Page 49 of Rogue Survivor
The shot whizzes by my ear—close enough I can feel the stir of the air—and when I turn, Connor crumples to the ground, blood streaming from his temple.
My skull explodes in pain, and tears burn my eyes. “Connor…”
Voices surround me, the shadows closing in, stealing the light until I can’t tell where I am anymore. I’m falling, and the man I love isn’t here to catch me. But the real agony? Knowing I’m leaving my daughter all alone.
Chapter Nineteen
Isabel
My fingers are numb.Lifting my head is too hard, and I groan softly. The sound echoes. I try to move my arms, but something hard digs into my wrists as metal clinks close to my ear.
Where am I? Nothing smells right. Feels right. The air is musty and stale, the floor smooth under my cheek.
The ambush. Luke with a gun. Connor’s shout. Then the shot. He wasn’t moving. All that blood. A sob tears from my throat, and the effort makes the hammer currently pounding against my skull beat a thousand times harder. He’s dead…because of me.
Everything’s blurry, and I blink hard several times until the swirls of the marble floor tiles come into focus. Movement in my periphery makes me whimper, and I try to shrink back, but everything starts to spin, and I let myself go limp.
“Mrs. Lopez?”
Mitzi? Oh, God. I’m with Mitzi.
Slowly, carefully, I turn my head towards the sound of her voice. Her hands are cuffed to bars that run from the floor to the ceiling, and I’m so confused until she whispers, “We’re in an old bank vault. Don’t scream. Please. If Reggie hears you, it’ll be bad.”
Shit. She’s shaking, but wraps her hands around the cuffs so they don’t rattle. A bruise darkens her right eye, clearly from more than two days ago since it’s already turning a sickly yellow. Fast food wrappers and crumpled drink containers surround her, and her peach Austin Academy sweatshirt is stained with dirt and a few drops of blood.
Beyond the bars, a large, circular door is partly open, and a single shaft of sunlight spills in. The walls I can see are nothing but safe deposit boxes, all locked, and recessed lights in the ceiling chase the shadows away.
“Are you okay?” I ask, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. “Did they hurt you?”
She shakes her head. “Is V safe? Reggie won’t stop looking for her, Mrs. Lopez. And he’ll kill all of us once he has her. He comes a couple of times a day and asks me where else to look, and I can’t…he’ll make you tell him…”
“Shhh. He won’t, sweetheart. I’ll die before I tell him where she is. But…we have to find a way out of here.”
The room isn’t spinning as badly as it was, so I wriggle until I can press my hands to the marble floor and push myself to sitting. Mitzi’s all the way in the opposite corner of the vault—a good twenty feet away—so I can’t wrap my arms around her and tell her it’ll all be okay.
Not that it will. The cuffs are so tight, they dig into my wrists, and I hear voices outside—too far away to make out what they’re saying. We’re trapped here.
“I counted four of them.”
And that didn’t include Luke. So five men, at least. Maybe six, since I doubt Reggie would have risked his own life to get me.
Find something you can use as a weapon.
My keys were in my purse. I’m not wearing any jewelry other than the tiny gold hoops I never take off. I’m still fully clothed—thank God—but my pockets are empty.
Mitzi stares past me, her eyes widening. “He’s moving! I thought he was dead.”
He?
Connor!
A soft, muffled groan has my heart leaping into my throat, and I scramble to turn around. “Connor, thank God.” He’s against the wall, eyes closed, his wrists locked to the last bar in the room. Blood covers the whole left side of his face, still tacky and glistening. Trails of crimson snake across his forehead, down his nose, and into his eyes. He’s close enough I can stretch my leg out and nudge his hip with my foot. “Wake up, stud. I need you.Weneed you.”
He jerks his hands, and the cuffs rattle loudly. “Wh—Fuuuuuuck.”
“Connor? Open your eyes. Please…”
“Head…” he murmurs. The muscles of his neck cord and strain with the effort of moving even an inch, and it takes him half a dozen tries before he can rake his fingers over the blood covering his lids. One eye opens to a slit, then almost immediately closes. “Isa…”
