Rick's Road Read online

  “Do you think he was an issue?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “In all honesty, I’m not sure. He was definitely interested in what I was doing and the amount of food I was bringing in.”

  “And, of course, it’s the amount that’s always suspect, isn’t it?”

  “Well, I’m not a terribly large female, and I did bring in a lot of food on each delivery, mostly because I was trying not to have to go anywhere,” she explained. “I do have groceries here to last quite a while longer, but, with you eating like you are, we’ll need fresh fruit and veggies.”

  “And that’ll mean another order.”

  “It also means you could be exposed to another potential attack, and I don’t know whether the delivery guys even cared or if it was just curiosity.”

  “But you brought it up,” he reminded her.

  “Yes. My instincts say it wasn’t casual.”

  “Did you tell Terk?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “He said he’d take care of it.”

  Something was in her voice though. “You’re worried about what Terk might have done to him?”

  “Let’s just say, I was worried that something might need to be done, and I really didn’t want that on my conscience.”

  He agreed. “We normally don’t kill people, unless it’s in self-defense. Let’s just park that for the moment. We’ll eat what we have, and then, when we’re ready to pull out, we’ll make a good plan.”

  “We won’t do that until we have a safe way to get you out of here.”

  He murmured, “Agreed. So we’ll leave it at that, until Terk arranges for us to get out.”

  “Got it.”

  “And do you have any plans?”

  “Nope, as I told you, Terk showed up out of the blue.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, that’s our life. On the other hand, showing up out of the blue sounds like maybe it wasn’t a problem.”

  “Nope, not at all,” she stated. “I just had a change in my life, so I had an opening.”

  “An opening?”

  “Yes. My last patient died.”

  He stared at her and slowly nodded. “Not exactly the highest recommendation.”

  “Surely not,” she agreed cheerfully. “But, the fact of the matter is, not anything anybody could do. She’d been brain dead for a very long time.”

  “That’s really sad,” he murmured.

  “Particularly for the family, who tried so hard to do everything they possibly could to keep her alive, but she just wasn’t there to even assist anymore.”

  “And you knew she wasn’t there?”

  “Yes. She was long gone. I detected no soul activity left.”

  “Did you try to tell them that?”

  “I did, but, of course, they didn’t want to listen.”

  “Of course not. Anything else that you noticed around here?” he murmured.

  “Do you mean, did anything else seem off?” She shrugged. “A couple things when I first got here. Almost as if the place were monitored, but I haven’t seen any evidence of it.”

  “As long as nobody else is here, they’d think there’s no change in my condition.”

  “If they even know you’re here,” she reminded Rick.

  But he knew that they did. “No. They know.”

  She just stared. “Fine.” She nervously looked at the door. “So, what are we expecting? Somebody to break through the front door or something?”

  “I would hope not.” Yet, as he stared at it, he realized it was all too likely. “Unfortunately I don’t want to think about that, but it is possible.”

  She nodded. “And now that you mentioned it, I’m starting to feel that weird edge.”

  “When you say that, what do you mean?” he asked sharply.

  She shrugged. “Just that sensation that …” She found she didn’t know quite how to explain it.

  “Has anybody else been in here besides me?”

  “No. Only Terk. When we first got here, and he set me up. Beyond that, no.”

  “So, who set up the lease and everything like that?”

  “Terk did.”

  He nodded. “And yet, like you, I’m starting to feel like something’s going on out there.”

  “Well, definitely something’s going on. It’s just a matter of how much and how bad.” She looked around. “I guess we need to be ready to leave fast too, don’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  “It would be better if you had a couple more days.”

  He tested out his own strength, nodded. “I know, but I’m not sure we’ll get it.”

  Her gaze wide, she nodded. “In that case, I’ll start packing.”

  He nodded and sat here with a cup of coffee and waited.

  When she came back out a short while later, he asked, “All done?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t bring much.”

  “How long have we been here?”

  “A couple weeks, and that’s all I brought enough for anyway.”

  “Where’s your bag?”

  “It’s sitting on my bed. Until we hear from Terk, I really don’t have any authorization to change our status quo.”

  “Well, if it gets to the point of saving our lives, we won’t have time to check in with Terk. We’ll be doing whatever we need to, in order to keep ourselves safe.”

  She gave him a lopsided smile. “I didn’t think we were in danger, until you woke up and started spouting all this stuff.”

  “Yes, you did,” he disagreed quietly. “You’ve just been very good at holding off all the fear-mongering.”

  She giggled. “Yeah, not really my thing.” She watched him carefully.

  “So, what is it that you think you know when you look at me so intently?”

  “You’ve come out of a coma after a traumatic event,” she noted. “I always have to make sure that what comes out of your mouth is something that’s believable.”

  He smiled. “Believe me. If our team had anybody else to assist you, then we would have them here,” he murmured. “However, when danger happens, it doesn’t exactly give us much warning.”

  “I know,” she murmured. “Another reason why I’m here right now and listening.”

  And he realized that’s literally what she was doing. “Good to know. When it happens, we need to run.”

  “And where will we run to?”

  “Not sure yet.” He smiled. “Let me contact Terk and see.” He phoned Terk, and when he didn’t get an answer right away, he frowned. “Now I don’t like that.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “No answer from Terk.”

  She frowned. “Are you seriously thinking something has happened?”

  “When somebody wakes up like I have,” he murmured, “all kinds of hell breaks loose because the people who are waiting for this to happen have just been alerted.”

  “Because you’re awake, you mean?”

  “Yes,” he murmured. “Because I’m now awake, it’s quite possible that we have awakened something else.”

  She stared at him in shock. “I don’t think I like the sound of that. I came here to nurse somebody who needed my special brand of care.”

  “And you did,” he agreed. “Now it’ll be up to me to keep you alive long enough to get you out of here.”

  “What do you think they’ll do if they find me?” she asked, staring at him.

  “They’ll make sure you can’t tell anybody what you’ve been doing,” he replied, “and that’s only after they’ve extracted all the information they want.”

  She swallowed hard. “Damn. I was afraid you would say something like that.”

  *

  “Hey,” Rick replied, “you saved my life. Trust that I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”

  “Oh, you will. I get that.”

  “That’s not necessarily the answer I need to hear.” He smiled. “You’ve been strong and brave so far. Let’s not ruin it now.”

  She laughed. “No, of course not. Why would I show weakness? I mean, that sounds like a terrible idea.” She gave him an eye roll.

  He smiled at her. “Stand strong. We will get through this.”

  She nodded. “I have no doubt about it. It would just be nice if we could do it a little faster.”

  At that, he laughed. “As fast as I can.”

  “In that case, we need to get some more exercises done because you’re still not quite up to snuff.”

  “It always hurts me when you say that,” he noted. “I pride myself on being in perfect form.”

  “Well, too bad, because you’re not there yet,” she said caustically.

  At that, he burst out laughing again.

  “Let’s go.”

  They went through several more rounds of therapy. By the time he was done, the exercise had sweat dripping off his forehead. “Good God. You’re a taskmaster.”

  “I need to be because we need those muscles of yours up and running, as soon as they’re able to.”

  “I thought we were doing just fine.” He struggled with his breathing.

  “You are. You’re actually doing just fine,” she confirmed, “but we have to do it for longer.”

  He groaned. “How about water first?”

  She walked into the kitchen, came back with a bottle of water, and handed it to him. As with everything he did, she watched him carefully.

  “You really do have to ensure that everybody is fine, don’t you?”

  “Of course. Physiologically, you’re still not there.”

  “Well, I hope you’re wrong because we don’t really have many options here.”

  “So far, we haven’t had anything happen yet,” she noted. “We’re ready, and, if it needs to be today or tomorrow, obviously we’ll do our best to mak
e sure we stay ready.”

  “Yeah, but doing our best won’t necessarily be enough.”

  She gave him a flat stare. “Until you tell us otherwise, there really is no other option.”

  Not a whole lot he could say to that. As soon as he got back on his feet, he had a shower and stepped into the kitchen. “I’ll lie down, and then I’ll try Terk again.”

  “If you do connect, make sure you grab some numbers of other team members, just so that, if we do get cut off, we aren’t 100 percent cut off.”

  “Will do.” Liking that she was thinking about the future ahead of them, Rick headed back to his room and laid down on his bed. Almost immediately he bolted to his feet and raced out to the living room. “Get ready to leave,” he stated urgently.

  She bolted to her feet and raced to the bedroom. “What’s the matter?”

  “Vehicles downstairs. Leave your bags. Don’t argue.” He barely managed to shove his feet into a pair of runners that were oddly enough just his size. He quickly led the way outside the apartment into the hallway. He looked down at his clothing. “Did you pick this out?”

  “We needed something for you to sleep in,” she explained. “I could have left you in pajamas, but I thought you would feel better in street clothing. Not to mention, it’s perfect for the getaway.”

  Outside of her apartment, he led her in the opposite direction of the exit.

  She pointed to it, but he shook his head. “We can’t. They’re coming that way.” And, with that, he refused to even talk anymore and dragged her down and around to the next floor.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, in a tightly controlled voice. But she wasn’t out of breath, and she wasn’t arguing with him.

  “Not sure yet. You have any wheels here?”

  “No, I don’t,” she murmured.

  “Okay. I still haven’t managed to get ahold of Terk.”

  “Neither have I,” she stated flatly.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” he warned her, “and there could be any number of reasons.”

  She nodded. “None of them are good.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Just then his phone rang. “That’s Terk.”

  Terk said, “You need to move.”

  “We’re on the stairwell, going down right now, and left our bags in the apartment, but we have no way to get out of here.”

  “Did you see them?”

  “No,” Rick replied. “I just felt them.”

  “Good. That’s huge if your senses are on fire that much.”

  “Oh, they’re on. Maybe too much. It’s like little lightning jabs at my nerves.”

  “That’s also good,” Terk said. “We’ve talked about that before.”

  “Sure, but that’s when we had new abilities strengthening or coming into play. That’s not what this is.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Terk asked, a cheery note to his voice. “Remember? I warned you that you could lose a few things, but you might also gain a few things.”

  “Well, I have no idea what I’ve got at the moment,” he admitted, “except the need to survive. Cara is with me here. Can you send a ride for us?”

  “Already on the way,” he confirmed. “We’ll be there in just a few minutes.”

  “I’ll give you a location once we’re out. I’m not even sure we can exit yet,” he muttered. “I think they’ve got several vehicles outside. Presumably several men.”

  “I’ll set up a diversion if there’s time. We’ll be on the opposite side of the street in a big black truck.”

  “Got it. What’s your ETA?”

  “We’re still six minutes out,” Terk replied.

  “Make it four,” Rick snapped. “We won’t have much more time than that.” As he hung up, he looked over at Cara. “Now you’ll have to listen and do exactly what I say, when I say it.”

  She nodded. “I got it. I don’t have a death wish.”

  “Glad to hear that. Come on.” And, with that, he led her down to the main floor.

  She asked, “Won’t they find us here?”

  “Absolutely they will. They’ll start a search of the building here very soon. Once they check out the apartment and realize not only that we’re gone but the teakettle is still hot, they’ll be all over us.”

  She winced at that. “Not a good time to make a cup of tea, huh?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Our packed bags are evidence too. Almost always something’s left behind for them to find. You can do your darndest, but it’s almost impossible to completely escape without leaving any notice. And if you leave laptops behind…”

  “Well, so far our exit has been fast enough,” she murmured.

  “We’re waiting for Terk, that’s all.” Rick looked at her. “And you know Terk. He’ll be here.”

  “Absolutely he will,” she agreed, with spirit. “That’s not my concern.”

  He stared at her and asked, “What is it then?”

  “You,” she replied. “You like to think that you’re fully recovered, but I’m here to tell you that you’re not.”

  “And how would you know?” he asked.

  “I can see it in your energy.”

  He stopped midstep, then looked at her. “What do you see?”

  “I see a man who’s doing what he needs to do because he needs to do it, but he’s also not recognizing the toll to his body.”

  “I don’t have any choice.” He grabbed her hand, turned, and raced down the stairs anyway.

  “I know,” she agreed. “That’s why I didn’t mention it before. No matter what I say, you’ll still do you.”

  He looked at her, smiled. “You wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  His words were something that she had to watch and to keep an eye on because he was right. She wouldn’t have it any other way. However, so much was going on right now. He was still her patient, so, in her mind, her safety wasn’t as important as his, but she didn’t really want to check out right now either. She often told friends of hers that she was okay to check out whenever the time came because she knew what happened on the other side.

  Yet she knew that her life wasn’t over, and, even with family and friends waiting for her over the rainbow, she didn’t want to check out early, not if she didn’t have to. She would be damned if she would go like this. Not now. To have some asshole on their backs like this made her angry.

  As they raced down the stairs and exited an unmarked side door, then headed out to the street, he tucked her close against him. “Pretend like we’re a couple,” he murmured.

  She wrapped her arms around him. “Why?” she whispered.

  “So they’ll think we’re together,” he said. “They’re looking for a nurse and her patient. So glad you don’t wear scrubs, just for times like this.”

  She nodded. “Got it,” she murmured. “I just want to get out of here safe.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do,” he replied.

  “I’m worried about you,” she said, looking at him.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he argued in a strong voice. “I’m fine.”

  “I am pleasantly surprised at that,” she murmured, as they waited at the street corner.

  His gaze was forever searching around here.

  “I don’t know how you can always search and not make it look like you’re searching,” she noted, “but, as I was saying, I’m quite pleased at how well you’re healing.”

  “The healing was never in doubt,” he murmured.

  “Not,” she snorted.

  He stared at her for a moment. “That bad?”

  She nodded. “You had one foot in the grave and don’t you ever forget it.”

  He gently hugged her. “And, for your healing gifts, I’m very grateful.”

  “I don’t want your gratitude,” she replied in a sharp tone. “It’s a bit of a sore spot.”

  He nodded. “Got it. It won’t be gratitude. I promise.”

  She smiled, just as the crosswalk light changed, and he ushered her firmly over to the other side.

  “Any particular reason why we’re here?”

  “Because our ride will be here soon,” he shared. “The least we can do is be on the correct side of the street when they arrive.”

  She looked around. “And yet I don’t see anybody here to collect us.”

  “We don’t want them to see us,” he noted. “We just want it to be a smooth and easy transition. So you just keep looking around, like you’re a tourist out for a nice little walk.”

  “Got it,” she muttered.

  And she could play the game as well as the next person. She just didn’t like to do it. She wasn’t about subterfuge and secrecy, being much more of a straight player.