Page 39 of Brax

“Hiro? You read?”

“I read, AJ.”

“Get ready. She’s three miles out.”

Hiro looked up at Cam, and he nodded.

“Let’s go. I think we should all be there.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“It was somewhere along here,” muttered Ines to herself. “I know it was along here. She was driving straight for me. There’s nothing here. This can’t be right.”

Realizing that she was only driving further from the point at which she’d seen Stephanie before, she decided to attempt to turn around. Unfortunately, the road was incredibly narrow, with only two lanes to maneuver in the rain.

To top it off, her mobility was seriously limited, and attempting to turn her arms with the wheel of the car was nearly impossible. Stopped in the middle of the road, the rain pouring down around her. She laid her head against the steering wheel and began to cry.

Ines wasn’t sure how long she’d been there when someone tapped on her driver’s side window.

“I’m moving. I’m moving,” she said.

“Ma’am, please roll your window down,” said the voice. She shook her head, crying harder.

“Please, just let me turn around. Please.”

“Ma’am, we don’t want to hurt you,” said the man.

With tremendous effort, she raised her head and saw more than thirty men surrounding her car. She was going to die.

“Ines?” The soft female voice caught her ear, and she turned her body slightly to look in the direction of the voice. It was coming from the passenger side of her vehicle. “Ines. It’s me. Stephanie.”

“I’m imagining this.”

“No. No, you’re not,” said Brax. “We truly want to help you. I won’t let you harm Stephanie, but we have a medical team that would like to try and help you.”

“No one can help me. It’s incurable at this point. I only hoped to be more comfortable.”

“Let us try,” said Stephanie.

“Why? Why would you help me? I shot at your car. I didn’t mean for the car to flip. I only wanted you to stop so I could explain what I needed.”

“No offense, ma’am,” smiled Brax, “but there were easier ways of doing that.”

“I-I know,” she said, rubbing her head. “I’m sorry. I have a terrible headache. I think I need to lie down.”

“Cruz!”

Ines could hear the footsteps of men coming toward her and knew this was the end for her. She was going to die. In truth, she was ready for death. Life had not been kind to her. The world had not been kind to her. Death would hopefully show kindness by taking her swiftly.

She could hear voices of men and women. They were using medical terms. Terms that were so technical only scientists or medical professionals would know them. Was she in a hospital?

She honestly didn’t care.

They weren’t laughing.

The team did something that they hadn’t done in more than a decade. They closed the clinic, not accepting any patients at all for the foreseeable future.

“How is she?” asked Stephanie. She’d willingly donated blood, bone marrow, stem cells, anything that was asked of her.

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