Page 13 of Love for Thea

“Men,” she said, forcing the single word through the logjam in her brain. “They are here.”

A shadow moved in the trees below. Reef grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the limestone ridge. “Ridge or cave, Thea? Give me a call!”

He wasn’t issuing an order but soliciting a tactical assessment from the only other mind capable of such complex, real-time calculations.

Thea froze. The cave has a single entry, easy to bottle. The ridge has thermal exposure but better mobility. Her mind frantically weighed the percentages. 60% visibility on the ridge. 90% entrapment in the cave.

“Thea!” Reef hissed.

She opened her mouth, but the white-hot glare of a tactical light cut through the trees, blinding her. The data-stream in her head instantly crashed, leaving a disorienting, terrifying void where logic usually resided.

Ben appeared from the flank, sliding into the space beside them like a ghost. He was drenched in sweat, but he possessed the same fierce look he’d had when he was eighteen and holding an injured bird.

“Too late,” Ben whispered. He didn’t draw his weapon. He looked at Reef, a heavy, silent communication passing between them. A recognition of the inevitable. Green laser dots began to quilt the limestone behind them.

Thea’s hand flew to her left wrist. Her fingers dug into her pulse point—thump, thump, thump—her brain desperately trying to find a rhythm to latch onto.

Data point: We are trapped.

Data point: Ben is sacrificial.

“We can’t fight our way out of this one, Reef,” Grizzly said, his voice a low rasp. “Not with her in the middle.”

Reef’s jaw tightened, but he nodded once, a sharp, decisive movement that sealed their fate. He knew the math. A firefight here was a death sentence for Thea.

With quick, efficient movements, Grizzly pulled his Glock and shoved it deep into a narrow vertical fissure, kicking a pile of loose shale over the opening. A cache, a ghost of a hope for later.

“Arms up,” Grizzly commanded, his tone switching to a flat, military cadence. “Thea, let go of your wrist. Put your hands where they can see them. Look at me, Thea. Just me.”

He stepped in front of her, his massive frame creating a physical wall between her sensory overload and the shadows in the trees.

“Stay quiet, Thea,” he whispered. “Let them think you’re just a witness. We’ve got this.”

Thea forced her hands into the air. Losing her physical connection to her pulse point felt like dropping an oxygen mask in deep water. Her mind flailed, failing to process the abrupt shift from Protector to Prisoner. The logic of the mountain had been entirely replaced by the terrifying logic of steel and zip-ties.

She watched a tiny green laser dance across Ben’s chest. She wanted to tell him to move. She wanted to apologize for taking too long to calculate the percentages. Instead, she just felt the heavy weight of his jacket on her shoulders as the first mercenary stepped out of the shadows.

The world shattered into a series of violent, disconnected frames.

A flashlight beam searing her retinas. The abrasive, cold snap of plastic against her wrists. The rough texture of a gloved hand digging into her shoulder.

“Don’t look at them,” Ben whispered.

She wanted to explain that she wasn’t looking at them; she was calculating them. The forty-five-degree angle of their rifles. The static frequency of their encrypted radios. But the words were trapped behind a wall of sheer physiological terror. Her brain was caught in a critical error loop.

Data point: We are being moved at a rate of roughly 3.2 miles per hour.

Data point: Ben’s jacket is slipping. I’m losing the warmth.

She was shoved toward a dark, idling vehicle, something heavy with a diesel engine that rattled her teeth. The scent of raw exhaust was a sensory poison in the clean mountain air.

“Into the truck. Now.”

Thea stumbled. Her bound hands threw off her equilibrium. She braced to hit the metal floor, but a solid weight blocked her fall. Ben was already inside, using his shoulder to catch her and guide her onto the bench.

“I’ve got you,” he breathed.

It was the last thing he said before a heavy black hood was yanked over her head, plunging her world into absolute darkness.