I focus on the potato chips and the mundane task of chewing and swallowing. Not dead men. Or criminal money. Not the fact that we could have been the bodies.
They go back and forth. Some kind of military jargon.
I stop listening and concentrate on the salt on my fingers and the crunch between my teeth and the fact that I am eating potato chips. Which means Iamalive.
Ryker asks a question that catches my attention anyway.
“ETA to the safe house?”
“We land in twenty minutes, another twenty by road,” Thane replies.
“Are you refueling when you drop us?”
The pilot who hasn’t spoken yet breaks through on the headset. “We can if you need me to run another op.”
“You up for snatching one of the hunters live?” Ryker asks, a gleam in his eyes as his hands tighten on the backpack. “I’d love to really have time to interrogate one of them.”
Wait.What?
I sit up too fast, panic ripping through me. “You can’t go back there. Ryker, you’ve been drugged, you haven’t slept, you can’t?—”
All the control I had over my thoughts—weak as it was—vanishes, and I’m freaking out. Straight upfreaking.
Ready to climb on his lap and hold him down.
Thane’s expression turns concerned as he lifts a hand. “He was talking about the two of us. Don’t worry, we wouldn’t put him back in the field right now.”
Colt, the medic shifts closer, to work on the cuts on my neck from tree branches. “I’ll clean these up. Might sting.”
I nod, absently, still upset at the idea that Ryker could end up back in the field.
They resume their conversation about gathering intel as Ryker dumps the contents of the backpack from the hunter onto the floor.
“Let’s see what else this asshole was carrying,” he rumbles in the headset.
There are rifle magazines. Some kind of rope. A package of batteries and a bundle of zip ties.
My stomach turns over, my body growing tight.Zip ties.I look away. But it’s hard. I can’t get my eyes off the black plastic strips.
The helicopter banks again and a small gasp slips from my throat.
Colt’s watching me this time. “Maybe we should give you a little something for the anxiety.”
I barely notice the flat object, disturbed by the motion of the chopper sliding across the floor before it lands against my dirty tennis shoes.
I don’t really mean to look. But it catches my eyes. And everything inside mestops.
It’s a printed photograph. A woman stretched out on concrete. Her eyes are closed and her arms arranged by her sides.
That’s… that’s me.
Oh god.
Gripping the edge of my seat, I sway when the chopper dips. Or maybe it doesn’t dip, but my insides do.
“They printed a picture of me and gave it to the hunters.”
For a split second no one moves. Then Ryker explodes into motion. He snatches the photo, crumples it in his fist.
