She was severely weakened by all she’d been forced to endure. For all she’d been made to heal. Even now she didn’t know where she’d found the strength or the will to make her escape when the opportunity had presented itself.
But now she’d run out of strength. She had nothing else left. No reserves. And her resolve was faltering just as everything else had done.
Closing her eyes, she tried to find some solace. Some measure of peace.
She missed her sister, Shea. Ached for the comfort of her touch. The brush of her mind and the image of her smile. She hadn’t ever really understood and hadn’t ever taken Shea’s decision for them to separate seriously. Until the day she’d been captured, and she realized that if they’d been together, they would have both been taken.
Shea had always been determined to keep Grace safe, but now, Grace was equally determined to keep Shea as far away from her as possible. Grace was hunted. She knew her pursuers were probably in these mountains already. They could be a short distance away.
And so she’d slammed the door shut on her sister, and the void hurt every bit as much as the bombardment of sickness and pain she’d absorbed. Not having Shea there was the worst sort of loneliness. She’d severed the telepathic link between her and her sister, and her worst fear was that it was permanent. She’d never get it back.
In a way, she supposed it would be a blessing. If she lost her abilities, she could have a normal life. But so would she lose the ability to make a difference in someone else’s life.
She closed her eyes, exhausted by the weight of responsibility, sorrow and regret. She hated that she wasn’t stronger, that she’d crumbled under so much stress. But the ailments had been thrown at her, one after another. Broken bones, horrible bloody wounds, tumors, diseases, and the list went on and on. The most horrific experiment she’d undergone was when it had been demanded of her to reach inside the mind of a woman with a mental illness and heal her.
For three long d
She was hungry, but the thought of food made her stomach twist into knots. She drank water from nearby streams frequently, because she knew she had to do something to keep her strength up. And no matter that she bore the knowledge that she would likely die, she couldn’t bring herself to simply give up. Not yet.
Quietly, she turned over, rearranging the blanket in the fruitless hope she’d somehow find greater warmth. Eventually she’d have to reach out to her sister, but if she did so now, Shea would see the horrific shape Grace was in. Shea would come. She’d put herself in grave danger. Grace would never be able to live with herself if Shea was sacrificed because in a moment of weakness Grace gave in and tried to reestablish the link with her sister.
Silent tears slid down Grace’s cheeks, briefly warming her skin until the chilly air turned them to ice. She angrily scrubbed them away and hunched lower, furious with herself for allowing despair to control her.
She was stronger than this, and she’d be strong again. She just needed time to recover from her ordeal. Maybe she’d never be the same as she had been, but she wasn’t going to give in. If she died, she’d die running. She’d die standing up and fighting. She refused to die in some laboratory where rats were treated with less disdain.
A distant sound froze her to the bone. She went so still that even her breath sounded like a roar in the night. She pushed the blanket over her mouth, trying to quell the noise, and she stared into the trees, trying desperately to see through the thick curtain of night.
Someone was coming.
THEY crawled through the mountains under the cover of dark. Rio knew they were close. They’d been closing in on Grace for days now, but somehow she’d managed to elude them just when he was sure they’d come upon her.
He adjusted his pack, slipped on the infrared goggles and scanned the area ahead, looking for anything giving off a heat signal.
There were several smaller forms. Animals. Even a larger shape that must have been an elk or a deer. Nothing that resembled a human, though.
He’d given orders for strict radio silence. They weren’t the only ones who sought Grace. But he was determined to get to her first. His gut told him they needed to catch up to her before dawn. The hairs on his nape rose and apprehension slipped down his spine. It wasn’t that he feared confrontation. In truth, he’d savor killing the bastards who’d made Grace and Shea’s life hell over the last year.
It was the knowledge that she was in danger and that he and his men needed to end this game of cat and mouse.
Beside him, Terrence, his right hand, melted into the dark just a few feet away. Rio continued a path farther up the mountain. There were any number of nooks and crannies a small woman could hide in, and so he carefully scanned the area, looking for any heat source.
Where are you, Grace? I know you’re here. I can feel you.
And it was true. There was a distinct prickle, the same awareness he’d experienced the first time he’d seen her on the surveillance footage. The last time anyone had seen her before she’d disappeared.
Het G="1em">2019;d known beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would be the one to go after her and bring her back to her sister. Safe and alive.
Since that time, he’d tracked her movements with uncanny accuracy. He and his men hadn’t left a stone unturned in their search for her. They’d gone back to the house where she’d last been seen and had broadened their search from there.
It had taken weeks, but now they were following a lead into the mountains of Colorado, and Rio was sure they were close. His gut was screaming, and he never ignored his gut. It had kept him alive more times than he could count.