Page 64 of Invincible
“Why didn’t you tell us Mia was your niece?”Knox asked.
Dex stood holding her for a few more seconds before turning them so he could see the people he owed her life to.Knox had a fresh bandage covering a wound to his head, Tyler was fitted with a proper sling and one of the paramedics was tending to the wrap covering Greer’s ankle.How would he ever be able to thank the people who had returned the only daughter of the sister he had lost to cancer several years ago?How could he explain—if he had voiced—what he’d stood to lose?It would have driven him mad.
“My boss would never have let me head up this operation if he knew.I couldn’t leave finding her up to anyone else,” he answered.
“Yeah, but why did you hide it from us?”Knox asked again.
“Mia runs away all the time, but she always runs straight to my house, so her dad didn’t think anything about it at the time.Not until he called me the next day to see how she was.We filed a missing person report, but she had just vanished.”Dex took a moment to get his emotions back in check, swallowing the lump in his throat.
“I just couldn’t take the chance you wouldn’t take me seriously.”Hugging Mia tighter to him, he looked back down at his friends but he saw nothing that looked like judgment in their eyes.
“When I discovered a vague pattern of missing girls, I didn’t have enough evidence to open an official investigation.Then, I remembered your brother,” he added, looking at Knox.“At least I would know if she was still alive.But once he confirmed she was, I had to do everything in my power to find her.Knox, you were my only hope.I’m sorry I misled you and I’m sorry you got involved.I just…”
“Dex,” Tyler cut in, struggling to her feet.“I think I speak for everyone when I say we’re not sorry you got us in this.If given the choice of knowing I’d be where I am right now, torn shoulder and all, I’d do it again.My shoulder will heal, Greer will walk again and Knox has a much harder head than anyone I know.”
“Hey,” Knox said, scowling at her.
“But it was all worth it for Mia and everyone else,” Tyler added, exchanging a teasing smile with Knox before turning back to Dex.He knew her shoulder had to feel like it was on fire and she looked more exhausted than he had ever seen her.“You’ve both become like family to us and we do whatever it takes for our family, right Knox?”
“Fuck yeah,” the big man responded.
“I love you,” Dex blurted out, looking into her eyes.He simply couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Oh my god, Uncle Dex,” Mia said, looking at him like he had just announced that he was dying his hair pink and getting a unicorn tattooed on his chest.
“I know, I know.This is the worst place possible and you’ve just been through hell.But, I can’t go even one second longer without saying it.I love you, Tyler Buchanan.I don’t know yet how this is supposed to work between us, but I know I’d like to figure it out.”
Tyler hesitated for a moment before she stepped up to Dex.Mia turned him loose, taking a seat next to Greer to watch the action.Dex opened his mouth to say something else but didn’t get the chance to when Tyler’s lips brushed against his.
“I’ve fallen in love with you too, G-man,” she said against his lips before deepening the kiss, drawing a cheer from the crowd watching them.
Pulling back when he ran out of air, Dex carefully lifted Tyler into his arms before sliding down to sit next to Knox.He held her close as exhaustion overcame her and she slowly drifted to sleep.It wasn’t long before he heard Knox snoring next to him, and one by one, the other women drifted off.They had survived something not many women do, they had escaped their captors.
He fought his own exhaustion as he watched the police officers patrol them as the tugs arrived to haul them to shore.The medic who had been lowered from the containers earlier kept a close watch.He would wake Knox occasionally, checking his pupils, make Tyler wiggle her fingers to make sure she still had circulation in her arm and rewrapped Greer’s ankle after checking the swelling.There were two of the girls who had required immediate IV bags because of dehydration, but overall, they were in decent shape.
Dex listened to the updates as they crackled over the officers’ radios.It had been decided, since the injuries were non-life-threatening, that they would not risk medevacking anyone off the ship.
The crew were restrained and heavily guarded by both police and FBI.It seems they found one secured in one of the cupboards and another floating in the channel.
The tugs arrived with a pilot and hooked up to the ship.Fortunately there was a dock with cranes not far that had agreed to make their facilities available.It would take several hours to free them from the bow of the ship, but they would have ambulances waiting to take everyone to the hospital.
The local FBI had received a list of the kidnapped women’s names and had already been working on reuniting some with their families and others with victims’ services.
Dex called his brother-in-law the first chance he could.He would arrive on the first flight from Washington, DC, tomorrow.Dex had to assure him over and over that it really was Mia, even rousing her from where she was curled up on Greer’s lap to talk to her father.He knew they had only been able to exchange a few words through their tears.
“Fuck off,” Knox said as he was woken again by the pin light the medic insisted on shining in his eyes.Did the man not understand that he was doing the headache raging through his brain a disservice?
“Just making sure you didn’t die while on my watch,” the man answered.
“At this point, that might be a welcome relief.Now, if you value your limbs, stay away from me until it’s time to deboard.”He had felt the tugs hook up to the ship and the gentle bump as they were tied to the dock, but knew it would take another hour for crews to move the cargo doors Tyler had wedged into the floor for protection.He had already been moved once, his head spinning, to a safer area of the bow.
Not able to return to sleep, he finally rose to his feet.Watching as they swung the heavy doors out over the dock into a pile, he stood next to the railing, trying to get the pounding in his head to stop.
Feeling a little steadier when they were finally given the okay to leave, he reached down and swung Greer up into his arms to carry her off the ship.
“Sir, why don’t you let us take her?You’re not in any better shape than she is,” a new medic who had just arrived at the bow said.He growled at the man but stopped when Greer patted him on the chest.
“He’s right, Knox.I wouldn’t want you to pass out and drop me on the dock the hard way,” she said.
