Page 44 of Lethal Pursuit

She launched herself at Khalid, hitting him in the chest with her shoulder. He yelped in surprise and grabbed hold of her as they fell and crashed onto the ground with a bone-jarring thud.

The surge of strength racing through her body was exhilarating. She was mindless, intent on doing as much damage as possible, kill him if she could. Fighting through the splinters of agony in her fractured bones, she rose to her knees and brought her right fist back, hurling it at the center of his face. A large hand flashed out to block the punch, catching the full force of fist with his palm.

The abrupt action jolted her out of her rage-fueled haze. Angry voices registered, Jackson’s shout commanding her to stand down. A primal snarl built in her throat. She was done with standing down. If they wanted her dead, she was damn well going out fighting.

Khalid snarled something in Pashto and threw her off him. Panting, she rolled to her back and lashed out with her feet, earning a brutal kick high on her outer left thigh. Her outraged scream echoed throughout the room. He was out of reach now, too far away to get another blow in.

She came up on to her right elbow, bracing for an attack. If he’d been angry before, now he was enraged. She stuck out her chin in defiance, trying to mask the betraying quiver that ran through her. She could feel Jackson’s fear beating at her, having risen to his knees, and she knew he would have dived on top of her to shield her with his own body if things had gone further.

Khalid spat at her, narrowly missing her face. His eyes boring a hole in her, he snapped something at the man who’d blocked her punch. Maya wrenched her head to the side, recognizing him as the one who’d handed her the revolver.

She didn’t catch any of the heated Pashto words Khalid said to him. But when the big man came toward her, his dark eyes intent upon her in his masked face, Maya let out a cry of protest and scrambled to her feet. Her bound ankles made her stumble and she threw her uninjured hand out to catch herself against the wall, losing her only opportunity to lash out at him. Strong hands gripped her right wrist and wrenched it behind her back, the other manacling her left upper arm.

She kicked and swore as he turned her away and began to propel her toward the rug-draped opening. Out of the corner of her eye she barely caught the look on Jackson’s face. Seeing the exhaustion and relief that she was safe set off a wave of determination inside her.

“Since the lieutenant is going back to her cage to serve an additional punishment and the Defense Secretary is unable to take his turn at the moment,you’llgo next.”

Maya’s blood ran cold as Khalid spoke the words to Jackson. The odds were down to one in five now. A twenty percent chance that the chamber he fired would be loaded.

She would not let it happen. Wouldnot.

“Fucking cowardlyhijos de puta!” She screamed it at the top of her lungs, thrashing in the big man’s powerful hold. It was no use. He was too strong, and she was too sapped of strength to do any real harm.

He propelled her forward through the opening to the corridor, but she didn’t make it easy for him. She rammed her head back, catching him in the chest with a hard thud that rattled her brain. When that didn’t work, she wrenched her head to the side and lunged at his wrist with an open mouth. He snatched his arm away just in time. Her teeth closed on the sleeve of his jacket, snapping hard together when he yanked it out of her mouth.

Fatigue began to creep in. A slow, insidious weakness stole through her muscles. She was out of breath, panting and sweating by the time they reached her cage. Maya dug her feet in, the heels of her boots scraping through the earthen floor. Mohammed was there behind them, hanging back as though he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

She kept resisting. If she disabled the man holding her, she could easily take out Mohammed and find the exit to this place before anyone raised the alarm. With her feet unbound, she might be able to make it out of here. She’d run, find someone to help her. She’d get backup, rescue the others. It was the only option for escape they had. Once they locked her in that cage again, she’d never get out. Now was her only chance, before Jackson pulled that trigger. Maybe the diversion her escape caused would buy him and Haversham more time.

With a final burst of strength, she reared up and attacked. She called upon every training maneuver she’d been taught, and some she’d learned on the streets. The soles of her feet slammed into the man’s knees with a satisfying thud that made him stumble and growlin pain. Seizing upon that, she rammed her head back at the same time she drove her elbow up and at his throat. He barely managed to block it, and then he used his momentum to tip them forward. Maya lost her balance and fell, bracing for impact with the floor.

He caught her before she hit, suddenly clamped one arm around the front of her rib cage and covered her mouth with a merciless palm, cutting off her air. She screamed in rage and twisted, uncaring of the fiery shards of pain in her ribs and left cheek, through her mangled wrist. He squeezed her again once, hard, forcing the breath from her. With spots dancing in front of her eyes, she blinked to clear her vision and sucked in a breath to yell some more when he suddenly spoke.

His mouth was right next to her ear, so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin, the heat of his large body around her. He spoke in a whisper, and the perfect English he used made the scream die in her throat.

“If you want to live, shut the fuck up and listen real carefully to what I say.”

FIFTEEN

JACKSON WAS SICKand fucking tired of this bullshit.

He could hear Maya yelling and cursing on her way back to her cage. The Sec Def wasn’t going to crack, no way, and that meant Jackson was probably going to die in the next few minutes. They wouldn’t make Haversham take a turn with the roulette. The guy was too far gone to even hold a gun, let alone hold it to his head or pull the trigger. And it didn’t make any sense for them to watch him blow his brains out when what they wanted was some fabricated political statement they thought would somehow further their twisted cause.

Khalid turned his eyes on him, his mouth still pinched with anger from his tangle with Maya. Jackson fully understood her reaction. When she’d pulled that trigger, he’d been out of his mind with fear, knowing there was fuck all he could do to stop her. And when that chamber had been empty, he’d never known relief so pure. He swore his heart had stopped beating.

Now the rage was back and he was ready to let loose. Because he wasn’t playing this game, no matter how many holes they put in him or the Sec Def. That was something Haversham would understand, because it was the POW code to never give in. Maya had done it to save him and Haversham, and Jackson would never forget it.

One of the three remaining masked men stepped forward to crouch next to Jackson with a knife. Jackson wanted to grab the blade slicing the zip tie at his wrists so badly his fingers twitched, but he managed to refrain, instead bringing his freed hands in front of him to rub at the raw skin and restore the circulation. “I want to bind up his leg,” he said of Haversham, who was still bleeding all over the place. “He’s losing a lot of blood and if he goes into shock and dies, you’ll never get that statement.”

Khalid jerked the bottom of his long black tunic down in anirritated motion. “Hurry up. Tie it off and nothing more.”

Asshole.

Khalid glanced around the room and scowled, muttered something to one of the others, who shrugged. Khalid growled in frustration and gestured to the man, who took off the scarf wrapped around his neck and offered it to Jackson, his other hand brandishing a pistol in case he made a wrong move. Taking the filthy bandage that would likely create the mother of all infections in Haversham’s flesh, Jackson shuffled on his knees to the Secretary. The guy was sucking in shallow breaths, his mouth a thin line, his nostrils pinched, skin beaded with sweat. In his weakened state, there was a chance he might not survive the shock and blood loss.

Kneeling at his side, Jackson carefully rolled up Haversham’s pant leg, exposing the wound. The tibia and fibula were both shattered. He could see the edges of the fibula just below the torn skin and muscle. The bullet had passed right through the lower leg, so that saved Haversham the pain of having a bullet dug out of him—if Khalid would have let Jackson do it. “I’m gonna wrap this as tight as I can. Hopefully it’ll slow the bleeding.” It was better than nothing.

Haversham nodded, the movement tight with pain.

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