Catch Me If You Can (Love's Command) (31 page)

His eyes grew brighter, and the smile he gave her lifted her heart. Maybe he was the solid mountain of strength she could lean on, but she was his light, and she hoped, his happiness.

He hugged her so tightly her feet left the ground. “Does this mean I don’t have to face your grandfather alone?”

She laughed then squealed happily when he spun her around before settling her down on her feet again. “You never would have, not alone,” she told him, hugging her arms around his neck one more time before letting him go.

He practically glowed with happiness.

“As soon as we get this done, I want to buy rings. Have a nice, small wedding, maybe big if you want, but soon. Right away.”

“Okay,” she said, so caught up in his happiness, nothing else came close to drawing her attention. The first shot hit her shoulder, the second, threw Daren backwards and down on the opposite side of the bed. She screamed but something hard and heavy hit her on the head, and lightning seemed to explode inside her skull. Was that possible? Black dots filled her vision. She blinked them away to see Daren’s motionless legs come into focus for one brief second, then all around her the world disappeared.

“Dare? Dare, man, you have got to stop fighting us, man.”

Daren struggled even harder. They’d come. Again. This time he wasn’t letting his team take her away. She was his. She was his…yin.

“Eagle, man, he’s coming up, he’s still out, but he’s coming up.” Eagle’s voice sounded muffled, but the hands holding him down were solid.

“Keep him down, we gotta get that bullet out,” Ace snarled. “How the hell did this happen, Tazz?”

“Just settle him, Ace. What is he talking about? Her who?” Eagle asked.

“Kylie,” Tazz ground out.

Dare shook off the hands and blinked past the pain. “Tazz, what the hell is going on? Where’s Ky?”

Eagle moved into his line of sight, blocking Tazz’s worried frown. Dare’s stomach flipped and he reached for Tazz to jerk him closer. Eagle grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“You’ve been shot, buddy, just lie back and let me get this out. Hell of a time to come to, man,” Eagle grumbled.

“Just do as he says, Dare.” Ace shifted until he could see him better. “We know where the girl is. As soon as this bullet is out, we’ll give you the intel.”

“Fuck that, I want the intel now. Where is Kylie?”

“She’s been taken. This time with the charts, drugs, the whole nine,” Tazz said.

“Tell me this wasn’t the plan from the get go. Tell me, man. Look me in the eye.”

“What the hell is he talking about?” Ace bit out, keeping him from reaching Tazz.

“I don’t know, but if you don’t settle down, I’ll shoot you full of nighty-night and you’ll see us on the flip side.”

Dare ignored Eagle, and tried to shove him off and got slammed down by Ace, Tazz and Eagle.

“This was not part of the plan, Dare,” Tazz said.

He met Tazz’s eyes for a split second then tried to get them all off. “Shit, I have to—”

“You need this bullet out, then you can go save the day. It’s been just short of an hour and the tag is still providing location,” Tazz argued.

The air left him at that, and his fight went with it. He settled back down on the bed, and drew a deep breath. Was this it? Had he lost her because he’d taken the tracker off her?

“I pulled the tag, put it on a dog.”

Ace snorted, and Tazz gave him a steady stare. “One of them, yeah, you did.” Tazz motioned for him to settle down and Dare let Eagle back in. “The other two, they’re still running.”

Relief surged up, nearly choking him. He struggled to keep the emotions down and not cry like a damn baby. Eagle took the opportunity to cut his shirt off, ripping the material all the way down to reveal a wound in the muscle of his left arm.

“Nearly an in and out, but you lucky bastard, it’s in there good. Sit up and let me get it out from the back, otherwise I’ll have to go hunting for it.” Eagle sat back and started digging out supplies, setting them near them on the bed, while Dare managed to sit back up and not fall on his face. The world grew a bit fuzzy for a minute or two, but he didn’t pass out. Ace handed him a bottle of some kind of electrolyte and he drank the sweet brew down quickly. Another was offered right after and he sipped it slower while he scanned the room. He’d fallen by the bed, and next to it, he spotted a pool of dark blood on the carpet. But there was more blood, too, on the other side of the room, on a wall.

“Whose blood?” He jerked his head at the wall and watched Tazz’s face tighten. “Are you telling me that’s Ky’s?” His heart raced to a beat that had him fighting not to stand and slug his best buddy.

“It is, but she’s fine—”

Dare tried to reach Tazz, but Eagle stopped him and Ace placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let him finish.”

“Her tag shows more than location.” Tazz pulled out a device and handed it over. “The green light means she’s good. It will fade if she is hurt, but right now it’s solid green. Before, it dipped but she’s fine now.”

“And if they figured out what you have on her, and shoved her tag down a dog’s throat?”

Tazz grinned. “Then it will go orange.”

“Enough, let me get this out, then you can deck Tazz as hard as you can, okay?” Eagle didn’t wait for him to respond, he jabbed a needle in his arm, and simply chuckled at Dare’s wince. “It’s gonna hurt, but I’ll get you patched up.”

No doubt he would. Eagle had always taken care of the team. Dare knew the man could have been a surgeon if he’d wanted to, but he’d dropped out of med school after two years and joined the Navy. Not long after, he’d become a SEAL, and had fixed them all up, no matter how dangerous the wound was.

Dare nodded at Eagle’s raised eyebrow and turned to Tazz, letting Eagle do his thing.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“I figured you’d scan her for bugs, no doubt figuring out you’d have one too.”

“Tazz, we’re supposed to be a team. A team tells—”

“There were some things you couldn’t know.” Tazz rubbed his face and turned to the side. “I needed someone at my back I could trust. Someone who could see what I saw, and prove I wasn’t losing my mind.”

Stunned, all Dare could do with that bit of information was nod.

“Damn, what kind of shit have you landed in?” Ace growled.

Dare ignored the painful digging Eagle was doing until he hit a nerve. “What the hell are you—?”

Eagle moved back into view, the bullet in his forceps. “You were saying?”

“Fuck you,” he grumbled, then winced when someone else applied pressure to the fresh wound.

“I don’t have time for this. She’s still out there, I have to—”

“You’ll be fine in an hour. The bullet’s out, you’re going to take some fluid then we’re off. You can eat on the way.” Tazz offered him another bottle.

“Wait just a minute,” Ace began.

“We don’t have a minute. The drug I gave him is in his system. He’ll heal within an hour, which is good, because an hour is all we have. She’s in the air now. We need up there after her. There’s no doubt they think they are free and clear. Now’s when we go. Dare’s not going to sit this out.”

“Shit, that drug can heal a man from this bad of a wound?” Eagle asked, clearly impressed.

“It can do a hell of a lot more,” Tazz said.

“And none of it good. Tazz is addicted. He needs to be weaned off the shit before his brain turns to mashed potatoes. Me? I took one dose twenty odd hours ago and other than feeling sore and shot, I’m still rock solid good to go, well, now I am but earlier, not so good. Put it this way, the superpowers come with a price no man in his right mind would want to pay. But for now, I’m good to go.”

“You were passed out and lost blood—” Eagle argued.

“Mashed potatoes? What the hell is this,” Ace asked, narrowing his eyes on Tazz. He pointed his index finger at him like a gun and ticked off points by stabbing him in the chest. “Your sister is getting married in twelve days. She wanted to remind you of that. She also wanted to remind you that if you don’t show, we”—he indicated the three of them, even Dare—“are supposed to wipe the floor with your ass. My wife suggested I duffle bag and tag you. Either way, you’re going to see your sister down that aisle.”

Tazz made a move to speak, but Ace took hold of his T-shirt. “Negative. No doubt about it,” Ace growled, pulling Tazz closer. “You’re going to face this head on, man. Get that through your thick skull.”

Ace released Tazz with a heavy sigh and turned to look at Daren. “One dose?”

“Yep,” Dare said, sitting up and letting Eagle bandage his arm. The dizziness from lack of blood was gone. He tested his arm, flexing it and raised it above his head. The movement pulled at the stitches, and his arm was tender, but not nearly sore enough for a gunshot wound.

“And you’re good to go?” Ace clarified.

“I wouldn’t miss it.” Dare nodded to Eagle. “Waste of stitches. It will be healed, like Tazz said, within the hour.”

“Good,” Eagle snapped. “My wife isn’t too keen on me being here, so if you fellas don’t mind, let’s go get the girl, her dad and this experiment out of the hands of the evil scientists.”

“And destroy it,” Tazz said clearly.

“The drug, not the girl and her father, I assume,” Ace said, giving Daren a hand to get up. The hotel room was shot to shit, but for some reason, they’d left him with only the one wound.

“Absolutely,” Dare said, with a firm look at Tazz. Tazz hadn’t explained everything to their old team mates. Not by a long shot, Dare guessed. “We think they have a man on the inside. More than Monroe, someone we know, or someone who knows us.”

“It has to be another agency,” Tazz growled. “There’s no other way they’d have this much intelligence and man power. I was two doors down. I didn’t hear a damn thing. They got in and got her out before I could do more than stumble off the bed.”

“Huh, was that bed empty?” Eagle asked, coming out from the bathroom where he’d been washing his hands.

“Is that your business? And yeah, it was,” Tazz tacked on at Eagle’s grin. “I was dressed, ready and they still made it out of here without me.”

Eagle rubbed the towel over his short blond hair and shrugged. “Agencies are a dime a dozen. Look at this one you’re in now. How’s that going for you?”

Tazz shot him a glare but didn’t say a word.

“Let’s talk about this en route. Tazz, you have the details of where we’re going, you sit up front, Dare, I want a word with you on this agency. Eagle, go find out what’s taking Mac so damn long.”

“Hell, you guys all came here for me?” Daren finally asked, feeling like he’d torn everyone’s life to hell.

“Shit, man, no way. We came to bag and tag Tazz, but when we found out you’d proposed, shit, we stayed.” Eagle grinned, and easily dodged the fist Dare threw.

“We came for you,” Ace said. “Tazz called us in, gave us the low down on the Sentinels. We’re not team mates any longer, man, but we’re still friends.” Ace gripped his forearm and gave him a slap on the back. Thankfully, away from his wound. “And you found her, the woman who saved you, huh?”

Of all the men, his commander at the time, Ace had believed him the most. He’d even helped him look for her.

“Yeah, she’s real all right. We have to get her out of this, though. She’s got to be scared to death.”

“She a shy, quiet kinda girl, huh?” Ace asked, opening the door and letting Eagle and Tazz go ahead of them.

Daren grinned. “She can be.” Then again, she could amaze him with her stubbornness and clear, level headed response to any situation. He only hoped she kept her head when this all came tumbling down around them.

* * * *

Kylie fumed, pacing the small cabin on the plane, so angry she couldn’t think straight. Her father sat on a bunk watching her. He’d been doing that for over an hour. Simply sitting, while she yelled at him and the men who’d ruined her life—through the closed door.

She couldn’t think of Daren. Couldn’t feed the fear that he’d died. And yet, that’s all she could think on. He’d been so still. Had he died?

The wound she’d suffered had been minor, but she didn’t know if his had been. If it had been, why hadn’t he gotten up? Why hadn’t he jumped up and come to her, saved her from this?

The plane dipped, and she grabbed the back of the stationary chair next to her, and scanned the area. Of all the places to be held, a plane, fitted with bolted down furniture and small round windows wasn’t the place she wanted to be. It was an impossible prison to break simply because it was a plane. She was at their mercy up here and they knew it. The descent popped her ear drums. Soon they’d come in here and take her…where?

“There’s nothing we can do, Ky.”

She turned to face her dad at his words.

“Nothing at all. They have my notes, the serum and now you.”

The defeat in her father’s voice pissed her off. For the hundredth time since she’d been dragged in here, kicking and screaming, she saw things about him she’d never noticed before.

He was still the small, unassuming man he’d always been. Slender, still handsome with his dark almond shaped eyes and black hair only slightly lightened around his temples with white. He could pass for any age, she thought if someone simply glanced at him. It wasn’t until they stared into his eyes and saw the defeat, that his age became apparent.

“There is always something we can do!” She didn’t shout, but simply defying him was enough.

Her father didn’t blink. He hadn’t shown any sign of shock at her behavior since she first hit the floor where they threw her.

“Fate finds a road for us to travel on, Ky. We can attempt to shift lanes, but in the end, we arrive at the same location.”

“I don’t believe that fate crap, Dad. Not any longer. I’ve found that we can change our lives, become something more, different, and not simply follow a path like some sheep.”

He nodded as if her words proved his point. Her father was first and foremost an intelligent man. Too bad his intelligence hadn’t guided him to see that what he’d created could be used to harm so many.

“Did you know?” she whispered, letting herself sink down into a chair.

At first he simply stared at her, but she knew he understood what she’d asked. After several minutes of silence, he nodded once.