If he got her in there, she knew she was dead. Just like Evelyn Morgan. Dragging her feet, she struggled to summon up mental energy. As he yanked the car door open, she sucked in her will and hit him with as large a bolt of power as she could muster on her own.
He staggered back.
“What the hell?”
Instead of replying, she ran. She got partway across the parkingpad when the kidnapper caught up with her and clamped a hand on her arm.
As she tried to summon another energy bolt, he slapped her across the face so hard that she almost blacked out.
Falling toward the ground, she felt him catch her under the arms and drag her toward the car. By the time they reached it, she had recovered enough to stiffen her arm and make her body rigid as he tried to push her through the door.
When he socked her between the shoulder blades, she lost her grip on the doorframe and fell into the backseat, but she wasn’t going to give up yet.
Whipping around, she kicked out, her feet hitting him somewhere in his midsection.
“Bitch,” he growled in anger, coming at her again, but her head had cleared enough for her to gather some strength to send another feeble blast at him.
Probably it wasn’t much worse than a bee sting, but as it struck him, his curse filled the car’s interior.
“What the hell are you doing?”
She didn’t waste energy answering.
But he apparently was too incensed now to think clearly. He lunged at her, coming down on top of her, closing his hands around her throat.
She tried to drag in a breath, but there was nothing there. Panic gripped her. Spots danced behind her eyes as she struggled to hold on to consciousness. Was this how it would end?
Smithson cursed, eased up on the pressure.
“Got to question you,” he growled as though reminding himself that he couldn’t kill her.
Her moan almost drowned out a sound that came to her from far away. Tires on gravel.
And inside her head, Jake’s desperate question.
Rachel, Rachel, oh Lord, Rachel.
She tried to answer, but her brain was too fogged.
Jake’s feet made the gravel fly as he charged toward them.
But apparently her attacker figured out it wasn’t just the woman and him anymore. He lurched out of the car, going for the gun he had stuck in the waistband of his jeans.
With Smithson’s hands gone from her throat, Rachel dragged in a breath. Even as she started coughing, she kicked his hand, sending the gun flying into the gravel parking lot.
The guy cursed, but now Rachel’s attention was on Jake, as his eyes flashed to her.
Can you help me?
Yes.
Everything happened very fast then.
Jake didn’t have to tell her what to do. Still coughing, she let him direct the process, feeling a ball of power form in his mind. Even in her weakened state, she was able to add to it, feeling it grow and build. Jake flung it from him, slamming it into the man who had tried to kidnap her.
He staggered back, hitting the wall of the cabin, and she climbed out of the car as Jake launched another blast of energy that propelled Smithson backward through the doorway.
Jake leaped forward, grabbing the assailant by the collar, hauling him up and slamming a fist into his face, and she knew that he’d needed the physical impact, not just the mental one.
