Page 15

Damn! This woman was brave.

Most captives in her situation would be hysterical right now, but not her.

There was no real panic in her eyes.

Just relief and gratitude that she was getting the hell out of here.

I reached into my pack for a metal cutting tool.

“How can you see what you’re doing?” she asked. “I can’t even see you.”

“Night vision goggles,” I explained as I worked on the metal around her ankle. “How did you get that injury to your head? It must be recent. It’s still bleeding.”

The damn cuff on her ankle was tight, much tighter than it needed to be to keep her confined.

It made me wish all over again that I could exterminate her fucking captors.

Jenna put her hand to her head, her expression still a little dazed. “I tried to escape tonight. The guy who caught me clocked me on the head with his gun.”

“Rescue was on the way,” I said irritably, annoyed that she’d gone through that experience and that injury for nothing.

“I didn’t know someone was coming for me,” she said in a rational whisper. “They were going to take me to South America in the morning. I had to try to escape.”

Yeah, if that was her situation, she had a point.

Christ! I wasn’t angry with her for trying to escape. I just hated the fact that she’d been hurt when we were already on the way.

I reached into my pack, grabbed a large piece of gauze, and wrapped Jenna’s hand around it once I’d opened it because she couldn’t see.

“It’s gauze. Put pressure on your head injury,” I instructed.

She took it and pressed it to the laceration on her head.

“When in the hell did the Mexican and South American cartels start trading trafficking victims?” Seth growled.

“They don’t,” Marshall said in a troubled tone. “It must be a customer in South America. If that’s the case, I can’t blame her for trying to escape.”

I didn’t, either.

“I would have tried the same thing if I knew I was being shipped out,” I told Jenna, hating myself for snapping at her earlier about her attempted escape.

She’d been an abused and very desperate captive.

Fuck! That’s why I never volunteered to pull the victim out. I sucked at saying the right things to them.

Trying to escape a cartel was brave as hell, especially when she had all the disadvantages.

“I waited until I was alone with my captor,” she explained quietly as she sat up and wrapped the emergency blanket tighter around her body with her free hand. “He was bringing me back from the house. I practiced MMA for a few years. I broke his nose and injured his knee, but he screamed so loudly that the guys in the house heard him. One of them caught up with me as I headed toward the coast. I don’t remember much after that. Once they hit me on the head, I was out. I woke up for the first time when you called my name just now.”

I opened my mouth to tell her that I knew she’d studied MMA for self-defense but then closed it again. Now probably wasn’t the time to tell her that I knew a lot about her because I’d memorized her life story from her file.

It also probably wasn’t a good time to tell her that she would have been hard-pressed to reach the coast in her condition.

These bastards had taken her pretty far inland.

I tossed the chain and the cuff aside as soon as I freed Jenna. “We need to get you to a hospital,” I told her.

“I’m sending the helicopter closer,” Marshall said grimly. “Heads up. The assholes in the house could hear the chopper if anyone is awake. Nate, you take the lead. Gage and Seth can watch your sixes.”