Page 59 of Reclaimed (Hostage Rescue Team)

The sniper teams fired, taking out the exterior guards.

“Guards down,” Tuck confirmed a moment later. “Go.”

Adam pushed his body up and over the edge of the ridge and shoved to his feet, taking off at a dead run behind Vance.

They were seconds away from the front of the building when he heard it. The sound of bloodcurdling screams coming from inside.

Even though he’d never heard her make that sound before, Adam knew it was Summer. The hair on the back of his arms stood up and his stomach plummeted.

Oh my God, we’re too late.Too fucking late.

Chapter Nineteen

The horrifying spectacle playing out before her was already permanently seared into Summer’s brain.

She screamed over and over at the top of her lungs, the sound shrill and filled with all the revulsion and shock she felt, unable to stop. Her skin crawled, chill after chill racing over her body. She kept waiting to wake up and discover this was nothing but a horrible, vivid nightmare.

But this was no dream. And even though she wanted to look away, she couldn’t. She was paralyzed, unable to move, unable to even close her eyes to block out the hideous sight.

Mark was on fire in front of her. His agonized, panicked screams were filled with such raw terror that bile rushed up her throat, her heart so full of grief it felt like it might explode.

He was rolling around on the ground in his cage, twisting back and forth in the dirt in an effort to smother the flames. Instead, the gas soaked into the ground ignited while Mark’s executioners stood around enjoying the show.

There was no escape for him, no matter which way he rolled. No reprieve from the unbearable agony he suffered as the flames blistered his skin and bit deep, stripping away the flesh from his bones.

She caught a glimpse of his face through the flickering flames as he struggled to his feet, his arms flailing, and wished she’d turned away. His face was already blackened, unrecognizable as human.

She was crying now. Deep, racking sobs that shook her entire body. She could feel the wetness of tears tracking down her cheeks, her chest and shoulders jerking with the force of her sobs. All to no avail.

These men had no mercy. No compassion.

As the seconds passed Mark’s screams grew quieter, then stopped altogether. A few seconds after that, he ceased struggling.

He fell to his knees in the dirt, toppled onto his stomach and lay facedown in the flaming dirt. His legs twitched once, twice. Then his body lay eerily still as the voracious flames consumed what was left of him.

And the entire time Summer stared in horror, she knew it was only a matter of minutes before she suffered that same horrific death.

Something inside her broke, the horror of it too much to process.

Unable to look at Mark’s body a moment longer, she covered her eyes with her hands and turned away, sinking to her knees in the dirt. The crackling of the flames and the stench of burning flesh made her sick to her stomach.

She gagged, swallowed the bile back down and huddled there with her arms wrapped around herself, trembling all over, teeth chattering with the force of it.

I can’t die like that, she kept thinking frantically.I can’t.She couldn’t bear it.

A sharp popping noise slowly penetrated the layer of numbness encasing her. Then the sound of men’s voices inside the building. Urgent. Shouts of alarm.

Her head came up. She blinked to clear her vision, her heart jolting when she saw men scrambling from the front of the building, all grabbing weapons.

Then it hit her. Gunfire. Someone was shooting outside, and the men were alarmed.

Her heart pounded against her ribs as a fragile seed of hope took root deep inside her. Was it a rescue force? Had Adam received and understood her message? She didn’t even care who had found them or how, she just wanted out of this cage, to be taken away from this horrific place.

She wanted toliveand to see Adam again.

Summer stared through the smoky air in the direction those shots were coming from.Please let me live. Please…

Just as the bubble of hope began to inflate in her chest, a man rushed through the veil of smoke obscuring the far end of the building. He hurried straight toward her with a focused look on his face that made the blood drain from her face.

---