Page 28 of Unchained

Brooks moved slowly, so he stood between the bed and the dude, shielding Cam with his body. He hung his hands at his sides. The bastard had Cam’s gun and the other one had been cast away. Didn’t matter. “You won’t have to worry about that.” Brooks charged.

Nixon stumbled backward and fired the gun.

Crack!

Cam’s scream punched through Brooks’s consciousness as he tackled Nixon to the floor. The gun flew from his fingers. Brooks sat on top of him and delivered one brutal punch after another to his face. His head bounced off the floor with every blow.

“Raise your hands!”

Brooks swiveled away from the man under him. Tyler rested at the edge of the bed, feet away from Cam. The gun trained on Brooks’s head. The douchebag was as white as a sheet. A gray tinge circled his eyes, and sweat covered his face in a slick sheen. He cradled his arm across his waist. “Get the fuck up before I shoot her,” he huffed, his breath labored, swinging the gun to Cam. “Nixon, take him to the car.”

The man underneath Brooks shoved him in the chest and rolled out from under him. Brooks raised his hands. The gun stayed pointed at Cam, who was glowering at Tyler. Rough hands grabbed Brooks’s wrists, pinning them behind his back. Panic took hold. The memory of the oppressive isolation room that always waited for him after a stunt blasted into his head. His skin prickled with fresh fear. One look over his shoulder showed Nixon with zip ties in his hands. Swelling had already tinted the skin around the man’s eyes purple. The ties wouldn’t hold Brooks long, but what would the men do to Cam? If they took her back to the hospital, she’d be killed. Or Leonetti would use her in a morbid experiment.

That realization shook him. Tyler turned the gun on Brooks as Nixon situated a plastic strip around his wrist. He struggled to tie it. Brooks kept his eyes trained on the gunman. Catching movement in the corner of his eye, he froze.

Cam.

No.

She let out a howl and kicked Tyler in his injured arm. Tyler let out a wail. Cam scrambled for the gun. Ripping it from his fingers, she leaped to stand on the bed. “No one move! Brooks, get up!”

Brooks yanked out of the loose hold at his back and grabbed Nixon’s arm, sending him to the floor. Shoving Nixon’s face into the hotel carpet, Brooks fastened the zip tie around his wrists at his back. Then he sprang to his feet and crossed the room. Catching Tyler’s broken arm, he twisted it behind his back.

“You piece of shit!” Tyler screamed. Brooks yanked his arm again. Another holler followed. He zip-tied him too then pulled the pillowcases from the pillows and gagged both men. Finally, he brought his eyes to Cam. His chest heaved. Pain worked through his tendons. Every part of his body burned. She’d almost died. Because of him.

She lowered the gun and walked on the mattress until she reached the edge. He scooped his hands around her waist and set her down on the floor. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I’m fine.” The smallness of her pupils told him her tension was through the roof. Her small hand circled his.

After taking the gun from her fingers, he shoved it in the waistband of his pants.

“They’re going to keep coming for us,” he said, his breath so hot it seared his tongue. But he’d injured the men badly enough that they wouldn’t be in any shape to chase him yet, and he’d kill every other person who came after him until he got ahold of Leonetti and stopped the hunt. Only then would he be free.

He caught Cam’s jaw in his palm. Blood rolled onto his thumb, making the leashed rage inside him come undone. “He cut you.”

“It happened when he tossed me on the bed.” Her tongue swept over her lip.

His heart pumped in his chest. He’d barely come down from the high he’d been strung along. He pulled his hand away from her face. His breath lay trapped in his throat as he fought to stay calm. He dragged his hand through his hair and turned around. Cam hovered beside him. Her hands were splayed over her belly as if to stop them from shaking.

He pulled her into a hug. Her body relaxed. The motion reminded him of a blow-up mattress deflating. He smoothed his hand down her spine. “I’m sorry.”

She pulled her head away from his chest. “What do you mean?”

“I shouldn’t have let that happen.” He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “We should get out of here before more come.”

She caught his shoulder, stilling him. His eyes moved over the planes of her face before locking on the serene depths of her irises. Even after everything that had gone down, she exuded a level of calm that struck him. If he could stare at her for hours, all the pain and devastation of the last several months would slip away from his psyche. When he looked in her eyes, he almost forgot the last eight months of his life, like he was no longer the damaged man he’d become. Her gaze moved effortlessly over his face, the concern he’d read on her brow the night he’d woken to find her in his room at the lab long gone. Now, she drank him in as if she’d been hiking in the desert and he was her first sighting of water.

If only he was normal. Horny? Hell, yeah. But not normal. Not when he couldn’t remember his past. Couldn’t remember what he’d done to warrant being locked away and tortured. And not when he was on the run from a group of power-tripping psychopaths in white coats who took pleasure in testing their radical drugs on non-consenting people.

It’d been a long time since he felt that he owed another person something. He owed it to Cam to make sure she walked away from this unscathed, as if she’d never met him.

And he’d ensure she got far away from him—ASAP.

CHAPTER 10

Cam leaned on the hood of her car on the side of the road at North Peak Trail lookout. It’d taken almost thirty minutes to drive there, and still tremors wracked her body. Leonetti’s men had found them too easily. For now, they just had to drive and keep distance between them and Leonetti’s men. Finding Conrad was Brooks’s top priority right now, and she couldn’t blame him. Brooks came around the side of the car with her medical kit in hand. He cracked it open and sifted through the first-aid items.

“I can do that,” she said, her voice sounding small.

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