“She needs—”
“I know what she needs, Doctor Winters,” the man said the word “doctor” like it was a curse, like Winters was the vilest creature crawling across this planet.
A wave of dizziness crashed over Caroline. Her head swam with thousands of blurring lights and sound roared in her ears. Her heart raced as she balled her hands into fists. She clutched the smooth cotton material of the man’s shirt in an attempt to anchor herself to the present moment
The man cursed. “Her heart’s beating too fast. She needs something to slow down.”
Caroline moaned, her entire body shaking like a leaf. How could he know how fast her heart was beating?
“If I give her a sedative, it will just knock her out again.”
Fear jolted her vocal cords into action, “no.” She put all of her energy into forcing that one word out, and even then it sounded weak and willowy.
“Did you intentionally harm her?” The man’s anger wrapped around her, coursed through her. Stiff muscles rippled beneath her.
“No—” there was hesitation this time in Dr. Winters’s usually steady voice, “—she’ll need to rest when the adrenaline surge wears off, but her body can handle the drugs. I promise. She can—”
“That’s all I need to know. Now, I need some protection on the way out, andyouare going to be that protection.”
The world dipped and rocked as the man walked across the laboratory floor. Hanging upside down over his back, she could only make out a blurry image of their legs, but she saw enough to know that Dr. Winters was a shield in front of them.
Who was he? How had he found her? Oh, her father must be so worried about her. And Celine—where were her friends? They had all been kidnapped together, but she hadn’t seen her and . . . And . . . Caroline fought to recall just how long she’d been gone, but she had no idea.
They’d kept her drugged. Done things to her that she didn’t remember or understand. Celine, the music, oh God, the music. It played over and over in her mind.Sweet Caroline, do, do, do. She jammed her palms into her temples, trying to block out the nauseating sound.
It had been playing the last time she remembered waking up. She’d been too weak to move, to speak. All she remembered was that song and the general’s large, square-shaped hand trailing down her cheek.
The man ripped around the corner, the sharp jolt of movement sending the blood rushing to her head. She blacked out for a moment but quickly regained consciousness.
The tiles blurred beneath her as the man raced down the hallway. She bounced uselessly off his back, but for some reason she didn’t have any doubt he was strong enough to carry her out without her help.
She didn’t need to look to know Dr. Winters was plodding along in front of them. She could hear the steady staccato of her heelsclick-click-clicking down the tiled hallway. Every jostle, every shift in the man’s body sent a fresh wave of blood pounding into her head until her brain felt like a giant pressure bomb swishing around inside her skull.
The blood that had pounded in her ears earlier shifted mercilessly into a dull, sharp-edged roar like a saw cutting through a thick board. God, this shouldn’t hurt so bad. It shouldn’t be so painful.
Click-click-click.She swayed, strung out and helpless. She had awoken to this terrible reality, not knowing where she was or who had her, only that she needed to get out. And now this man, this warrior, had rescued her like she was some modern-day princess.
Amidst the pain and the sensations flooding her psyche, Caroline was aware of every inch of hard-packed muscle shifting under her tummy. He was so strong, her avenging angel.
Click-click-click. God she hated that sound. It rattled through her head, and memories starting surfacing from her foggy past. How her eyelids had always felt like someone had tied ten-ton weights to them. Paralyzing terror had pinned her to her gurney as she screamed and screamed in her head, not strong enough to open up her mouth.
All the while, Dr. Winters’s bespectacled face had floated above hers, studying her reactions, staring at her as if she were a lab rat.
She remembered seeing the doctor inject her with IVs. But even more gruesome, she remembered the long red tube running from her left arm and the huge bag filling with her blood. They’d leeched her; they’d taken her blood without asking, forcing her to give up part of herself that she’d never wanted to give.
Click-click-click.
Caroline shoved her palms into her temples, trying to stanch out the piercing pain in her head. She wanted to scream at Winters to take off her shoes, but she was too busy fighting back vomit.
Suddenly, heavy, pounding footsteps rushed up from behind them. Men shouted. Gunshots erupted. Her world tilted, and then she was on the ground with her savior crouched in front of her, firing off rounds like a machine. Unflinching and unblinking, he just reacted. Pop. Pop. Pop. The hallway had become a war zone, full of unbearable noise as bullets blasted apart the walls.
She heard the crinkle of material and tilted her head to see Winters curling up into a tiny ball a few feet behind them.
Her warrior never stopped or even paused as he returned fire. Not one bullet had pierced Caroline’s flesh, yet each and every one of the men who’d followed them dropped like flies.
“Caroline, are you all right?”
Caroline kept her hands cupped over her ears and blinked up at him, mute. Was she all right? She didn’t know. They had used her as a damn permanent blood donor against her will, and now her skin felt like it was on fire, her head screamed with pain, and her heart was pistoning in her chest like it had been fueled with nitrous oxide.
