Page 64 of Protecting Jess

“I’m here to take to you to the front, where you can be picked up.” His voice was low, and he kept his gaze averted from hers.

“Oh? I thought the doctor was going to be coming here with the papers for me to sign.”

“Change of plan. Please hurry up. I’ve got another patient I need to see to.” He was fidgeting, and an unsettling feeling formed in the pit of her stomach.

A warning told Jess she shouldn’t go with him, but he worked at the hospital. His identification badge was clipped to his scrub pants, but she couldn’t quite make out his name. He even had on the scrub cap that all the orderlies wore around the hospital. Everything about him seemed legitimate, so she didn’t understand why she didn’t want to follow his instructions.

“Can we stop at the nurses’ station on the way past to confirm that’s what’s happening?” she asked.

“Fine. If that will get you in the chair. Now please, miss, hurry up.”

With her good arm, Jess picked up the small carry bag her mom had brought her and settled in the chair.

Where was Finn? What was taking him so long to get her a chocolate bar?

The orderly wheeled her briskly down the hallway, the nurses’ station whizzing past.

“Wait! You said you would stop there.” Jess gestured with her uninjured arm.

“They won’t know. The one downstairs near the entrance is the one you want to talk to.”

She should get out of the chair. Or at least question someone when they got into the elevator to go downstairs.

Unfortunately, the elevator was empty—how was that possible in a busy hospital? The ride down to the ground floor was swift. The moment the doors opened, the orderly pushed her out and down the hallway toward the exit.

From what Jess could see, there was no main desk to direct people to where they needed to go to visit people. It almost looked like they were heading to the back of the hospital.

The bad feeling increased. Her own words about nothing bad happening were coming back to haunt her. She didn’t care if she hurt herself—she was getting out of the chair.

Jess pushed up to stand, but a hand landed on her sore shoulder, squeezing hard.

Jess bit back the cry of pain.

“Sit down, bitch! You’re coming with me.”

That voice.

She knew it.

Where did she know it from?

Payback, bitch.

The memory hit her of where she’d heard him before.

“Oh my God, it was you,” she gasped as they pushed through a back door.

“That’s right, and now you’re coming with me.”

Again, Jess pushed up, but stilled when she felt the unmistakable tip of a knife against her neck.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you.”

She sat back down, her need to live overriding her need to escape. At least at this moment. She still had her phone. She’d wait, and when she could, she’d let Finn know she’d been taken.

He would come for her.

He would rescue her.

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