“Okay, so when do we go after her?” Dex questioned.
“Now,” Isaac said impatiently. “Hell, it didn’t even look like she knew how to drive, so it’s not like it’ll be that hard to tail her. While we’re wasting time here rehashing shit that can wait, they could be on her even now.”
Zeke gave him a concerned look. “Shouldn’t you go to the ER or at least the private clinic used by DSS just to get you checked out?”
“And tell them what exactly,” Isaac said his patience fraying precariously. “That I was shot in the chest, heart and lung hit? Bled like a stuck pig and I felt myself dying and oh, by the way, my mystery woman laid hands on me and healed me? I felt the damage being repaired from the inside out. Trust me. If a doctor examined me, he’d find no evidence of a gunshot wound.”
Dex whistled. “That’s some pretty crazy shit.”
Isaac snorted. “After knowing what Ramie, Ari and Gracie can do, nothing should surprise you by now.”
“Yeah, man, but this is different,” Shadow said quietly. “She heals people. She pulled you back from the brink of death. You said it yourself. You felt yourself dying, shutting down, and yet now no one would ever know you’d even been injured at all. That goes beyond the psychic abilities our women possess.”
“Yeah,” Isaac said, blowing out his breath. “Now you’re getting it. Which is why I have to find her as soon as possible before someone else nabs her. She’s going to have a target on her back for the rest of her life. Probably always has. Makes sense to me now that I know the story and why she was trying to steal my ride, why her face was so battered and she wasn’t dressed for shit. Hell, she didn’t even have shoes, for fuck’s sake.”
Zeke’s expression blackened to the point of being murderous. “You never said some asshole had beat her up.”
Dex and Shadow’s reactions were no less volatile.
“Help me up and let’s get the fuck on the road. We’ll need to activate the tracking system on my SUV so we know where she is and how far she got, or if she’s still going.”
Though it was left unsaid, the grim expressions on their faces reflected the knowledge that she could already be in her pursuers’ hands.
THREE
“FUCK,” Isaac ground out from the passenger seat as Zeke drove and Shadow and Dex rode in the backseat of the SUV.
The men came to attention, and Zeke cast him a sideways glance. “What’s up?”
“There’s been no movement on the tracking device ever since I first got a bead on it a few minutes ago.”
Shadow shrugged. “Maybe she bedded down somewhere hiding.”
Isaac shot a look at Shadow over his shoulder. “You didn’t see her eyes, man. I’ve never seen eyes that were windows right into a person’s soul until I looked into hers. I don’t think for one minute she would stop running once she took off in my ride.”
Zeke looked pensive. “And yet she stuck around to save your sorry ass.”
Isaac sighed and rubbed a hand down the front of his face. “Yeah. She did. And why? I don’t get it. Never seen a woman that terrified in my life and it pissed me off. And yet when I told her to go, that there was no hope for me because I was fading fast, she refused. And after . . . God. Once she healed me, she was shattered because she knew she’d given up any opportunity to escape because of me.”
“Hell of a note,” Dex muttered.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Isaac growled.
Why had she saved him?
People that desperate didn’t normally think of anything but themselves and yet she risked everything, had seemed grief-stricken that he was dying.
He wanted an answer to his questions, but in order to do that, he had to find her.
“So where’s your SUV?” Shadow asked. “If it hasn’t moved then it should be easy to find, right?”
Isaac held up the transmitter but didn’t volunteer the fear that gripped his chest over what they’d find. Or wouldn’t find.
“Three miles out,” Zeke said in a low voice. “Isolated area. She had enough sense to at least get to a secluded spot.”
“Hell, I doubt she knew where the hell she was going,” Isaac bit out. “She didn’t even look like she knew how to drive, or was even old enough to drive for that matter.”
“What did she look like?” Shadow asked curiously.
“Like an angel,” Isaac murmured. “A bloodied, bruised, beautiful angel. Bluest eyes I’ve ever seen and long, pale blond curly hair. Hell, maybe I hallucinated the entire thing and I’m just crazy as fuck.”
“You didn’t imagine being shot or us finding you lying in a pool of your own blood,” Dex growled.
“Just ahead,” Zeke said in a grim voice.
At his statement, the men drew their weapons. Zeke came to a halt a few moments later and they were out of the vehicle, guns drawn.
“Split off in pairs,” Isaac said. “According to the tracker, it should be straight ahead, just off the road in the woods. Zeke, you’re with me. Shadow, you and Dex circle around and come in from the front.”
Shadow and Dex melted into the woods while Isaac and Zeke took the straight route to where the SUV should be located. They were barely into the woods when Isaac halted and held up his hand to Zeke, pointing to where the SUV was parked haphazardly in a large area of brush, as if she’d tried to drive straight through it. To hide.
Isaac swore, not forgetting for one moment the sheer enormity of her selflessness and her willingness to risk everything so he wasn’t lying dead in his own blood right now. There was no way in hell he was going to let her fend for herself. Once he had her in his possession, he was going to do everything in his power to get her to open up to him and he damn sure wasn’t ever going to let her take that kind of risk again.
He crept stealthily toward the vehicle, Zeke taking his six. When he peered into the front seat, his heart sank and his pulse ratcheted up. God damn it. Had they gotten to her? Then he peered into the backseat and his knees went weak with relief. Until he got a full view of her.
She was curled into a tight, protective ball and even in sleep—and she looked completely wiped—there were deep lines in her forehead and she twitched and made whimpering noises. Or was she unconscious?
Had he done this to her? Had saving his life made her so helpless that she was incapable of defending herself?
And then he softened in places he didn’t think he had the capability to ever be soft in when he saw the tracks of silent tears sliding down her cheeks.
Zeke was no less affected and muttered a grim, “Fuck. What are we going to do, Isaac?”
“She goes with me,” Isaac said in a tone that brooked no argument. “No way I’m leaving her to those assholes. God only knows what was done to her before she managed to escape.”
Zeke’s expression became thunderous. “We should put a team on her so she has twenty-four-hour protection.”
“She goes with me,” Isaac snarled.