Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
The world didn’t always give us what we wanted, but how we dealt with those tragedies made or broke souls. Lena’s was done.
She had to find a way to make sure Devi’s wasn’t. She crawled or at least pushed herself toward her cousin. She needed to wake up. “Devi. Devon fucking Taggart, wake up.”
She was almost to her when a set of boots came into view. She glanced up and Zach stood there, a grim look on his face. He knelt down and put two fingers to Devi’s wrist, and a sigh of obvious relief went through him.
“Coop’s on his way,” Zach said as he leaned over and picked Devi up. “He got into a fight with one of the guards, but I think TJ is helping him. You tell Theo and Erin I’ll take care of her.”
“What?” Kala tried to turn because Zach stepped over her paralyzed body and was going for the tunnel. “Where the hell are you going?”
“Can’t tell you, sister,” he replied through the smoke. “But I’ll call when I know something. Take care of him for me. When I’m done, I’ll turn myself in.”
“Then you should leave my cousin behind,” Kala called out. “She’s going to be pissed.”
“Then she should have taken care of herself.” Zach started to disappear behind the door. “Good-bye, Kala.”
“Zach,” she yelled out.
The flames seemed to find some fuel, and she could feel the heat on her skin. Naturally Huisman’s paralytic merely meant she couldn’t move. She could still feel.
But she was starting to not be able to breathe.
“Thank god.” Cooper stood over her. He bent down and lifted her up as she coughed. “Where’s Devi?”
TJ was behind him. “Where’s my sister?”
“Zach took her through the tunnels,” she managed to hack out.
TJ started toward them, but Cooper stopped him. “You can’t. It’s too much.”
Kala managed to get a glimpse of the door. It was now engulfed in flames. They couldn’t leave that way. Cooper started for the stairs, but Kala could feel her heart twisting inside her body. Like last time.
“Hey, I love you,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I love you so much.”
A pain started in her chest, and the world went black.
Chapter Twenty
Kala blinked as she woke, the world still hazy. She’d been in the house again. The one that haunted her dreams sometimes. But this time Cooper had been there. This time Lou had reached out across time and space and wouldn’t let her go. This time she wouldn’t hide and shove what happened deep inside.
She coughed and winced.
Everything hurt. Especially her chest.
Damn it. She’d had another heart attack. Huisman’s drugs sucked. 0 out of 5. Would not recommend.
“Hey, kid.”
Her father stood over her. He looked haggard, his dark clothes wrinkled and a long scrape on his cheek. It appeared someone had stitched him up in the field.
“You’re in a hospital in Virginia,” he said quietly. “You’ve been out for roughly six hours. The doctors say you’ll be fine in the short term, but they want someone to watch you for a while. Aidan is talking about setting you up with a portable monitor for a couple of months. They don’t know what the experimental drugs did. What kind of damage.”
Probably a lot, but she was already feeling better because she glanced to her left and Cooper was asleep in a chair beside her bed. Beyond Coop, Lou and TJ were curled up on what appeared to be the world’s most uncomfortable cot. TJ’s legs hung off.
“Is everyone okay? You look worse for the wear.” She glanced around the room. “Mom and Kenz? What happened with Eve? Devi told me she was alive when Lena took us.”
“Eve is recuperating nicely. I talked to Alex about an hour ago, and they’re going to send her home tomorrow. The first thing she did when she came out of surgery was ask about you. Now I can tell her good news. Your mom and Kenzie are grabbing some coffee,” her dad explained. “Tasha is with Tristan, trying to track the cars in case one of them contains Zach and Devi. As for the team, everyone’s fine. I got into it with one of the guards. It’s nothing. By the time we got in, they were mostly fleeing, so we didn’t even get to fight much. It’s you we’re worried about. We were lucky to have Aidan with us.”
“I’ll be okay,” she whispered back to her dad. How much had this job of hers cost her parents? “The last time he worked me over for way longer, and I was fine a couple of days later. But I think I should come out of the field for a while. Maybe a long while.”
A long breath huffed out of her dad, and his shoulders slumped. He reached for her hand. “I thought…”
“You thought you would have to fight me,” she surmised, squeezing her dad’s hand. She’d learned this lesson. “You thought I would do anything I had to do to keep my job. I’m more than my job, and I don’t want to find that bullet with my name on it. I think one day I’d like to actually work at McKay-Taggart, and I want to start learning how to run the place. I’m pretty sure Coop will be there with me, and we’ll keep the name going strong. But it’ll have to wait a couple of years. Dad, we have to see this one through. After we catch Huisman, we can all decide what we want to do, but we have to deal with him.”