Page 86 of Rescued

Finally, they heard Gunn’s voice.

“…picked up that fucking transponder signal yet?”

Another voice said, “It’s been too long, and we can’t raise Switch and Boomer. We’re remote activating it now.”

Boomer pulled a tracking receiver out of his vest pocket. Nothing appeared. “Fuck,” he muttered.

He switched on the mic. “Boomer here,” he said. “From cluster fuck central. Kimberly turned—repeat, Kimberly turned. She drugged Breanna, and Moreno got away with both of them. Switch is wounded but okay.”

Gunn swore. “How long ago?”

“Eight minutes,” Boomer said. “Had to get the bleeding stopped.”

“Roger that.” They heard Gunn conveying the intel to his team. “Stay there, if it’s safe. We’ll get Breanna.”

On Boomer’s device, the transponder signal sprang to life. Gunn said, “Target located. Switch, stay put. That’s an order. We got her.”

Boomer looked at Switch. “I don’t suppose you’re following Gunn’s orders?”

Switch spun up the rotors. “Fuck no. I don’t work for him.”

Chapter 36

Breanna woke up slumped in a high-backed upholstered chair—the kind you saw in the lobbies of upscale office buildings.

In fact, that’s exactly where she was. A high-end office. There was even classical music being piped in from somewhere.

And Kimberly was there with her.

Breanna raised her head, fuzzily scanning the room. No one else there. The door was closed.

“Where are we?” she said.

Kimberly said, “Quentin’s offices, in one of his factories. We’re locked in.”

But not tied up. Both of them were free. “How long was I out?” she asked.

“I don’t know!” Kimberly sounded upset. “Maybe forty-five minutes? What difference does it make?”

Forty-five minutes. That had to be long enough for the team to decide to activate the transponder on their own. Had Switch and Boomer gotten through to them? Were they even alive?

She rounded on Kimberly, her head starting to clear. “You turned on me,” she said. “Why would you do that?”

“I had to,” Kimberly said, tears filling her eyes. “Quentin made me!”

“They shot Switch,” Breanna said. “Do you hear me? They shot him! He could be dead!”

Kimberly was really crying now. “I didn’t know! I didn’t know they’d shoot him. They told me—they told me I just had to stick you with the drug. They wanted you alive. I didn’t know…”

And Kimberly hadn’t even warned her. Breanna had risked everything for her—risked Switch’s life—and this is what she got.

She tried to dredge up compassion for Kimberly, how scared she must have been. But all she could find was anger—and fear.

“You had to know what they would do to whoever was with me,” she said. “You had to!”

“I couldn’t—I didn’t think about that. I was so scared! They said if I didn’t do it they’d kill me, they’ve been hurting me…”

Kimberly was on her knees by Breanna’s chair, looking up at her with huge, frightened eyes.