Page 16 of Keeping Kara

CHAPTER FIVE

Chaos was having an extremely hard time coming to terms with everything Kara had told him. He couldn’t believe what she’d been through—and the fact that she was still standing. Her experiences would’ve broken most people. Recalling the things this Nolan person had done made him angrier than he’d been in a very long time. Possibly ever. And he was known for his legendary control. All of the Night Stalkers had learned to keep their emotions on a tight leash. They had to because in the heat of battle, the last thing they needed was to go off half-cocked.

But imagining Kara being punched, Tased, locked up, raped…

He swallowed hard. Thinking back to the night before, when they’d been plastered together in their precarious shelter, Chaos mentally kicked himself. That had to have been torture for her. To be forced so close to a man, after one had just done such despicable things to her for weeks. The bruises around her neck and her black eyes told their own story, reinforcing what she’d told him.

She wasn’t lying. He hadn’t thought for a second that she was, but seeing the evidence of her ordeal had him wanting to fucking kill the bastard who thought it was okay to put his hands on this woman. Any woman.

His own dad hadn’t been the best role model, but he was more emotionally abusive than physical. His mom hadn’t stood for it, though, leaving him when Chaos was around seven. She’d overheard him calling Chaos a pussy, telling him that he needed to “man-up.” Being the hippie she was, it was the last straw for his mom. She believed in the goodness of everyone, and she certainly didn’t give a crap if her son was more comfortable sitting around drawing than playing cops and robbers with the neighborhood kids.

She’d left him that very day, not asking for a dime in the divorce. All she’d wanted was to get away from the man who’d belittled her son and done his best to mold her into a stereotypical fifties housewife.

And once they were away from the rigid structure and stereotypes his dad had imposed on the household, they’d both blossomed. Chaos had filled out, found his niche after joining a Boy Scout troupe, and Mom found a love for gardening and living off the land.

He also couldn’t comprehend the concept of “if I can’t have you, no one can.” If he was dating a woman who decided she didn’t want him, why in the hell would he want to keep her around? He hoped to find a partner who truly enjoyed spending time with him. Who wanted him as much as he wanted her.

Every couple of steps, Chaos looked behind him to make sure Kara was close by. That she was doing all right. He had no real destination in mind, was just trying to stay near the water that he could still hear raging not too far away, so his team could find him, but not anywhere near close enough to risk being sucked back into its deadly grasp if the muddy banks gave way.

Casper and the others would stick to the water when trying to find him, but they’d be aware time was ticking. If he hadn’t survived, their FLIR camera wouldn’t be of any use. It looked for heat signatures. If he’d drowned, his body would quickly lose heat, making that technology obsolete.

It was a morbid thought, but since he hadn’t drowned, and he and Kara were alive and mostly well, the specialized Night Stalker choppers should be able to pick up their signatures.

But as the morning wore on, Chaos realized that finding them wasn’t going to be as quick and easy as he’d hoped. Every now and then they heard helicopters in the air, but he had no clue if it was his friends out looking for him, or if the sounds came from other search and rescue choppers.

After a few hours, Chaos stopped walking. Simply halted in the middle of a group of trees they were walking around while trying to remain somewhat visible to rescuers.

“What’s wrong?” Kara asked.

He sighed. “Nothing. But this isn’t working. We need to stop walking and just wait for someone to find us. There’s nothing out here. No structures. No people. We aren’t going to randomly come across a house with a phone we can use. And even if we did, cell service is probably down.” He turned to her. “Not to mention, you don’t have any shoes and you’re limping.”

“I’m okay.”

Chaos figured she’d probably say that if her arm had been chopped off and she had a broken leg or two.

“Of course you are,” he praised sincerely. “But my ribs hurt like hell. And I could use the break.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

He grinned. Yeah, she was right, he was totally lying through his teeth. He tried another tactic. “When I was little, maybe around five or so, my parents took me to a mall. It was huge. Three stories tall. Tons of stores. I got bored with them looking at clothes and shoes and wandered off without them noticing. I got lost almost immediately and couldn’t find them. Of course, I was scared to death. Then I remembered something my mom told me. She said that if I ever got lost, to stop and wait for her to find me. That wandering around would only get me farther away from her. So I stopped in the middle of that mall and just stood stock still. Waiting for her to find me.”

“And did she?” Kara asked.

“Yup. I heard my name being called and got excited and started running. Then she yelled, ‘Arrow! Stop!’ I stopped, then she said, ‘Look up.’ I did—and lo and behold, there was my mom, on the second floor of the mall looking down at me. My dad came down to get me, and I never forgot her advice. When you get lost, stop and wait for someone to find you. That’s what we need to do now.”

“Did you get in trouble?”

“Oh yeah. My dad spanked me hard, much to Mom’s disappointment. But later that night, when she tucked me into bed, she told me that she was proud of me for remembering what she’d said.”

Kara looked up. “This doesn’t look very open.”

“It’s not. But I remember a clearing we passed not too long ago. We’ll backtrack a bit and hang out there. If my team doesn’t find us today, I’ll make us a shelter.”

Kara nodded, and Chaos breathed a sigh of relief. The material he’d tied around her feet couldn’t be doing the best job of protecting her, and the knowledge that every step had to be painful wasn’t something he was comfortable ignoring any longer.

His belly growled, and if he was hungry, she had to be starving. She hadn’t said when she’d last eaten, or if her captor had fed her much at all. And there was literally nothing he could do about that right now. He had nothing to hunt with, and even if he was able to set a snare, he didn’t have a knife to gut whatever he might catch. Another thing that would have to wait for rescue.

And another reason to hunker down. To not burn unnecessary calories. To conserve their strength. By tomorrow, water would become a major issue, and he might have to leave Kara to hike out and find help, but that would be his last resort. The last thing he wanted to do was leave her alone. Not after all she’d been through.