Page 38 of Rescuing Sadie

She should’ve been scared. She should’ve been freaking out. But suddenly, Sadie was just mad. Furious. How dare he blow up Fletch’s house? How dare he try to kill her uncle? How dare he scare Emily, Rayne, and Annie? He had no right. No right.

Quickly, she leaned over and put Annie’s feet on the ground. She turned the little girl and pushed her in the opposite direction from where Jonathan was slowly and steadily sauntering toward them. It was obvious he thought he had all the time in the world to get to her. Asshole.

“Run, Annie! Go through the trees to your neighbor’s house. No matter what you hear, don’t stop. Understand?”

Annie immediately nodded, then turned on her heel and ran into the woods. She was limping a little, but she soldiered on.

Without looking at Jonathan again, Sadie ran toward her uncle’s car. She wasn’t going to docilely be kidnapped. Nope. She had no idea where Chase was or if he was injured. If he wasn’t, she knew without a doubt he’d do everything in his power to make sure she was safe.

But first she had to help herself…and that meant getting her uncle out of his wrecked car.

Chapter Twelve

Chase coughed and tried his best not to pass out. He’d been talking to Ghost and Fletch in the living room about the plan for the morning once Sadie’s uncle arrived, when the world around them had exploded. One minute they’d been standing there, and the next he was lying on the ground trying to catch his breath.

He sat up, momentarily confused, but quickly figured out they were under attack when he saw the hole in the side of the house and Ghost and Fletch lying motionless across from him.

His first thought was for Sadie, but from what he could tell, the missile, or whatever it was that had come through the house, had hit the side opposite the upstairs bedrooms. He turned his head to look toward the stairs and gasped in horror when he saw they were cut off by a pile of debris.

Fletch moaned then, and Chase turned his attention from the blocked stairs to his friends. He crawled over to Fletch, wincing with every movement. His side hurt, bad, but he ignored it for the moment.

“Fletch, wake up, man.”

Fletch’s eyes opened then closed again. Chase saw a large piece of wood sticking out of his side. He was bleeding profusely. Swearing, he looked over to Ghost. The other man was sitting up now and shaking his head as if trying to get his bearings.

“Ghost, Fletch is hurt,” Chase told him. “I need your help.”

As if his words were a switch, Ghost turned his head and immediately crawled over to where Chase was kneeling over Fletch. “Shit. That doesn’t look good.”

“I know, but we’ve got to get that out.”

“Fuck.” Ghost looked around as if searching for something. “We’d be better off leaving it in place, but I don’t think we’ve got a choice. We need to stop that bleeding.”

“Right, that’s what I was thinking,” Chase agreed. “If he wasn’t bleeding so heavily, we could leave it in, but if we don’t stop the blood, he’ll bleed out before help can get here.”

Ghost nodded grimly and quickly took off his T-shirt.

Chase reached for the wood. “I’ll pull, you get ready to apply pressure. Ready? One, two, three!” On the last count, Chase pulled and the wood easily slid out of Fletch’s side. He moaned but didn’t open his eyes.

Ghost was there to immediately apply pressure to the hole in his teammate’s side. Using his T-shirt to help staunch the blood flow, he leaned on the wound and turned to Chase. “The women?”

“Not sure. The stairway is blocked, but it looks like this room took the brunt of the damage.”

Ghost turned to look at the stairs. “Fuck. Jonathan?”

“That’s my assumption,” Chase agreed.

“Fuck,” Ghost repeated.

“My guess is that he’s trying to force us out of the house. Cutting us off from the women was just a bonus. He’s not going to try to face us one-on-one. He’s perfectly happy working from a distance and doing a snatch-and-grab.”

“Ghost?” Rayne’s muffled voice came from above the blocked stairway.

“Yeah, baby, I’m here,” Ghost replied in a loud voice.

“Are you okay?”

“How are you? And the others?”