Page 185 of Nothing Special X: The Last Stand

Where was God? Where were the police?

Where was his Cassie?

Where was the FBI, the A-Team, the Green Berets, anyone?

Surely, they had a plan by now. God looked like the kind of man who made plans just for the sake of making plans. He had to have something he could pull from his archives. Something he’d jotted down on a napkin after watching an episode of CSI.

But they were still here.

Still tied.

Tech and Free had stopped discussing travel and moved on to gadgets.

“Did you see the biometric latch on Wes’s lab cabinet?” Free whispered.

Tech frowned. “The one with the pressure misdirection?”

“Yeah. That shit was cool.”

“It had three-factor authentication buried under a brass hinge. Now that’s art.”

Free’s eyes brightened. “I wanted to steal it.”

Tech struggled to stifle his laugh.

“What was really cool was they let me build the dead man’s trigger for the blast zone they did on the final scene. The fire flared at least fifteen feet high,” Tech grinned, then glanced around Free at him. “Xander, what’d you think?”

“Are you both serious right now?” he gritted.

Free looked at him. “About the fifteen feet? It had to be—”

“No, damnit. About acting like this is a damn coffee break.”

Free angled his head, studying him with a little more kindness. “We’re calm because we’re a family. Trust us, please. God isn’t gonna let anything happen to us.”

Xander’s stomach rolled. It had been forever. If they’d been shot, their bodies would be decomposed already.

He glanced toward the kidnappers. Two stood near the doors. One sat on a crate with a rifle across his lap. Another paced near the loading bay, phone in hand.

He couldn’t see all nine at once, and that made it worse. Every time one disappeared through a doorway or into a dark corner, he imagined them coming back with a new idea.

He lowered his voice. “Free.”

“Mm?” Free leaned closer.

“Can’t you hack into my account and transfer them the money?” Xander swallowed. “Then they’ll let us go.”

Tech and Free both turned their heads and looked at him as if he’d just grown another face.

Free blinked. “Of course I can.”

Xander’s pulse jumped. “Then do it.”

“No.”

“What?”

“The question isn’t can I,” Free whispered. “The real question is, will I. And the answer is hell-fuckin-no. No way in bloody hell are these dumbasses getting one cent of your money.”