Collector's Item (16 page)

“Bite me!” KT muttered through clenched teeth.

“Wrong answer.”

Torne’s fist shot forward as he spoke. Light exploded inside KT’s head, closely followed by a bolt of agony. She barely drew a breath before another blow from the opposite direction snapped her head back around. A third blow toppled her to the floor. She tasted blood.

Torne yanked her to her feet. She twisted, trying to pull herself out his hands. When that failed, she aimed a knee at his groin, which he twisted to avoid, yanking her around to get an arm around her. His movement gave her an opening for an elbow to his abdomen. He grunted, but didn’t loosen his grip.

He yanked the chain around her wrists to pull them up high against her back and wrapped his other arm around her neck, pinning her back against his body. She tried to squirm free until the unrelenting pressure of his arm against her windpipe began to cut off her air. She twisted her head, struggling to ease the pressure.

Afraid to be unconscious in Torne’s hands again, KT stopped struggling and his arm relaxed the tiniest bit. Through a wavering darkness, she watched Patricia advance on them, salipen ready.

“Don’t,” KT gasped, but Patricia ignored her.

KT tried to twist away when Patricia grabbed her arm. Torne’s grip tightened enough that black spots flickered across KT’s vision. She stopped and Patricia shoved KT’s sleeve up to press the salipen against her skin. KT gasped as the burning sensation of the drug jetted into her muscle. She tried to will her aunt to look at her, but Patricia’s attention remained focused on the salipen.

While KT strained for air, a tiny part of her brain realized that even though the pen remained pressed against her arm, the salison had stopped flowing. Teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, she blinked at Patricia. Did she know?

After the usual amount of time for a full injection, Patricia removed the pen. Torne released KT so abruptly she fell to the floor in a jangle of chains.

Coughing and gasping, KT scrambled back to lean against the side of the cot. Her face felt as if she had been hit by a pair of sledgehammers and her right eye was swelling shut. The corner of her mouth stung, and she winced when she touched it gingerly with her tongue. Her arm burned at the injection site, but she could tell it had been a superficial dose.

Patricia stood beside Torne, looked down at KT, and shook her head. “You didn’t have to be so rough with her.”

“Yes, I did. You have to show them you have the upper hand, that you’re the one with the power.”

Patricia looked at him for a second, her expression blank, before she turned away. She walked across the room to toss the salipen into the fireplace. “Well, that should hold her until we’re in the air. Once she’s in a cage, we won’t have to worry about it at all.”

“True, but, since I don’t think she’s going to sit in the back seat like a good little girl—” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a capped syringe.

For a split second, Patricia looked surprised and then her face smoothed into approval. “A trank?” Patricia looked back at KT. “Good. We won’t have to carry her.”

Torne waggled the syringe at KT. “Now, once more, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Which will it be?”

KT took a deep breath and then turned her head aside.

Torne chuckled. “Excellent choice.”

Chapter Seventeen

Peyton peered around the edge of the hangar door. The overgrown parking lot of the abandoned airfield stretched empty and dusty to the lopsided gate. Behind him, the nose of the jet protruded from the rusting hulk of a hangar.

Earlier, hidden along the ridgeline above the airfield, Peyton’s Alliance team watched a jeep barrel down the gravel access road. It slid to a halt just inside the broken gate. Two men jumped out and hauled camouflage netting off the runway only seconds before the jet arrived. Then one of them disappeared into one of the smaller wooden buildings to drive a battered fuel truck out to the runway to refuel the jet. Truck and jet were tucked back into their respective buildings before the men and the pilot drove off in the jeep.

After that, the Alliance Team had time to recon the site and get into position. They’d take down Torne between the car and the plane. With KT hostage inside the vehicle, Peyton had vetoed trying to take out Torne and Patricia while they were still in the car. If they missed, KT was probably done.

Peyton waited in the hangar with a medic and another Alliance Ranger. Two others held the outside positions to insure no one escaped.

The sound of an engine snapped Peyton’s attention back to the road leading to the airfield. A sport utility vehicle pulled into view and slowed. The Alliance man posted at the head of the road to the airfield had already identified the vehicle and occupants. The plate, FSG 3943, matched the plate the techs had pulled from the store video tape.

“Come on, come on,” Peyton muttered under his breath. He slid to his knees, using an oil drum for cover while he watched the car. “Nothing here but crickets and dust.”

The vehicle moved forward to stop outside the rickety fence. Through the windshield, Peyton watched Torne grip the steering wheel with both hands and lean forward. Dark sunglasses covered his eyes, but Peyton guessed Torne was scanning the airfield. Patricia Tercelon sat beside him and KT was a shadowy bump over Patricia’s shoulder in the back seat.

Peyton crouched lower in the shadows. He checked the area. Even knowing his team’s positions, he couldn’t see anything or anyone.

The overwhelming smell of jet fuel should mask any scent of the team that Patricia might pick up when she exited the car. A quick glance at the windsock confirmed that the wind was carrying the fuel fumes toward the car.

All he could do now was wait.

****

“Something’s not right,” Torne said as the car slowed to a stop.

From the backseat and with only one good eye, KT couldn’t see much, but what she saw didn’t seem threatening in any way. The airfield had seen better days. The old metal-sided hanger looked like a strong wind would topple it. The tattered remnants of a windsock waved toward them in a light breeze. Feeling Torne’s gaze in the rearview mirror, she let her head loll against the seat.

“What do you mean, something doesn’t feel right?” Patricia sounded breathless. “Do you see anything?”

“No.”

“Then let’s get out of here.” The vinyl seat creaked under her as she moved. “The place is deserted, just like they said. The plane’s over there. Let’s go.”

“It’s been too easy,” Torne muttered. “No road blocks. No helicopters.”

Patricia gave a heavy sigh. “We drove through B.F.E. to get here. They’re probably watching the highways.”

KT strained to clear her head. The drive from the cabin to the airfield had been a drugged blur. She remembered being manhandled into the car and then belted in. Her chains were threaded through some kind of fasteners beneath the seat. After that, she floated in and out of consciousness, snatches of conversation, flashes of light, and periods of grey.

The throbbing of her battered face made concentration even more difficult and her lip felt the size of a baseball. The inside of her mouth felt as if she’d tried to chew a handful of razor blades. Thankfully, the tranquilizer dulled some of the pain.

The salison was wearing off too. Andi’s furious protests were growing stronger with every breath.

The quiet rumble of the engine was the only sound inside the car, while crickets chorused outside. Patricia fidgeted at the delay, her attention apparently on the nose of the plane KT could see protruding from the end of the hanger.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked. KT noticed that, despite her anxiety to get out of the car, Patricia didn’t move. She waited on Torne’s command.

“Shut up!” Torne’s voice snapped like a whip and Patricia started as if she’d been struck. But she remained silent.

Torne’s hands curled and uncurled around the steering wheel. Then with a grunt, he leaned across Patricia. KT heard a metallic click followed by the sound of rummaging around. When he straightened up, she caught a glimpse of a gun and heard him chamber a round.

“Where’s my gun?” Patricia asked.

“If you think everything’s all right, why do you need a gun?” Torne’s jaw tightened as he stared at Patricia. “Do you sense something?”

She cringed in her seat. “No! Nothing, but if you’ve got a gun, I want one.”

“You probably can’t hit the side of that hangar, so no gun,” Torne said. The gun disappeared from KT’s sight and the car moved forward, bumping slowly over the uneven ground.

Torne drove the SUV into the hangar, parking alongside the jet. He picked up the gun and climbed out. KT craned her neck to watch as he walked to the rear of the SUV and stared out over the runway. He was careful to keep his body between the plane and the car, well away from the line of sunlight.

KT took a deep breath to try to clear her head further. Her pulse spiked as a familiar scent drifted in through the open window, almost lost beneath the jet fuel fumes.

Peyton!

Alpha!
Andi echoed.

He was alive! Somehow he had managed to escape the killers Torne had sent after him. KT slumped against the seat, limp with relief. How had he managed to get to the airstrip before them? Didn’t matter. Her elation helped to push out the last dregs of the half dose of salison Patricia had given her.

Andi surged forward, snarling, wanting to claw her way free of KT’s restraint to get to the man who had beaten them and kept her repressed.

Wait!
KT commanded. Andi hunkered down, panting with frustration.

Patricia turned in the seat, keeping her head low, and stared at KT. “I know you can smell them. They’re all over this place.”

KT said nothing. Patricia expression grew pensive before she gave a fatalistic shrug. “I tried to help you, but this isn’t going to end pretty. For any of us.”

Chapter Eighteen

“Don’t move.” Peyton’s voice echoed in the hangar. KT’s pulse leaped. “You’re done, Torne.”

“Like hell!” Torne responded.

Patricia gave a muffled curse and scrunched down in her seat. “Damn fool.”

KT twisted around to see Torne duck down beside the SUV. Shuffling sounds were followed by the door opposite KT being yanked open. Torne leaned in and reached for her.

Fight!
Andi snarled, almost breaking KT’s control. KT twisted on the seat and kicked at Torne.

“Bitch!” He grabbed her ankle and lunged up her leg to press his gun against her cheek.

She froze. Andi tried to surge free of KT’s control, but KT managed to hold her.
We’re dead if we shift
.

He shouted toward the other side of the hangar. “If you don’t show yourselves, I’ll put a bullet in her right here.”

“Kill her and you’re a dead man.” Peyton’s voice carried a growl that raised Andi’s hackles.

Torne fired out the passenger side window. The deafening roar filled the SUV and KT closed her eyes reflexively. A few safety glass pellets showered her face and chest. Over the ringing in her ears, KT could barely hear Torne shouting.

“Out where I can see you and put your guns down. Now! Or the next one is through her head.”

KT gasped at the searing heat of the gun barrel against her cheek. She opened her good eye to see Patricia peering around the side of the front bucket seat, eyes wild, her skin alabaster pale. On the brink of hysteria, Patricia’s voice penetrated the buzzing in KT’s ears.

“Torne! What are you doing? You’re going to get us all killed!”

Torne’s voice vibrated through his chest, pressed against KT’s calf. “Not while we’ve got
her
.” Torne’s rapid breathing and heartbeat belied the steely calm in his expression.

He was excited, high on adrenaline. This was what he lived for—the thrill of the hunt, the challenge, the precarious edge of life.

“You know we can’t do that,” Peyton said.

“Then get your people out of this hangar or I kill her.”

Peyton growled. “You do that and you won’t leave this hangar alive. Give it up, Torne. It’s over.”

“I don’t hear anyone leaving,” Torne shouted.

“Go on,” Peyton said. Footsteps moved away and out of the hangar.

“Okay, Torne,” Peyton shouted, his voice a little clearer as KT’s hearing began to recover. “Your move.”

Torne motioned Patricia into the back of the SUV. “Undo the chains.”

Patricia slithered through the opening between the seats and onto the floorboard. The pull of the chains on KT’s wrists eased. Patricia sat up, squashed between the front and back seats. Torne shoved himself backward and hauled KT with him.

Unable to stop herself, KT tumbled to the ground with a yelp of surprise.

Torne hauled her to her feet and then clamped his arm around her chest. “Shut up! Don’t even think of making trouble,” he breathed in her ear, jabbing his gun into her ribs to reinforce his words. He began backing toward the plane. She moved with him, options whirling through her head.

KT could see Peyton standing at the side of the hangar door. His gun tracked them as they moved. KT smelled a second man, but he remained hidden.

Patricia scrambled out of the SUV after them, her eyes a little too wide, her breathing a little too fast. Bent nearly double, she eased along the side of the SUV toward the engine.