They eased forward, every step careful in the thick grass. Alena’s pulse kept time with the crunch of gravel under her boots, her gaze sweeping the shadows.
The barn loomed larger, its sagging frame dark against the bright sky. Alena shifted her binoculars again, scanning past the broken doorframe. That’s when she spotted it. A car tucked behind the barn, half hidden by weeds.
She tapped Cal’s arm and pointed. He gave a sharp nod, and they all crouched lower, closing the distance. The car sat still, its windows blank. No movement inside. If Melissa hadbeen in that car, she wasn’t anymore unless she was in the trunk. Not exactly a comforting thought.
They crept closer, guns up, the barn only yards away now. That’s when Alena froze again. A low, tinny murmur drifted through the air. Voices.
She held up a hand, straining to listen.
At first the words blurred together, muffled and distorted. She thought someone was talking inside the trailer. Her stomach clenched tight.
But then she recognized the static, the clipped tones. It wasn’t a conversation at all.
It was a radio.
Cal crouched low and mouthed for them to cover him. Alena nodded, her gun steady in her hands as she scanned the weeds and trees, every nerve stretched tight. Raines and Miller mirrored her, weapons ready, eyes cutting over the ground for any sign of movement.
The radio kept droning from the trailer, garbled voices blending with bursts of static. Alena silently cursed it. The noise masked everything else, leaving her half blind to whatever danger might be closing in. She wanted to hear footsteps, whispers, the scrape of a weapon being raised. Instead she got the chatter of strangers on a frequency that didn’t matter.
Cal slid to the side of the trailer, moving like a shadow. He lifted just enough to peer through the narrow window, then ducked back down. His eyes locked on hers across the distance. He mouthed two words.Melissa’s inside.
Her heart slammed into her ribs.
Cal’s hands shaped another message.No one else.
Alena’s breath came fast and shallow. She wanted to believe it, but instinct told her this was too easy. Still, when Raines flicked two fingers in a sharp signal to move, she tightened her grip on her weapon and prepared to follow.
The real fight might be waiting just beyond that trailer door.
Raines reached for the latch, his hand steady, his voice low. “Not locked.” He touched the handle.
And then Alena saw the glint of thin wire just above the frame. “Stop,” she hissed. “Don’t move it.”
Raines froze. Alena crouched, following the line of the wire with her eyes. It disappeared into the frame, hidden under the cheap aluminum siding. Her pulse thudded. “It’s rigged. Could be explosives, could just be an alarm. Either way, you open that door, we’ll have more than Melissa’s captor on our hands.”
Raines swore under his breath and eased back.
Cal was already moving. He slipped to the side of the trailer and went back to the window he’d scouted earlier. His knife flicked open, and he worked it against the flimsy seal until the glass gave with a soft snap.
“Easy,” Alena whispered, her chest tight. She scanned the frame for more wires, her breath held. Cal did the same, running his fingers along the sill before he lifted it higher. No tripwire. No trigger. Just an open way in.
He tested the frame once more, then shifted his gun to his shoulder holster. With a controlled breath, he swung his leg up and started to climb through the window.
Alena gripped her gun tighter, every muscle coiled. One wrong move, and the whole place could blow.
Cal folded through the window and hit the trailer floor hard, boots thudding on a warped table. He swore, half a breath, then was already moving toward the tiny bathroom. Alena didn’t wait. She dropped through the opening right behind him and swept the cramped space with her eyes.
Melissa was on the floor by the little dinette, hands bound behind her back, legs lashed together at the ankles. A piece of duct tape covered her mouth. Her eyes were wild and wet;she was shaking her head so hard her hair skimmed the dusty linoleum. She was trying to speak, to say something, but the gag muffled it into frantic, meaningless sounds.
Alena’s mouth went dry. Her fingers went for the duct tape before her brain fully caught up. Cal was already there, working fast, tearing at the bindings with a blade. Melissa’s eyes met his, relief and terror in the same look.
Then Alena saw it. Taped to the underside of the little table, a crudely made timer with wires curling into a cluster of wrapped canisters. The LED readout was bright and obscene in the dim trailer light.
Forty-two seconds.
Cal’s eyes locked on the timer, then on Melissa’s wide, panicked gaze. There wasn’t time to undo knots or worry about finesse. He hooked his arms under her and hauled her up, ignoring her muffled protests.
“Go!” he barked, shoving her toward the window.
