Page 7 of Extracted

Holy fucking shit.

CHAPTER 3

Gemma swiped a branch out of her face. Her shin burned like a bitch. She’d scraped it while hurtling over the wall when the bomb went off. She inhaled through her nose and navigated down the mountain, her high heels dangling from her fingers.

Her body shook violently.

A bomb. Holy crap. Charlene had completely misled her. Not once had the details of the agency’s plan been divulged, but then again, they never had in the past either. But bombs? Surely that was something she should have been briefed on. All those people . . .

Nausea took hold of her insides. She dropped to her knees and gripped her hair with a shaking hand before emptying the contents of her stomach. The fiery acid burned her throat. Tears leaked from her eyes, but she didn’t dare lift the dam. She had to get somewhere safe first. Sucking in several deep breaths, she wiped her face with the hem of her dress. Darn thing was ruined now anyway.

Now that she was under a canopy of trees, the ground was moist and easier to walk on. Sweat beaded on her chest and arms despite the fact that it was almost dusk.

Dusk in a Colombian jungle was a recipe for disaster. Scratch that. A jungle, period, was a recipe for disaster. The night songs of insects and other creatures she didn’t want to identify reached her ears.

The sirens had ceased about twenty minutes ago. Surely all the emergency crews had stopped flocking to the area. She needed to get a cab. At least Charlene’s advice not to drive a rental car to the hotel had been useful. She wouldn’t have made it to the parking lot without being blown up, so skirting down a mountain was the least of her worries. The whizz of cars broke through the screech of birds.

Oh, thank you, sweet Lord.

Relief made the pain that her body had forced away in survival mode ebb back into her muscles. A bed. A meal. And most definitely a bath. She could only hope these things would soften the jagged emotions puncturing her soul.

Dallas.

Silas.

All those people.

She’d been a prisoner too long. Not in the physical sense, but in every other way imaginable. One wrong decision could change your life and all that. Too bad no one had told her that six years ago.

She huffed out a breath and surged through the jungle toward the road. Stopping just far enough from view of passersby, she braced herself on a tree and wiggled her abused toes into her shoes. There was nothing she could do about the mud stains up the back of her dress and the tear in the neckline.

She staggered closer to the road. A car sailed by, honking angrily at her abrupt appearance. Straightening her purse, she ran her fingers through her hair. She’d have to walk a little farther into town to get a ride. At least she had cash.

Summoning the last of her gusto, she crossed the road and walked down a narrow sidewalk—on a steep decline of course. A few shops and businesses came into view. She could make it.

Thirty minutes later she shoved open the door of her new hotel room and dropped her bag on the minibar counter as if it held a stack of bricks. She reached down and yanked off her shoes. The arches of her feet twanged with pain, almost matching the pulsing headache in full swing at her temples.

Food. Bath. Bed.

Taking only a millisecond to absorb the room’s design—silver wallpaper, gray throw pillows on a crisp white duvet, TV hanging on the wall—she lifted the cordless phone from the receiver on the desk near the bed and hit the little butler symbol.

She ordered the most familiar items she could think of and requested two gallons of water. Entering the bathroom, she flicked on the light. A tub and shower combo ensured her she’d get the most coveted thing on her wish list.

She turned to the mirror. Her wayward, sweat-soaked hair clung to the sides of her face. Her makeup was smeared and dirt marred her cheeks and chest.

Look at you, Gemma. Disgruntled by your appearance when people died today. Died. Because of you.

A deep chasm of pain opened up behind her sternum. She dropped onto the closed lid of the toilet seat and buried her face in her hands.

What have I done?

* * *

“I don’t give a shit about that right now,” Dallas spat. With the phone pinched between his shoulder and ear, he stalked out of the motel bathroom with a towel around his waist.

Five hours after the blast and he still didn’t feel a lick of normalcy. Maybe it was the concussion. Maybe it was that his hearing had come back swiftly when emergency responders arrived, blaring their noises and screams into the tunnels of his brain. Even sleep hadn’t helped much.

“I don’t have any of my equipment and I need you to find her, Dare. Stat.” He moved across the beige carpet. The lone queen-sized bed called to him, but despite his desire to rest his aching head and muscles, he couldn’t. He needed to know that she’d survived.

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