Page 33 of Protecting Kelli
The commander looked at his watch. “Wheels up in three hours. Go home, kiss your women and kids, and meet back here at eighteen hundred.”
“I’ll stay here and call Tex,” Smiley volunteered. “Since I’m the only single one. I’ll also research the area where Flash disappeared. Get the lay of the land. He and this Kelli woman are being heldsomewhere, I’ll see if I cancome up with possibilities. And if they aren’t alive…” His voice trailed off.
“He’s alive,” Kevlar said, his voice thick with emotion. “I don’t know what happened, but if a woman was taken with him, my guess is that he would’ve done everything they asked of him, just to keep her safe. To bide his time. I’m guessing they’ve been stashed somewhere, and it’ll be up to us to find them. No Tex. No trackers. Just some good old-fashioned detective work. Which is fine—we’re more than hired muscle. We’re smart. We can do this. We get our brother back.”
“Hooyah!” all six of the other men yelled…their commander included.
“That’s it. Right there, don’t move,” Flash told Kelli.
They were kneeling on the metal floor of the bus and he was attempting to light the candle. Kelli was still terrified, but now that they had some sort of goal, something todo, she felt a little better.
Flash had taken apart the nonfunctioning radio and, while she couldn’t see him, she could hear him grunting, muttering under his breath, and swearing when something didn’t go the way he’d hoped. He also gave her a running commentary of what he was doing while he was doing it, which she liked…since she couldn’t see him.
Currently he had the wires of the radio exposed, the batteries out, and was going to attempt to make some sparks that maybe, just maybe, they could use to light the candle. They were using the padding from the Band-Aid to hopefully catch the sparks, which would in turn light thepadding on fire, and they could use that to then light the wick. It was her job to hold the Band-Aid close enough to the battery for the sparks to take hold, which was made more difficult by the complete darkness.
She could only hold the Band-Aid still where Flash directed and hope his plan for light worked.
Her hands shook, with both fear and nervousness, but she was very glad that Flash was letting her help. If he’d had her sit off to the side and do nothing, it would’ve hurt her feelings. Which was stupid, because she was definitely out of her element here and this was what Flash did for a living. Well, not really, but he had more experience at being held captive than she did.
The fact that he saw her as an asset and not a liability meant a lot. No, it meanteverything. He didn’t treat her as if she was stupid or “less than.” They were a team. Partners. And that made her feel so much better about the situation.
“All right, here we go. Ready?”
“Ready,” Kelli confirmed, trying to control the shaking of her hands.
The spark that was created when Flash touched the wire to the battery almost hurt her eyes. Going from pitch blackness to that quick flash of light was startling.
“Holy shit, it worked!” Flash said a moment later, giddiness in his tone. “Scoot closer, Kelli, hold that bandage as close as you can.”
Doing as he asked, keeping her gaze where she thought she’d seen the spark, Kelli pressed her lips together in determination. This had to work. Ithadto.
“Here we go,” he warned.
Kelli was a split-second too late trying to catch thespark on the tiny piece of gauze. They did it again and again, and Kelli missed the spark every time.
After what seemed like the hundredth time, she let out a defeated breath and sat back. “It’s no use. I can’t do it.”
She wanted to cry. She’d been so hopeful that they’d be able to have some sort of light, but it was just too hard to try to catch that tiny spark, get it to land exactly where she needed it, on the miniscule piece of gauze from the Band-Aid.
Tears sprang to her eyes, but it didn’t make her vision go watery because she couldn’t see a damn thing.
“I can’t do it,” she repeated. “I’m sorry. How much air is down here, anyway?” she asked out of the blue. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
She heard Flash shuffle, and then his hands were on her. He’d been facing her moments ago, both of them huddled around the radio and the candle, but now he was sitting next to her. Before she knew what he was doing, he’d lifted her, and she was sitting on his lap.
In any other situation, she’d be pissed that a man touched her without her permission. That he’d touched her so intimately. But this was Flash. And this wasn’t any kind of normal situation.
Without a second thought, Kelli turned into him. She was sitting sideways across his lap, much like she’d been while in that tube on the river, which seemed like such a long time ago now. She leaned into him, put her arms around his shoulders and buried her face against his neck.
“I’m sorry.”
That had Kelli frowning. “For what?” she mumbled into his skin, grateful for his warmth. Surprisingly, even though they were in the rainforest and she’d been hotearlier, being buried in the ground, without the sun shining on them, had chilled her to her bones.
“For forgetting that you aren’t used to this. That you aren’t one of my teammates. That you have to be terrified. I think I forgot because you’ve been doing so well. You haven’t lost your cool even once.”
“Inside, I’m a mess,” Kelli admitted.
“And that’s why you impress me so much,” Flash reassured her. He began rocking back and forth a little, and Kelli almost moaned with how good it felt to be held. The tears she’d desperately held back rolled down her face and dripped onto his shoulder.
