A flickering shadow, and the sky fell. The ground swung up and smacked her hard, knocking her breathless.
When she focused again, she saw a woman in dark camo shoving a hypodermic needle into Hannah’s throat.
Caro lunged to stop her. The woman held her back with startling ease, barely reacting to Caro’s frantic clawing. She was supernaturally strong. A modified supersoldier.
Useless to struggle, but Caro couldn’t stop. The woman jerked her around and slammed her to the ground, fastening her arms behind her with zip ties.
The she-beast dragged her backwards toward the house by her arms, wrenching brutally hard. Caro scrambled to keep her feet beneath herself.
Noah burst out of the trees. His visor was up, showing the glowing amber of his eyes. That split second that their eyes met pierced through her panic, and touched her depths. She knew he’d do anything to save her. Sacrifice anything. Everything.
She felt it, with a wild, screaming intensity. Everything that they were about to lose. How beautiful it was, how precious. How fragile.
He raised his gun, and took aim.
Caro lurched to the side as the gunshot sounded. The woman who held her jerked sharply, but didn’t release her grip. She kept moving. Noah slowed to aim again—and two flashing silver things swooped into her vision, hovering.
Noah swung his gun up and shot one of them right out of the sky. Small, shining pieces flew—
Suddenly, Noah stopped, staggered . . . and then collapsed.
Caro screamed, twisting in the woman’s hard grip. She could just barely see another man running toward the spot where Noah had fallen before she was dragged around the corner of the house. Noah was lost to sight.
She went wild, screaming, flailing. Something hit her head. Darkness. Excruciating pain.
She came to on a floor somewhere . . . and she wished she hadn’t.
Asa lay on his belly near her on a bloodsmeared floor. The cords in his neck strained as he lifted his head. His hands were cuffed behind him, and the slave soldier she’d identified as Brenner sat on top of him.
Both of Asa’s security men lay still and silent. One lay just a few feet from them, a dart piercing his chest. Another one lay close to the entrance.
Another man, maybe Mark’s, was sprawled on the ground, a bullet hole between his eyes. Brain tissue was spread out on the floor behind his head in a splattered pinkish fan.
Asa’s eyes met hers asking a silent question. She replied with a tiny shake of her head, still half deaf from the blow to her head.
His lips pulled back from his teeth in a hiss of dismay. No help on the way.
The toe of a heavy black boot nudged her face, forcing her to look up.
Mark’s unshielded eyes had an eerie glow, like arctic ice.
He grinned. His teeth seemed unnaturally white and sharp.
“Caroline,” he said. “Finally.”
Chapter 33
Noah heard sounds in the vast emptiness. Faraway, tinny. He latched onto the faint stimulus, using it to drag himself up. Toward consciousness.
Closer. His battlefield processor assessed his condition while random images and thoughts pinged wildly around like an insane pinball machine.
Caro, Hannah, Zade, Asa, Sisko. Counting on you. Wake . . . the fuck . . . up!
Couldn’t do it. Sedated. Massive dose.
He forced his brain to rev up, enduring the pain. Neuron by neuron. Hurt like a bastard. He kept his eyes closed, hoping nobody was measuring his brain waves, or looking at his sig.
His own fault, thinking he could outwit Mark. The guy had more than a decade of evil deeds on him. Dickbrain stupid to assume that Mark had only unmods to back him up. He’d dug up some slave soldiers even without Lydia’s safe.
He tried to move a little, willing whoever was watching not to notice. His hand tried to obey. Nothing. Like shoving a truckload of bricks.
Noah felt himself hoisted, then dragged. His legs trailed behind him, limp and helpless, scraping over rocks, dirt, dead branches. Caro. Hannah.
Hannah, lying still on the ground. Caro, dragged away screaming. No. Stop.
He pushed the terrifying images away, reminding himself of what he had to do.
Remember how to fucking move.
The slave soldier heaved Noah into the back of the truck and started to pull Noah’s body armor and weapons off. All of it, right down to the briefs.
OK. Robots had their reasons.
He was hoisted into a black case lined with metal, chilly against his bare skin. They used cases like that at Midlands. Designed for the transport of modified humans. The flat, dead-eyed face of the slave soldier gazed down at him without curiosity.
The heavy lid thudded shut, swallowing him and the light.
But darkness was relative for him. He could still see with his infrared. He used his combat program to reassess his physical condition. He was metabolizing the drug quickly, but not fast enough.