“Do you know something about him I don’t?” she demanded.
“No. But I know a guy who’s facing an internal battle when I see one. Abs, you’re Night’s little sister which basically makes you the little sister of every one of us. I don’t want to see you get hurt, but Spider is my friend and I want him to be happy. So just hear him out if you can, okay?”
She would protest that she’d already given Ryder plenty of chances to tell her anything he needed to tell her, but her lungs seized again and she started to cough.
Abigail wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take.
She was so tired of feeling sick and miserable, she just wanted to lie down on a soft, comfortable bed and go to sleep and then wake up feeling human again.
“Here, I’ll take her,” she heard Ryder say, and when strong hands lifted her she knew they were his. “Hold on, Abby, not much longer, okay? We’re almost to the extraction point, and then we’ll get some medicine into you and get you away from here.”
This time when he carried her he didn’t put her over his shoulder, instead he cradled her gently in his arms. “Ryder?” she asked.
“I want you to be comfortable and we’re nearly there,” he explained.
Tired, she rested her head on his shoulder, now that she wasn’t being bounced around with a hard shoulder pressed into her stomach she was able to doze a little. The world faded around her and she let herself stop holding on so tightly. She was tired of being strong, tired of fighting to get through each day … she was just plain tired.
Something loud began to cut through the otherwise quiet night and her sluggish brain couldn’t process what it was.
To be honest, she didn’t really care what it was.
She was finding it increasingly difficult to care about anything.
The sound got louder.
She started to cough again, so hard it hurt her already aching chest.
Why did breathing have to be so hard?
It was supposed to be something your body did automatically, you weren’t supposed to have to fight for each breath of air.
Then she was set down on something soft, something was put on her face and she could breathe a little easier. Someone was fussing about her, she felt a tug on the back of her hand, and something wrapped around her arm, fingers touched her wrist, and something cool brushed against her forehead.
“Let go, sweetheart,” Ryder’s soft voice urged. “I’ve got you, you’re safe, you don’t have to fight alone anymore, I’m right here beside you, so it’s okay to let go.”
For once she didn’t argue, didn’t attempt to protest that she could do it on her own, she just let his words ease her final finger hold on consciousness, and she drifted quietly away.
Chapter 3
June 16th
12:12 A.M.
Fourteen months, two weeks, and three days after Abigail had been abducted, the helicopter touched down on American soil.
She was home.
Spider felt a sense of relief, he and his team had been on a mission when Night had gotten a call that his sister had been abducted. Over a week had passed by then, and by the time they were able to get back to the States, she’d been missing for almost a month. The trail had already long since gone cold, and the local cops hadn’t seemed to be overly concerned even though it was completely out of character for Abigail to just up and disappear, plus her car had still been in the parking lot with her purse sitting on the ground beside the driver’s door.
He and Night and every single person on their team, and most of the other teams, had done everything they could to try to track her down but they had been met with dead end after dead end.
Now he could finally take a deep breath and relax.
Abigail was home.
Safe.
The rotors stopped spinning, and Spider finally lifted his gaze away from Abigail’s face. The whole journey he’d sat beside her, holding her hand, allowing the others to tend to her medical condition while he kept himself just there for her support.
That was his role in her life now.
There was no more walking away, no more letting other people meddle in his life, no more feeling guilty for past transgressions. He and Abigail needed a clean slate, and they were going to get one.
“We’re going to transport her to a house where we can stay for a few days while she recovers her strength, and maybe we can try to figure out why she was taken,” Wolf said as they opened the helo doors.
“I have some things I need to tell you guys,” he said as they lifted the gurney Abigail was lying on and carried her out of the helicopter and to the waiting transport van.
Abigail didn’t stir as they moved her, she hadn’t stirred since they had sedated her. They’d been pumping fluids and heavy-duty antibiotics into her system and hopefully they would clear up the chest infection without her needing to be admitted to a hospital.
Since he didn’t know why she had been taken or why she had been held so long, Spider wasn’t comfortable with anyone knowing that she was back until they knew a little more about the situation. He couldn’t get her hallucinations out of his mind, he was sure there was something in there that would give them the answers they needed.
Once they had her settled they would need to do a more extensive examination, checking for old injuries that she might have sustained during her captivity and anything he might have missed. He had a feeling that if they x-rayed her they would find several healed broken bones because he was positive that someone had roughed her up—badly—before throwing her in that cage.
The drive to the safehouse where they would hang out for a few days was quiet, Spider’s focus on Abigail, watching the rise and fall of her chest, his hand positioned holding hers so his fingertips rested on her pulse which was drumming weakly against his fingers.
She was alive.
It would take some getting used to. After fourteen months of believing the worst it was hard to accept that it was over and they’d gotten her back.
When they arrived at the safehouse, Spider gathered Abigail into his arms while Faulkner “Dude” Cooper grabbed the IV bags, and he took her upstairs to the master bedroom, where he set her on the bed. Before he could tell them what he knew they had to make sure there weren’t any other medical issues to deal with.
With quick, efficient movements, he and Wolf stripped off her clothes, and Spider ran his hands up and down her body, checking for injuries. He didn’t find any fresh ones, but two of her fingers were slightly bent out of shape. Breaking someone’s fingers was a common method of torture and he wondered if that was what had been done to his sweet, precious Abby.
There was nothing else that concerned him, so he grabbed one of his spare t-shirts and slipped it over her head, then he tucked her in under the covers while Dude reconnected the IV.
She was still running a fever and Cookie put a cool, damp washcloth on her forehead, then while Spider settled into the only chair in the room, a chair he wouldn’t be moving from until Abigail opened those stunning eyes of hers, the other men stood guard around her bed.
Although she was safe, out of Mexico and back home in the States, all of them seemed to feel the same sense of foreboding like this wasn’t over, and they had barely scratched the surface of what was really going on, and all of them wanted to be prepared and make sure that Abigail wasn’t hurt again.