Page 151 of To Catch a Sub

Lightening arched across his back, seizing every muscle. He crashed to his knees, eyes watering, a familiar clicking sound behind him making it clear he’d just been shot with a taser.

The prongs were still in his back, someone’s finger still in the trigger, exhausting the charge as it pumped electricity into his body. Landon only dimly heard Colette trying to scream his name.

One of the three assailants from the front had been standing off to the side, fumbling with something in his pocket. Now he pulled out a capped syringe. Landon watched through watery eyes as the man approached Colette.

She fought, but there were three of them. One held her by the neck and pinned her left arm to her side while the other forced her right sleeve up, holding her arm out straight.

The one with the syringe shoved up his visor. Colette’s eyes went wide when she saw his face, and she started to thrash frantically in their hold.

It was no use. The man with the syringe slipped the needle into the vein at the crook of her arm, depressing the plunger.

Colette’s terrified face was the last thing he saw.

Someone yanked him off the roof, his body rolling down the windshield, across the bonnet and hitting the ground. There was a pinching sensation on the back of his arm, and then Landon knew no more.

THIRTY-THREE

Landon pulled the IV needle out of his arm as he stood. He wasn’t staying in A&E one second longer.

Every moment that passed was another moment Colette was possibly with Damien.

He’d woken in the ambulance, and nearly come up swinging. Luckily, he’d figured out where he was in time to not roundhouse the paramedic.

By the time the paramedics rushed him into A&E—and he saw a clock—forty minutes had passed since he and Colette were attacked.

Two constables had rushed in behind the paramedics, asking him questions. The doctors had tried to shoo them away, but Landon had barked answers, given them a description of Colette including what she was wearing for an all points alert, then loudly declared that this was a kidnapping with international implications and demanded they call the NCB.

Since then the detective and chief constables had come in and out along with nurses and doctors. At first they’d answered his questions just as often as he answered theirs. His frantic worry had been manageable because the police were mobilized and looking for her.

His worry was no longer manageable. It had been twenty minutes without any new information—in total nearly two hours since the attack—and he was done waiting.

He was leaving, and he was going to find Colette.

He wobbled a little, holding pressure on the point where he’d just pulled out the IV. Leaving probably wasn’t the most medically sound decision, but nothing was broken and his soft tissue would heal. The doctors were running a blood panel, trying to determine if he’d been drugged in addition to shocked all to fuck, but that answer wouldn’t change anything. They could call him with the results.

He needed to leave. He needed to find Colette.

The pain from the taser headache was fading thanks to a couple paracetamol they’d given him at one point, not wanting to risk anything stronger until they got test results.

Landon looked around for clothes, belatedly remembering that they’d cut his damned pants off.

“Agent Malik.”

There was no door to this little cubicle in the busy A&E, and the non-stop walking traffic meant he hadn’t noticed footsteps stopping outside his curtain.

Landon turned slowly. He recognized that voice.

The man standing beside the open curtain was short, and maybe fifteen years older than Landon. He had brown hair and cruel eyes.

Novak.

Landon slowly sat on the edge of his bed, eyeing the other man.

Novak stepped through the curtain, looking mildly concerned. “I was sorry to hear about?—”

“Did you do this?”

Novak stopped, brow raised. “Excuse me?”