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She gasped for breath, but it didn’t work. She couldn’t breathe. Then she started to cough. Deep painful coughing that started in the middle of her body and spread throughout her limbs to her fingers and toes.

“That’s it baby, cough out the nasty.”

She felt herself being gently rolled to her stomach. Someone was carefully keeping her from touching the ground.

“Spit it all out, Jenny.”

She kept coughing and coughing, and soon her body began to rattle, and she coughed up phlegm, and spit it into the towel that was below her face. All the time she’d been coughing, she felt a warm hand stroking her back. She was shivering so hard that the heat felt good.

“You done?” The voice asked.

Jenny nodded.

He rolled her back so that she was in his arms as he knelt. She looked around. She wasn’t in a forest. Nope, it was the car. She was out of the shack. Looking up, she remembered this man. He was the one who had carried her out of the shack and then passed her onto another man.

“Who are you again?”

“Brax.” He smiled.

“Where are we?”

“We’re close to a village called Silchari. Hopefully we can stop there and get gas, a couple of blankets and maybe some more medical supplies before heading to the hospital in Chattogram.”

She frowned, trying to remember a town called Silchari. It didn’t ring any bells. Chattogram was one of the major cities in Bangladesh, so that city she’d heard of.

“Here, drink this.” Brax rested the top of a bottle of water against her lips.

“I’m not thirsty.”

“Doesn’t matter. You have a fever and you’re dehydrated. Now drink.”

She tried, but could only stomach four small sips. “That’s all I can handle. Any more and I’ll throw up.”

She almost could smile as she watched him grimace.

“What? You can handle all my gross spitting but not my puking?”

“Your spit doesn’t stink.”

This time she did smile. “Good point.”

All the time she’d been in his arms, the SUV they were riding in had swerved and bumped. In one small way it reminded her of that first hellish ride in the butcher truck. But just in a small way. Being held by Brax made everything much better.

“You said I had a fever. What’s wrong with me? Do you know?”

“Our medic thinks it’s because you have pneumonia.”

“Could it be because of another type of infection?”

He frowned down at her. “What other kind of infection?”

“When they first captured me, they threw me into the back of a butcher truck. There was animal blood all over the floor. I was tied up and thrown in, face down. It got all over my face and in my mouth and I inhaled some. I was pretty out of it to begin with.”

Brax hit the mic on his comm unit. “Nolan, we’ve got a problem.”

“Nolan can’t answer now, he’s working on Jase. What’s your problem?” Kostya asked.

“Jenny thinks she inhaled animal blood on the first day of her kidnapping. She’s worried that might be the reason for her fever.”