder faltered, because it was clear all eyes were on him even though Steel was their team leader and the one who usually made the call when they were out in the field.
Now, all of a sudden, everyone looked to him.
Why?
It wasn’t like he knew anything more about the woman than the rest of them, he just felt a responsibility to her because he’d been the first one to find her.
“Why are you asking me?” he demanded.
“You know why,” Steel said quietly, and the words forced him to assess that deep protective rage prowling beneath his skin. It demanded that he find the woman, make her hear him when he told her that she was safe, and destroy anything that presented itself as a threat.
But that was crazy.
As soon as they knew her name and asked her what she knew about Dr. Gardner, they’d be sending her home to her family.
She wasn't a stray animal for him to keep and rehabilitate.
She wasn't his. Saving her meant making her understand that she was rescued and then getting her back with her family, where she belonged. Nothing more and nothing less.
“Try not to overwhelm her and convince her that we’re the good guys,” he said simply, refusing to allow it to be anything more than that.
No one argued, and they moved as one, fanning out a little so that they surrounded her in a way she’d never notice, but could also protect her if more guards had been called in to try to capture them.
Thunder didn't think that was likely because he was pretty sure they’d basically voided Dr. Gardner’s supply of security, but he wasn't going to risk the woman’s safety over it.
Following her was easy, and he didn't need any enhanced skills to do it.
She wasn't moving quickly, although for her condition, he was surprised she was able to move at all.
She was also loud, crashing through the trees, her breathing harsh, her desperation to escape what she viewed as another threat making her forget everything else.
There wasn't really anywhere for the woman to go. They were on an island, and he and his team had swum in after jumping off a helo a couple of miles off the coast. There was a small landing strip, and he knew they’d already called in someone to come and get them.
There were no boats as far as he was aware, and it didn't seem like the woman was running with any other purpose than escaping.
To that end, he hung back enough, keeping her within his line of sight but not letting her know he was there. When she reached the beach, he’d try talking to her again, find a way to convince her that he was no threat to her.
“She’s approaching some cliffs,” Blade’s voice came through the comms unit, and Thunder prepared himself to go faster, and grab her before she went over the edge if she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings in her desperation to get away from them.
With a gasp, he saw the woman stumble to a stop, obviously seeing the cliffs on her own, and after giving her a second to catch her breath, Thunder stepped through the trees, making sure to alert her to his presence so he didn't startle her.
Spinning around to face him, she took a step back. Her eyes were wild, definitely more animal than human in this moment. But there was some cognition there that hadn't been there before, and he knew she wasn't completely lost to the real world.
Thunder tried to look as non-threatening as possible for a man who was over six feet tall, solid muscle, dressed all in black, with a weapon slung over his shoulder, and night vision goggles on.
Slipping off the goggles, he could see her well enough in the moonlight that he didn't need them, and he wanted to look more human to her.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” he said, keeping his voice calm and controlled, attempting to infuse something soothing into it, although from her agitation it was clear he was failing.
Her gaze darted about, seeking an escape route that didn't exist.
Truth was, they weren't leaving her behind, she was coming with them either way. He just hated that they might add more trauma to whatever else she’d already suffered.
“I know you don’t believe it, and I can't pretend to imagine what you’ve been through, but I know who he is. The man who brought you here, who hurt you. His name is Dr. Gardner. I don’t know how much you know about him, but I know what he did to me.”
Thunder felt more than saw the woman’s attention focus a little more on him.
Was she hearing him? He had no idea, but he had to try to talk her down. The best-case scenario was convincing her to come with them willingly, the worst was holding her down and sedating her. That way, he lost any possible chance at building trust.
“He kept us in a cage as well. Me and my team,” Thunder continued, and he felt his team shift to appear at his back. There was a chance they were overwhelming her, but she needed to know the truth, needed to know she wasn't the only victim of the insane scientist.
Growing more agitated, the woman looked around again, her gaze settling behind her on the ocean crashing over the rocks beneath her.
“Don’t do it,” he warned, sensing what she was planning. “Don’t jump. Please. We’re not going to hurt you, I swear it. We’re going to take you home to your family. Whatever you’ve been through, it’s over now. Don’t end your life now when you're on the cusp of being saved.”
There was no way she could survive that fall.
Yet he saw the way she looked at the ocean as if it held the answer to all her problems.
She was going to do it.
He was already moving before she was.
For a second, she looked over her shoulder. Their gazes clashed and he saw a glimpse of the woman who had existed before she was thrown into a nightmare.
Also saw the resolve in her gray eyes.
This was what she wanted, what she was choosing, recognizing the consequences.
Before he could grab hold of her and keep her on solid ground, she flung her arms out wide and jumped.
February 22 nd
12:42 A.M.
Flying. Freedom.
This was, without a single doubt, the best moment of Maya’s entire life.
Nothing compared to the rush of powerful emotions she got as she dropped through the air toward the crashing waves and rocks below.
She didn't care if she survived the fall or not, all that mattered was that for the first time in so many years, she was in charge of herself and what happened to her, and nobody else got a say.
Those men dressed all in black could claim all they wanted that they weren't going to hurt her, but she wasn't stupid enough to believe that. Everybody hurt everybody else in this world, and they’d shown up in this world, so they had to be part of it.
As if she’d be stupid enough to believe they were going to take her home. As far as Maya was concerned, she didn't even have a home anymore. Her family was no longer part of her. Although she hadn't stopped loving them, she wasn't broken enough to recognize there was no going back.