Page 19 of Fighting for Lucy

So they were Raul’s men, which meant he hadn't given up on getting the formula for the Reactivator. They didn't think he would, but knowing for sure that he hadn't made her skin crawl. Not only was she in danger, but so were her three best friends because Raul could go after any one of them.

It also meant that Zander really was working for the man.

It was the only explanation as to how they knew she was out there and had been able to find them.

Stupid, but as she was dragged off through the jungle, the thing that hurt the most was knowing that she had been right not to trust him. All those things she’d thought she had seen in him were nothing more than her trying to make excuses for a man she was attracted to.

January 23rd

12:31 A.M.

Black spots dancedin front of his eyes.

Bats?

No.

Spiders?

No.

Birds?

No.

Zander crashed to his knees, and with the thud of pain that echoed through his body, the answer to the question filtered through his mind.

The black spots were the beginnings of unconsciousness. He was pushing himself too hard, too far, almost going beyond the limits of what his trained body could endure.

It might not even be forty-eight hours yet since he’d climbed into his plane, but in that time, they’d crashed, he’d argued with himself incessantly about what the right thing to do was, he’d hiked through the thick jungle for hours, gotten no more than snatched pockets of light sleep, fallen off a cliff, and gotten shot.

No wonder he was struggling to remain on his feet.

But he had to.

There was no other option.

Lucy was out there, and she needed him.

It was his fault that she was in danger. Just because he thought he could use this situation at Prey to his advantage didn't mean that he hadn't known there could be repercussions.Not that he thought anyone would sabotage his plane and cause him to crash, but he’d known things could go horribly wrong.

There had been no time to analyze the crash and why someone had tampered with his plane. If it was Raul, then there was every chance his plans had already been discovered, and he, too, was walking into a trap. If it was the mole at Prey, then there was a chance that they were acting alone and had simply planned to kill one of the Athena Team members possibly as a way to scare the others into coughing up the formula for the Reactivator.

Personally, Zander couldn’t care less about the drug. That had nothing to do with his goals, and he was proud as hell of his sister and her friends for creating something that could save the lives of men and women serving their country.

Not that it would have done his team any good.

Their injuries had been so brutal there was no chance of them surviving.

Seven good men, friends, his family, all gone now.

There was no way he was losing Lucy, too.

For some reason, he knew losing her would crush him differently than losing the rest of his Delta Team.

If he wanted to save her life, he had to keep going. It didn’t matter if his body was running on empty, he had to get back on his feet and keep following the trail.

Somehow, he managed to force himself into a standing position, although he swayed precariously and very nearly ended back up on the ground.

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