Page 148 of The Savior

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Chelsea jumped from her cot when the lock rattled. Angela didn’t notice. The even keel of her breathing never changed as she continued to sleep.

The man who’d taken away the chicken-dinner leftovers entered their cage. His demeanor had hardened, and her gut instinct warned her trouble had arrived.

“Angela,” Chelsea whispered then nudged her cot. “Wake up.”

Angela was slow to rise, but when she did, her eyes widened. Despite how calm and boring she claimed the place to be, a middle-of-the-night visitor visibly alarmed her.

“What’s—”

“Put your shoes on,” the man ordered.

“Why?” Angela demanded.

He gave the same order again, and his cold demeanor didn’t bode well. Chelsea put on her shoes, even as Angela tried to explain that nothing would happen. Nothingeverhappened.

Sorenson’s daughter had become the poster girl for Stockholm Syndrome, and Chelsea explained, “Things never stay the same.”

Annoyed, Angela shoved on her shoes. “Can I tell you how thrilled I am to find out my roommate is such a positive presence.”

What fluffy cotton-candy cloud did Angela float in on?“I’m not your roommate.” Even if Chelsea had somehow managed to excuse the chicken wire, they were locked in a cage, their free will removed. “And this isn’t a slumber party.”

The man clapped, and Angela jumped. “Jeesh.”

After everything Chelsea had survived in the last day, let alone the year and a half, she almost longed for Angela’s foolish naivete. But falling into an innocent stupor to hide from reality wouldn’t get them out of the warehouse.

They were directed out in a single-file line. Angela trudged and complained, while Chelsea tried to understand what was happening.

The bandage on her neck tugged on her skin with a tacky tightness as she surveyed the barren hall and high rafters. When the man took a phone call, and they paused, she repositioned a layer of tape.

Her neck was warm. The wound ached in a different way than earlier, and she worried it needed to be cleaned.No, actually, what sheneededwas to get the double-stacked-pancakes out of that place. Then she could worry about changing the bandages.

By now, Liam knew she was missing, and Chelsea would assume that help was on its way—though that wouldn’t keep her for eyeing a possible escape route.

The phone call wrapped up, and they were directed into the open area where she’d first arrived and her hands and feet were untied. Plastic-wrapped pallets lined the walls. The high-reaching stacks created aisles in the cavernous room. A large black SUV was parked in an open space, a few hundred yards away, then another rolled to a stop behind it. Metal clattered, and the garage door slammed shut in the far corner.

Were they going somewhere else?

“This place has never been so busy,” Angela said.

Voices echoed and bounced from the other side of the SUVs. Chelsea wasn’t sure more people was a good thing.

The driver stepped out the second SUV and opened the back door. He pulled a bound person with a dark hood onto the floor.

“Come,” their guard ordered with another clap.

Apprehension flooded her thoughts. The situation was escalating from Angela’s long, uneventful stay to new, hood-wearing captives. Chelsea crossed her arms. Her clammy hands tucked into her armpits and her chin trembled as they were ushered closer to the SUVs.

Chelsea couldn’t tear her eyes away— and the hood was yanked off the woman on the floor.

“Mom?” Angela stopped abruptly. Her hand clasped Chelsea’s arm, and her voice shook. “That’s my mother.”

That wasn’t good, and she hoped Angela was wrong.

Senator Sorenson brushed herself off, seemingly indignant, then turned toward them.

“Oh, God.” Angela sprinted toward the senator. “Mom!”

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