Page 26 of Against the Wind

Mickey’s resistance had shifted from active fighting to dead weight, making the journey even harder. My feet were numb, probably bleeding, but I couldn’t afford to check.

A loose shutter exploded off a nearby building. I yanked Mickey down as wooden shards flew past. He took advantage of my split-second distraction, ramming his shoulder into my sternum. The rope burned through my hands as he bolted.

“Dammit!” I scrambled up, ignoring the stabbing pain in my feet.

Mickey made it three steps before a palm frond caught him in the face. He sprawled backwards, hitting the pavement hard. I pounced, driving my knee into his kidney. He bucked, but I had leverage this time.

“Try that again,” I snarled, tightening the rope, “and I’ll hogtie you.”

The clinic was only half a block away now. I could probably manage to carry him that far, if I had to.

“Last chance.” I hauled him up by his collar. “Walk or I drag you.”

Apparently, that last fall had knocked most of the fight out of him. The last few yards to the clinic were a blur of wind and rain until suddenly Gabi was there, wielding what looked like an IV pole like a quarterstaff. She'd thrown on rain gear and boots at some point.

“Get inside!” she shouted.

I half-dragged, half-carried my captive toward the door.

Gabi kept the pole trained on Mickey as we stumbled past, then slammed the door against the howling wind. Water pooled around us on the tile floor as she hit the locks.

She whirled on me, brandishing the pole. "Are you fuckinginsane?"

SEVENTEEN

GABI

“Not crazy. Just motivated.”

The lantern light cast harsh shadows as Daniel hauled our intruder down the hallway. Blood trickled from a cut above the guy’s eye, probably from when Daniel tackled him. Given the look of both of them, that might have happened more than once. Or maybe it was all the debris that would’ve battered them both from their mad dash through the hurricane. The captive’s shoes squeaked against the linoleum, leaving wet tracks from the rain they’d brought in. Even in the emergency lights, I could see the cuts on Daniel’s bare feet. They left spots of blood on the floor as he walked.

I followed them into the break room, where Daniel shoved the man into one of the metal chairs. The stranger’s dirty blonde hair plastered to his forehead, water dripping down his face. His eyes darted between us, but he kept his mouth shut while Daniel secured the man’s already bound hands behind the chair. Then he retrieved yet more rope from his supplies and set to work on his legs.

“Hold the light closer,” Daniel ordered, as he worked on securing the guy’s ankles.

I lifted the lantern, getting my first good look at our captive’s face. Mid-thirties, maybe, with a scraggly beard and a small scar near his chin. Not someone I recognized from the island. But I’d been gone a long time and working so much that unless the guy had come through the clinic, I wouldn’t necessarily have seen him.

Daniel stepped back, his chest heaving. Blood trickled down his back from a gash and from his nose. A bruise was already blooming on his shoulder. His knuckles were raw and bleeding. The adrenaline must have masked the pain until now because he winced when he tried to flex his hand.

“Sit.” The word snapped out like a whip, driven by all the fear and adrenaline that had crashed over me when I’d watched the man I loved, the man I’d only just gotten back in my life, race out into the middle of a fucking hurricane.

With a wary eye on the captive, Daniel sat in a chair across the room. I set down the lantern and reached first for his injured hand.

“I’m fine.” But he didn’t pull away when I examined his split knuckles. “Check him first.”

The cut above our intruder’s eye had mostly stopped bleeding, but would need cleaning. As I moved closer with my kit, he jerked his head away.

“Hold still,” I said. “That needs antiseptic.”

The guy’s brows drew together as I cleaned the wound, as if he couldn’t make sense of the fact that I was still treating him like a human being.

“Do you have any other injuries I can’t see? Any other cuts or bruising?”

“Sure, I’ve got plenty of both.” He managed a leer. “You wanna untie me for a head-to-toe inspection?”

“Not happening, Mickey,” Daniel growled.

He’d learned the guy’s name sometime during their flight?

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