Page 8 of The Rebel King

The man in the Nixon mask guides a woman forward wearing aT-shirt, jeans, and a black bag over her head. Abe pulls her to stand directly in front of him.

“Now this second hostage, though as disposable and useless to me as good old Paco…” He pauses and crosses himself with the gun. “Rest in peace, Paco.”

He chuckles maniacally.

“Where was I? Oh, yes. Myotherhostage. She’s probably worth more to some of you than dear Paco. I hear she’s a pretty big deal back home. Allow me to introduce the next person who dies if I don’t get my vaccine in forty-eight hours.”

He rips the bag from the woman’s head, and a river of inky hair tumbles around her shoulders. Abe presses his gun to her temple, and everything slows down. The world comes to a complete stop, and the only thing still in motion is the blood galloping through my veins like wild horses, like mustangs. Even with the riot of my emotions, an icy preternatural calm falls over me. In this moment, I know two things like I know my own name.

The first is that I can no longer call what I feel for Lennix obsession, mere attraction, or anything less than what it is. I’m absolutely, irrevocably in love with her. I know this because it feels as though Abe is holding that gun tomyhead. I know that if her life is over, in every way that counts, so is mine. We are inextricably joined at the heart, even separated by thousands of miles. I wish I’d been clear-eyed enough, brave enough to tell her before she left. I wish standing there in the grip of this lunatic, she already had the assurance of those words—the certainty that I love her this deeply and will not stop fighting, searching until she’s safe. Until she’s home.

The second thing I know with absolute certainty is that I will kill this masked man myself.Personally.

The only sound I hear is my heart beating a lethal rhythm.

Die. Die. Die. Die.

Black and purple bruises ring Lennix’s throat like someone hastried to choke her. She glances at the dead man on the floor and gasps, closing her eyes for just a moment.

“Look into the camera, pretty lady,” Abe says, his voice pleasant yet as hard and cold and unhinged as an ice floe. “Now tell them your name.”

When she doesn’t speak, he bunches her hair in his fist and jerks, forcing her to look into the camera. In one glance, those eyes transport me back to Antarctica, a horizon foretelling storms ahead. Lennix’s water-sky eyes, her warring eyes, tell me she’s not done yet.

He presses the gun’s barrel deeper into her temple until she winces. She draws a deep breath and raises her hands, bound at the wrists by plastic cuffs, to push stray stands of hair from her face. The compass bracelet I gave her glints in the light.

It’s because we found our way back to each other.

My words from the night I gave her the bracelet haunt me. Did we find each other again only to have our second chance ripped away? I should have told her then that I loved her. I should have smothered her with it—should have kept her with me and ordered her not to go. That would not have gone over well, but my gut sensed danger. Even when Wallace assured me it was safe. Even though she’s done several trips and nothing’s gone wrong, I should have stopped her.

I failed.

“I said, tell them your name.” Abe grounds the harsh words up and spits them into her ear.

Lennix’s chin tilts in that defiant way I’ve seen since the day we met, and I silently beg her to comply, to cooperate until I can get there. Until I can find her and kill this son of a bitch for her.

“My name is Lennix Moon Hunter.”

“And she—” Abe starts.

“Lennix Moon Hunter, Yavapai-Apache Nation,” she says, her voice fierce, her eyes lit for battle. “The last warriors to surrender. And I am the girl who chases stars.”

She turns her head to meet bright-blue eyes through the slits of the mask, every line of her body a declaration of war. My heart constricts with fear for her. She’s vulnerable in every way possible. He could shoot her right now. He could rape her. He could cut off her head. He could take her away from me forever, and if she’s not frightened, I’m terrified enough for both of us.

A long moment stretches between them, and it’s not clear who is conquered and who is the conqueror, but I know who holds the gun.

“You have forty-eight hours,” Abe repeats, holding her eyes a second longer before looking directly into the camera for his final words. “And then she dies.”

CHAPTER 3

MAXIM

An eerie silence presides over my office for a few seconds when the screen goes dark. I allow the full weight and peril of the situation to crowd in on me, and then I approach this challenge the way I have every other one. Focused, methodical, and only considering a favorable outcome.

“You still there, Mr. Hunter?” I ask.

“Yes.” He clears his throat, but fear is stubborn and lingers in his voice. “I’m here.”

“When did they send this video?”

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