Beau Read online

  Just then Asher tapped his comm, and Beau knew he’d reached the other sentry post. He tapped twice to let Beau know he was okay and then quickly tapped out a message, saying one of the cult men was heading in Beau’s direction.

  Take him out, Asher tapped. Let’s knock down the numbers.

  And with that, Beau waited. He could feel Danica shifting uneasily at his side. Just knowing that the men were coming closer and closer sent her nerves into overdrive. He grabbed her fingers and squeezed them gently. She immediately shuffled closer, until she almost leaned against him, welcoming his body heat and the security of knowing that she wasn’t alone.

  He couldn’t imagine what she had planned to do when she got through that fence. Likely she didn’t have a plan. She hadn’t a clue how far away from home she was. His plan would have been to get free and just to keep on going. But out here, chances were good a bear would have caught Danica first because she would have been so weak that she couldn’t hide or fight off a threat. Definitely making her an easy dinner for the next predator looking for a meal.

  He gently whispered, “It’ll be okay. Stay calm.”

  She shook her head. “Nothing will ever be okay again,” she said.

  Two men now walked closer, both of them talking. “No way she came out here.”

  “Well, last we heard, she was still missing.”

  “Yeah, that’s Lamont again,” one of the guys said. “You know what he’s like. He’s an alarmist.”

  “Well, they’ll check all the women now.”

  The other guy said, “Good, I need some sleep.”

  “If you weren’t so busy enjoying all the women,” the other guy scoffed, “you’d get some sleep.”

  “Hey, the sex is there for the taking. Why the hell wouldn’t I?”

  “I know,” he said. “I have to admit, I’m enjoying that aspect of this job too.”

  “But it’s still just the job, isn’t it? It’s not like we’re part of the cult itself. We’re not sucked into that whole mind-set.”

  “No, we’re hired to protect them. We run the girls. That’s about it.”

  “But pretty damn decent benefits from the cult members. Don’t touch the prisoners, but the others are there for the taking.” Then the men’s voices faded into the distance as they left the area. The last thing Beau heard was one guy say, “This is a lost cause. Nobody’s out here.”

  As soon as they drifted away, she sagged slightly, and he could see a little bit of her tension easing.

  “Jesus,” was all she could say.

  He nodded. “It’s hard to see the underbelly of society.”

  “Not just see it,” she said, “but be a part of it.” She stared up at him, and he could see her lip trembling. “Could you …” She fell silent.

  He leaned forward, keeping an eye on the men still moving around them. “Could I what?”

  She hesitated. He cocked an eye at her. She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Don’t say that,” he said. “Tell me.”

  “Could you hold me for a moment?” she asked, the words coming out in a rush. “Just for a moment, to let me know that I’m okay.”

  Instantly he tugged the tiny woman into his arms and crushed her against his chest, holding her close. He could feel the tremors in her spine. Not just her hands but her whole being was completely racked with fear. Noticing that, he tried to infuse her soul with some of his own reassurance. He’d seen this response before, but he’d never been in a position to do anything about it. Well, right now he could.

  And he did. He cuddled her closer.

  Chapter 7

  Danica wanted to burrow tight against the heat and the reassurance of his size. She knew that they couldn’t stay like this, at least not for long. She took several deep breaths, trying to calm down inside as he held her close, his heart a heavy booming tempo against her ear. For the first time, she really seriously understood the physical strength that came to him naturally. He was a big man; something she hadn’t fully realized. Being carried like a toddler had given her an impression, but now, in his arms like this, he had to be at least six foot five or so; she didn’t know for sure. Finally she sagged back a little bit and whispered, “Thank you.”

  “Better?”

  She nodded. “Just realizing how easy it is for others to capture you can change your entire mind-set about the world you live in, but then realizing how you couldn’t fight them off? How weak and vulnerable you are? It’s unnerving to see how much of a victim I was.”

  “Was,” he said, “being the operative word.”

  She gave him a half smile for that. “True. I did escape, didn’t I?”

  “You did,” he said, “but I wonder, what was your plan with the fence?”

  “I had no clue,” she admitted. “If I could have, I’d have found a way to cut the wire and would have been out in an instant. But that stuff on the top …”

  “That’s razor wire,” he said. “It’s engineered to slice your skin so you bleed to death.”

  “I believe it,” she said, “but there had to be a way through.”

  “And then what?”

  “I didn’t care,” she said. “I figured I’d just keep going. But now that you tell me how I’m in Alaska …” She couldn’t believe it. “I don’t know. I probably would have died in the wilderness.”

  “When did you eat last?”

  “I don’t remember,” she said. “They barely gave me enough food. I had a little bit of water yesterday. That’s all.”

  Immediately he reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle. He popped off the cap and handed it to her. She drank thirstily. When she tried to empty the bottle, he pulled it back. “Not so much,” he warned. “Your system can only handle a little water at first, when you’ve been dehydrated for so long.”

  She stared at the bottle, still wanting to drink it, and then slowly sagged back. “You’re the boss,” she whispered.

  “No,” he said, surprising her. “I’m just somebody here who’s trying to keep you alive. I don’t want you to go kill yourself, drinking too much water, causing hyponatremia, after you’ve worked so hard to find your freedom again.”

  She realized how right he was. She returned the cap to him. “For a moment there I was angry,” she said, “that you were withholding the water from me, just like them.”

  He put the cap on and handed her the bottle. “Keep it. I’m not like them, never have been like them, and never will be like them,” he said, his voice so calm and steady that she finally believed him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m still all mixed up.”

  “You’ll be all mixed up for a long time too,” he said quietly. “But don’t ever put me in the same category as them again.”

  “I won’t.” Looking around, she asked, “Is there any way out of here?”

  “There is,” he said. “We have a vehicle, but it’s not close.”

  “Of course not,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m barefoot,” she said, “and my feet are already pretty torn up.”

  He glanced at her feet, then picked one up, and held it so the moonlight could shine on it.

  Even she could see the blood seeping through the lacerations.

  “And now that you’ve stopped moving,” he said, “it’ll start to hurt.”

  “No, that was about half an hour ago,” she said. “I’m just hoping that your partner’ll get here sooner so we can leave.”

  “Leave, yes,” he said, “but what about the other women?”

  “Don’t you have a team coming?” she asked in shock. “You can’t do this on your own.”

  “We’ll have to,” he said. “No team. Just my partner and me.”

  She shook her head. “No, no, no,” she said. “I have to get back to safety, and you need a team to come here and raid the compound to stop this.”

  “Oh, we’re getting that together, all right,” he said, “but not if you’re expecting to
have these women saved before they’re taken out of here in a few hours.”

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Almost three in the morning. If the cult plans on being on the road at six, that’s less than three hours. And now that they’ve got a warning that somebody escaped, you can bet everybody’ll be up early, and there’ll be an awful lot of manpower to make sure that these women stay with them.”

  “They’ll expect me to have just died out in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “They don’t have any respect for us. We’re nothing more than cattle.”

  “Did they ever abuse you?”

  “You mean, rape?” she asked, calling a spade a spade. When he nodded, she shook her head. “No, they didn’t. I think some of the other women were, but not me. Not yet.”

  “Probably until they hear from your father.”

  She shuddered. “That doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  “Well, the good news is,” he said, “that you’re not in there right now. But the other women will be treated a whole lot rougher than they were an hour ago.”

  She shuddered. “Can we leave now please?”

  “You want to wait in the truck?”

  She nodded. “I really want to wait in the truck.”

  “The trouble is,” he said, “you’ll be in the truck, and you’ll be all alone. We can’t protect you there.”

  She stared at him, feeling her stomach sink. “So I have to wait here? While you go up against all those people? You know you’ll die, right?”

  His teeth flashed. “Nobody’s killed me yet,” he said. “And I’m not dying tonight either.”

  “And how about this morning?” she snapped, getting angry. “Why would you dare come, just the two of you?”

  “Because we came for you,” he said. “So now I have a couple questions for you to think about. Do you want me to take you away, while the authorities gather a team and then arrive here? You must know that they may not be here in time to save them. Or do you want to stay and help rescue these women?”

  She hated him for that question. She was the reason he asked her that; she was the one who had brought it up in the first place. But now that she sat here, realizing how close she had been to getting shipped out to another country and how plain nasty and invasive this cult was, all she wanted to do was curl up and hide and have it all go away. But he wouldn’t let her. Her choices sucked, but she could only make one choice. And she’d already made it when she’d gone back for Nania.

  She took a deep breath. “As I said before, we have to help these women.”

  He looked at her, smiled, and gave her an approving nod. “Good,” he said. “That’s what I hoped you’d say.”

  “Are you always the hero?”

  “Not always,” he said. “Just when it really counts.”

  Often the hard choices were the right ones, and nobody said that they were easy to make. Beau appreciated the fact that Danica stood by her guns, choosing to stay behind, stating that the other women needed to be rescued too. Even though Danica was hurt and terrified, she still made the best decision. He didn’t see any way out of it either, unless they could stop the transport truck before it got too far into civilization. Taking out a vehicle loaded with women between here and Anchorage gave them a window of at least twenty miles, and, as he thought about it, he wondered if that wasn’t the best option.

  She looked at him. “Okay, big guy, hero that you are, how is it we save these women?”

  “Did Nania tell you anything about how the compound worked?”

  Danica shook her head. “No, there was no time. We barely got her free and to the fence before one of the men came.”

  “And that’s when she panicked?”

  Danica nodded. “At least that’s what I figured she did. It was strange, but all of a sudden she bolted.”

  “And I keep coming back to the fact that maybe she was part of it.”

  “Well, she was part of it,” Danica said. “But, like I told you, she fell out of favor.”

  “Right, so maybe she ran, recognizing one of the men, hoping that he would help her get free.”

  “It’s possible,” Danica said, “but I really don’t have any answers. I didn’t even know we were in Alaska, for God’s sake.” She glanced around and said, “It’ll get cold tonight, won’t it?”

  “It’ll cool down, yes,” he said, “but it won’t be supercold. The coldest hours will be between four and six. Then it’ll warm up again.” He looked at her. “Are you okay to keep going?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll be fine for a little bit longer.”

  He nodded and didn’t say anything but produced a protein bar that he always kept in his back pocket. He handed it to her. “You have to give me the wrapper when you’re done.” He watched as she carefully peeled it open and, instead of devouring it whole, ate with tiny bites and chewed well—another sign of somebody who knew that their energy reserves were well and truly gone. When the bar had been completely eaten, and she’d handed the packaging back to him, he said, “Now, maybe in ten or fifteen minutes, you’ll feel a bit better.”

  “Depending on the sugar content of that bar,” she said, “it could be a worse reaction than not having eaten it.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “We’ll deal with that afterward. Depends on what your blood sugar is like normally.”

  “Normally my blood sugar is just fine, but, ever since I’ve gone without food here lately, I don’t know where my system’s at.”

  His intercom started tapping. “Asher has found another man on the far side,” he said, “heavily armed and walking the perimeter.”

  “Security guard?”

  “Or additional security guards now that they have Nania who escaped, and they know you’re out here. The other guys were more armed than what we had expected.”

  They waited in silence, the darkness deepening around them.

  His intercom tapped again signaling success. Beau said, “That one’s out.”

  He caught her look as she stared at him, the whites of her eyes glowing in the darkened light. “You mean, he killed him?”

  “I didn’t ask for details,” Beau said, his tone low and sharp. “This isn’t a game out here. These people are kidnapping, locking up, and selling women for whatever brand of niche market they have built.”

  “No, you’re right,” she said. “It’s just such a horrible thing to realize how many people are likely to die tonight.”

  “If all sixty people in this compound are actively involved,” he muttered, “a lot of them will die tonight.”

  She groaned. “Women and children are in there. You know that, right?”

  “Children?”

  She nodded. “Nania mentioned something about children. Maybe that’s why she ran back. Maybe she had her own child here. Then again I think she was terrified of being caught so might have had misgivings about running away in the first place.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But it is good to know. It’s one thing to have consenting adults be a willing part of this nightmare, but the children are innocent.”

  “As much innocence as any of them can have in a cult,” she said. “I can’t imagine how, living in a place like this, they would remain innocent for long.”

  “If you mean what I think you mean …” Beau said, his tone low as his gut clenched. “If they’re abusing children, that’s just sick.”

  “You know yourself that most of these cults don’t consider it abuse but an actual divine gift to give your body to the other members of the cult,” she said in a juristic tone. “I swear to God, sexual abuse of minors is one of the reasons these cults get started.”

  “Just more sick minds,” he said. When his intercom clicked again, he stood, taking her with him. “We’re moving toward the compound. We need to take out a few more of these soldiers.”

  “Me too?”

  “I can hide you out of danger in a spot back here, if you prefer. Then I’ll return for you.”

&nb
sp; Instantly she grabbed his arm and shook her head. “No,” she said in a harsh whisper. “I’m coming with you.”

  He slanted a glance at her. “And you’ll get us both killed.” Determinedly he turned and moved her to the spot he’d seen earlier—a bit of a hillock and a hollow behind it, where she could stay quite hidden. When he reached it, he tucked her into the spot and said, “You have to trust me.”

  “And how long do I wait here?” she asked.

  “I should be back within twenty minutes.”

  “And, on the outside, in case of problems?”

  He thought about that and realized she was looking for a time frame before she would bolt in the opposite direction. “Thirty,” he said, noting both her arms were bare. No watch. He gave her his compass that acted as a stopwatch too and set it for her. He sat her up in the hollow and pointed in the direction of the road. “If you keep going through this set of trees,” he said, “you will eventually hit a road. It is on a hill, and you need to keep moving toward Anchorage. If you get lost, nobody’ll find you out here.”

  “Good,” she said, “thank you for that. You’d better get your ass back here in twenty.” She closed her eyes as if prepared to sleep while he was gone.

  Or maybe she was praying. He smiled, seeing an almost childlike innocence in her own trust. “I promise,” he whispered, and he melted into the darkness.

  According to Asher, two men were coming his way, and he needed to take out those two, preferably without her standing there watching as he killed them. He was happy to not kill them, but he didn’t think it would end up with anything other than their deaths. Not if they were heavily armed.

  He moved out carefully to the left, hiding underneath a low-lying brush. People tended to forget how the low brush hid hollows up against the tree trunks. He lay here, waiting and tracking the men. One was to his left about fifty feet; the other one was separated from him by about twenty feet. They walked diverging paths, which worked out perfectly for Beau—he could take one out and then the other.

  He studied the layout of the brush around him, waiting to see at what point he could take the first down. He slipped out from underneath his cover, moved ten feet, and hid behind a huge tree. Just as he neared where he could intercept one, Beau watched as the guard took another six steps toward him. As soon as he walked past the tree, Beau reached out, hooked an arm around his throat, cutting off all sound, and dropped him to the ground. One hard blow later, and he was out cold. Pulling metal straps from his supplies, he quickly yanked the guy’s hands behind him, tied him up, and stripped away all his weapons. The last thing Beau would do was let this guy go free. He then gagged him and left him there.