Page 99 of In The Trenches (Owens Protective Services)

“See? I told you we’d probably live.”

She smacked me in the chest with her fist.

34

BETH

I didn’t wantto move. The thought of getting up from where I lay on the ground was terrifying. If I got up, that meant we had to get back in the truck and drive on the mountain road again. I closed my eyes and breathed through the panic. I thought getting kidnapped and racing through the woods was bad, but this…I was pretty sure I nearly shit my pants.

“We need to leave,” Cash said, getting to his feet as if nothing happened. He held out his hand for me, watching me closely to see what I would do. I could lay here and pretend the world didn’t exist, or I could haul my ass up and move on.

I gripped his hand with my one good one and struggled to my feet. We were still too close to the edge for comfort, and Cash seemed to understand that because he wrapped his arm around me and walked with me back to the truck, being extra gentle with me.

“Where are we going now?” I asked after he got back in the truck.

“Yeah, where are you going now, boss?” Dash said over the phone.

Cash snatched it off the seat with a laugh. “Are you still on?”

“Well, yeah. There was a lot of tense arguing, and then some shots fired. I figured I’d hang on until you were both safely on the road and not hanging off the side of a mountain. Nice save, by the way.”

“How the fuck do you know what just happened?”

“Oh, I hacked into a satellite. Yeah, I just got lucky that one was flying up in space over you. I saw the whole thing, man. It was pretty intense to watch. Way better than any movie. However, I would request next time that you fill me in on what you’re planning. I could have made some popcorn.”

Cash rolled his eyes. “How the hell did they find us? Did you manage to figure that out while you were watching the movie?”

“I still don’t know. There aren’t any breaches in the system, but I would assume someone has to know where our safe houses are. After all, this is a tech research company. Who knows what gadgets they’re testing. Oh, and I recorded everything that happened so you can watch it when you get back.”

“I don’t want to see it,” I chimed in. “Living it was enough for me.”

“So, what you’re saying is we shouldn’t go anywhere related to the business.”

“I wouldn’t,” he said nonchalantly, as if he was kicked back in his office, just chillin’.

“We just keep running?” I asked Cash.

He frowned. “Let me think for a minute.”

“While you’re thinking, you might want to start driving. The wreckage in the area is bound to alert the authorities, and you don’t want to be there when they show up.”

“Good plan,” Cash said, shifting into drive. After checking his mirrors, he turned back around and continued through the mountains.

“We’re not going back?”

“It’s best not to return the way we came. Dash,” he spoke into the phone. “We need someplace to lay low for a while. Until we know that the other safe houses haven’t been compromised, or how these fuckers found us, we have to go off the grid.”

“Righty-o, boss. Do you want me to find someplace for you?”

I chewed my lip as I considered what I was thinking. It was a risk, but very possibly the last place anyone would look for me at this point. “I might have someplace we can go.”

Cash glanced over at me with a frown. “Where?”

“They don’t know who I am, right?”

“Well, yeah, they do.”

“But not…not the real me.”

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