Page 165 of You Found Me

He slammed her into the wall beside the front door. It shook with the force of her body. “Keep quiet and move.”

He flung the door open and pushed her through. She stumbled. Something sharp cut into her bare feet, and she cried out in pain. She had enough time to register that she wasn’t outside as she’d expected to be, but in an enormous space with metal walls and movie-set spotlights. Then Lester was dragging her toward a big black truck a few feet away, the kind with intimidating-looking bars along the front.

She didn’t want to get in that truck.

Her protest started in the back of her throat and grew until it echoed off the metal walls. “No, no, no, no!”

“Get in the damn truck.” Lester picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. Air whooshed out of her.

“No!” Della kicked and wiggled, trying to escape his grasp. “No! No! No!”

None of her self-defense classes had prepared her for this. She couldn’t break his hold. She flailed and kicked and scratched, but she might as well have been a fly attacking a big dog.

The lights went out.

“Fuck!” Lester hissed as he rushed forward in the darkness.

He fumbled with something…a door…and a light flared. It had to be inside the cab of the truck.

He threw her inside. Her head hit the top of the doorframe on the way in, and for a second all she saw were lightning bolts of pain.

Metal screeched and screamed over Lester’s shoulder.

Lester whipped around.

Della kicked him, hard.

He stumbled, and she scrambled out, head ringing.

She knew—absolutely knew—who it had to be. Hope exploded in her chest, pushing out the pain. She sucked in a deep breath and screamed, “Ward!”

Chapter Thirty

Della’s scream chased the ruined warehouse door down the driveway, pulled by Spencer and his van.

The terror in her voice burrowed into Ward’s brain and kicked his adrenaline into overdrive.

He knew that sound.

His mother had made that sound.

He moved through the mangled opening fast and low, night-vision goggles in place, gun in hand.

The building that contained the old movie set was roughly half the size of a football field, and pitch-black inside. Spencer had killed the generator Hume had set up and the van’s headlights.

It was a cloudy night. The cover of darkness was on Ward’s side.

He scuttled sideways out of any ambient light.

There was a flash of movement. Della and her kidnapper struggled next to an SUV.

Rage flashed through him as he took in the terror on her face and Hume’s chokehold.

“Get the fuck out of here, rent-a-cop!” Hume shouted. “You had your turn. She’s mine now.”

“Ward!” Della’s cry sounded half strangled.

“It’s over, Hume!” He wished like hell that Della wasn’t standing in front of the man he’d very much like to shoot. He kept his weapon ready, but aimed at the ground. “The place is surrounded.”