Chapter 26 #2
“Mae! Michaela, baby, open your eyes. Fuck, please open your eyes.”
Mm. He must be trying to wake her up for breakfast. She loved when he would buy her a warm doughnut…
“Open your eyes and you can have all the doughnuts you want, beautiful. Just come back to me, okay? You’re safe now, baby. You’re safe. He won’t touch you again. Please just open your eyes and come back to me.”
Please just open your eyes and come back to me. She’d said that to Stone in the hospital. Her mind felt so heavy, wanting to keep her in the safety of the darkness she’d forced to consume her mind. But something about those words made her want to seek the light…
“Please, Mae. Come back to me.”
It hadn’t taken long to get the all-clear from Jake, but coordinating things between Max’s team and the local FBI agency out of Oklahoma City had been a logistical nightmare.
After an hour of back and forth bureaucratic bullshit on the phone, Sebastian and Max made the call to get on the road.
An hour before the team arrived, they’d finally received confirmation of the location where they believed the three women were being held.
Stone sat silent, praying the entire way that Mae was in that building. Because if she wasn’t… if she wasn’t one of the women they were going to rescue…if she wasn’t in the place where the only lead had brought them to… he couldn’t imagine how he would go on.
“We’ll walk in from here. Everyone be on alert. We don’t know what kind of security measures he has in place here. The only goal for our team is to find the women and get them out safely,” Cap instructed. “Let Max and his team worry about Caulleau and whoever else is there helping him.”
The group nodded. Snow crunched under their boots. The air was crisp, clear, and Stone could smell the ice in it. His eyes scanned the horizon before turning back to Hawk who was his partner for the extraction. Hawk nodded, and they moved forward.
A scream sent birds flying out of the trees, and Stone took off. They were outside. Or, at least, one of the women was. He needed to find them. It didn't sound like Mae…
Bright blonde hair came into view, splayed out against the white snow.
Jessie.
She was writhing and lashing out, trying to fight off a man who had her pinned down by her hips. Hawk surged forward, but Stone held out his hand, stopping him.
You take the left side. I’ll take the right.
A single nod from Hawk was all he needed. They moved as one, closing the distance in a heart beat. And before the man even knew what was happening, Hawk’s arm was wrapped around his neck, choking him into submission.
Over the comms, Nash’s voice rang out. “Wings and Reaper. Target three acquired. No assailant.”
They’d found Lo. Stone reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of zip-ties, taking only ten seconds to hogtie the fucker up, leaving him unconscious on the ground.
“Phoenix and Doc. Target two acquired.” Stone communicated over the headset.
“Jessie.” Hawk dropped to his knees, scooping her up out of the snow. “Thank God. Are you hurt? Did that fucker hurt you?”
She nuzzled down into his chest, her head shaking back and forth. And then her eyes bounced to Stone, who was now on the ground, rifling through his pack to get her a warming kit.
“He has her. I… she screamed for me to run. I was just trying to find something to hit him with. B-But he dragged her back.”
Stone’s stomach flipped as he tossed the medical package at Hawk. “Around that side of the building?”
He didn’t have to wait for her answer.
“Doc. West side of the building. We’ve got Mae.”
“How many guys were here?” he asked as he stood up.
“Three. We took care of one inside. I… I killed him, I think.” Her face fell and Hawk took over soothing her.
Stone didn’t waste another second. He took off running, the rest of the driveway passing by underfoot.
He wanted to vomit the instant he saw the fresh marks in the snow, boot prints and a sickening trail left by someone being dragged.
“Doc!” Gage called over to him. Sebastian was standing over a body, zip tying him up the same way Stone had done not even five minutes before.
He saw the bloody face of the man who’d tried to kill him, and even though everything was screaming at him to make sure the asshole really was headed six feet underground, he couldn’t focus on anything until he knew Mae was okay.
And from how still her body was laying next to Gage. He wasn’t too late. He couldn’t be…
“She has a pulse, Doc. Her breathing’s good.”
Stone fell to his knees next to Mae, shucking his backpack onto the snow covered ground before grabbing all the warming materials he could get his fingers around.
He rushed to get a reflective blanket over her, to trap in as much remaining heat from her body as he could manage.
The goal was to get her warm, but not too quickly.
“Mae!” Stone’s hands landed on her bare arms. She was soaking wet from lying in the snow and ghostly white.
He stripped his jacket off, laying it on the ground before he gently picked her up and set her on top of it.
Fuck, her skin was like ice. And yet, she still flinched at his touch.
Because that bastard had hurt her. He wanted to put his fist through Christopher’s face a hundred times, but getting Mae out of the god forsaken frozen forest was more important.
He needed to get her to wake up. To open her eyes and slip back into consciousness. If he couldn’t rouse her… No. He wouldn’t think about that. It wasn’t an option. “Mae! Michaela, baby, open your eyes. Fuck, please open your eyes.”
Stone reached back into his rucksack, shaking free the hand warmers he’d packed. A quick snap of the activation pod inside the packaging, and heat radiated into his hands.
He stuffed one heating pack up under Mae’s left arm, then worked on getting another pack ready for her right.
“Doughnuts…” Stone’s heart nearly fell out of his chest when he heard the whisper. Her eyelids were starting to flutter.
“Open your eyes and you can have all the doughnuts you want, beautiful. Just come back to me, okay? You’re safe now, baby. You’re safe. He won’t touch you again. Please just open your eyes and come back to me.”
Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused at first, then finding their way to his face
“L-Laurel? Jessie?” she croaked.
“It’s okay. It’s okay…”
“Here with m-me. H-hurt Lo.”
“We found them. They’re okay. So let’s just focus on you right now. Are you hurt?”
Her eyes fluttered shut, and his heart nearly jumped out of his chest.
“Mae, baby, I need you to keep your eyes open.” He shoved warmers into the extra pair of wool socks before drying her feet off and sliding them into the warm material.
Then he cracked more warmers, placing them under her arms, on her belly and chest, before wrapping her up in his jacket.
It wasn’t ideal, but that should bring her body temperature back up. He needed to get her to a hospital.
“The building’s clear.” Max called out as he walked up to Sebastian. “I called in for three ambulances. Mae, you okay?”
“F-Fine. Gave them… h-hell of a t-time.”
Max smiled. “I’m sure you did.”
Her eyes went wide as she sucked in a sharp breath. “What is it?”
“Bombs… bomb… the girls…. at home.”
“It’s okay. Breathe. Just breathe. We found it in time. Everything’s going to be okay.”
That seemed to settle her, at least, until her eyes went wide and she jolted at his touch.
“What is it?”
“Is he…” Her teeth chattered, and he hated the way her skin was still so gray.
“Michaela, we took care of him. You don’t have to worry, okay? He’s not going to hurt you.”
“Doc?” Sebastian’s question was clear.
“Yeah, let’s move into the vans. We can get them warm while we wait for the ambulances.”
Stone maneuvered Mae into his arms, and held back the wince as his muscles pulled and strained while he stood off the ground with her.
“L-let Seb—”
“Absolutely not. I’m carrying you out of this nightmare.”
“I love you,” she whispered as she laid her head against his shoulder.
“I love you too.”
“I’m t-tired, Stone. I did m-my best. I tried my… hardest to… get back… t-to you.”
“You did so good, Michaela. So, so good.”
“Don’t let me go…” she whimpered, the crack in her voice shattering his heart.
“Never again, Mae. Never, ever again.”