His body moved with the machine, firm and hard, layered with muscle. And she could hear low, muffled voices when she leaned close to him, words breaking through the wind and engine in clipped bursts that didn’t belong to either of them. It took her a second to realize it wasn’t in her head—he wore a device in his ear, and she was pretty sure he wasn’t listening to a podcast.
“…got her?”
“Yeah,” her rescuer replied.
More voices followed, overlapping.
They took a sharp turn to the right, and she caught herself, stiffening her body and clenching her thighs to keep from falling off the snowmobile.
“Don’t lose her—”
“You hood her?”
“…of course he did.”
The snowmobile slowed eventually and finally stopped. Hands steadied her as she climbed off, her feet on more solid ground now.
“Can I take the hood off now?”
“In a minute.” He grabbed her hand and led her forward. The terrain changed beneath her feet as she passed from snow onto…concrete?
“You can take the hood off now.”
She pushed it back immediately, gulping for air as if she were suffocating even though she could breathe just fine. Lighthit her, along with warmth, wrapping around her as she blinked at her surroundings.
She didn’t know where she was. She was just…inside.
The blank walls didn’t give any indication of her location or sense of how far they’d traveled or what direction they’d come from. There weren’t any windows to orientate herself—or offer a means of escape.
Her rescuer stood next to her, and two more men gathered in the big open room.
“This isn’t unsettling at all,” she murmured.
A huge guy wearing all black who looked like he stepped out of a war movie held out a mug to her. She stared at the offering before darting a look at his face. His features were just as hardened as the rest of him, and he didn’t exhibit the usual signs he was an alien—rubbery skin, huge black eyes. He looked human.
“Cocoa,” he said, looking at the mug.
“Um. Thanks.” She took the cocoa but had to use both hands because her hands were so frozen she’d lost the ability to grip. And she definitely would not be drinking the cocoa. Rule four had been mostly for her little sister but it applied now: don’t drink anything someone hands you.
The scent of warm, rich chocolate and marshmallows threw her for a loop. Suddenly, she didn’t know if she’d stepped into a war flick or an animated kid’s movie.
She snapped to reality—at leastherreality.
She shifted the mug to one hand and fished her phone from her pocket. The instant she had it out, the man who’d rescued her plucked it from her grasp.
She gaped at him. “I need to call my siblings! They’re going to be worried.”
The man stepped closer. “You can’t contact them, but we will inform the authorities you were found safe and that you’ll be in touch with your family soon.”
She gaped at him. “What? No. That’s not enough. They check in every day. They’re going to think something happened.”
He shook his head and pocketed her phone. “You’ll get your phone back when it’s time for you to leave.”
A stutter pushed up her throat as she fought to find words. “W-what? But— How long?”
“A few days.”
She shoved the cocoa back at the man who gave it to her. “That’s unacceptable.”
