Page 84 of Her Captivated Hero

“That wasn’t logical,” she grimaced. “What’s worse, if everything had gone perfectly, you would say that because things had gone perfectly, now was the time that something would go wrong.”

He had the good grace to look sheepish. She laughed, and it fogged the inside of her mask.

Gray looked serious, “How much time do they have to live?”

“There’s a child, right?”

“A twelve-year-old girl.”

“She probably has ten hours max. Using only portable equipment, it’s going to take me five to six hours to get the antitoxin developed, and then she’ll need to be injected and have at least one to two hours for it to flow through her bloodstream. Gray, this is like meningitis. Even if she doesn’t die, she can end up deaf or with brain damage.”

She paused and took a deep breath.

“Gray, there just isn’t any time to spare.”

He nodded. “Do your thing, Buttercup.”

* * *

As Gray watchedher go through the inner door of the containment room, he turned on Wyatt.

“She can’t hear us, right?”

“Not if we talk softly. The air hisses pretty loudly in that space suit of hers.”

“Okay, then everybody speak softly.” He turned to Hunter. “Where the fuck is Griffin Porter?” He was caught between concern for his team member and batshit terror for Riya.

“Griff is chasing down the guy who rappelled off the side of the roof, I was left with the canister and corpses.”

“Three guys for one canister? That makes no sense,” Gray said.

“Actually there were four. It was definitely overkill. Griff got his mic and receiver ripped off during the fight.” Hunter fished out the broken pieces of Griff’s equipment and held it up for show.

“Fuck me running,” Gray groaned.

“He has his mobile, as soon as he has that fucker captured, he’ll call us. He knows to take him alive.”

Gray looked over his shoulder and saw Dex staring through the thick plastic. “What’s going on in there?”

“She’s got the oxygen tank open, and she’s pulled out the canister. It’s still locked shut.”

Shit, they hadn’t discussed how to open it.

“She’s got it open now,” Dex said.

Figures.

“Dex, tell me the second anything goes sideways in there, got it?”

“Roger that,” Dex agreed.

Gray turned to Hunter. “Tell me what the hell happened up on that roof. Why corpses? How did you get the canister?”

“We took the stairs to the roof. Dex’s little app is handy. We were in place when I heard the Saudis climbing up the side of the wall up to the roof. There were four of them coming up the wall to begin with. When the second to the last guy came up over the wall, he cut the line on the fourth guy. The asshole killed his buddy.”

Everybody stared at Hunter.

“It just gets weirder. They came up to the HVAC unit that is three meters from the edge of the roof. Griff’s line of sight is blocked by that big hunk of metal, so he can’t get off a shot, so he’s on the run toward us. My focus is on the fucking canister in the guy’s hand. It’s obviously been assembled, now they just have to pop that baby in the air conditioning unit and give it a few minutes and open ‘er up.”