Forsaken Duty (Red Team #9)(2)

“How would I know?”

“You took him from Addy.”

Edwards went absolutely still. “She still has her boy. For now.”

So it was true; Addy had had a son. “Word on the street is you put him with the watchers.”

“What makes you think he’s yours?”

“Good intel. Where is he?”

Edwards nodded toward his hired muscle. “I’m done here. Finish him. He’s got no info for me.”

Owen leaned back and braced himself by gripping the bars of the seatback so he could kick out. He hit the man’s chest with his heels, knocking him back several steps. The other guy rushed forward. Owen twirled to his feet, slamming him with the steel chair. In the seconds that opened for him, Owen finished freeing his hands, then kicked in the other side of the broken bottom rung, separating it from the chair. He grabbed it in time to shove it upward into the guy’s chest cavity, using his own forward momentum to impale him. Owen shoved his body into the second guy, then ran after Edwards, but he was too late.

Edwards had already rushed out of the jail cell, leaving the door locked behind him. The second guy charged toward Owen. He ducked. The guy’s fist hit the steelwork of the front wall, shaking it loose. Owen punched him in the gut then double-fisted the back of his head when he bent over. He slumped down, exposing the knife in his holster. Owen grabbed it and, fisting the guy’s hair, lifted his head and sliced his neck.

Shoving him aside, Owen looked around the room, assessing his situation.

The door was locked, and he had no key. Neither man had the door key or wallets, but one had car keys. He pocketed them then gave the cell bars a tug. Flakes of rusted metal and paint fell away. Two bars were loose. Owen looked around the room again. His gaze fell on the busted chair. He broke off the other support he’d loosened, then used it to pry the compromised cell bars free, giving him enough room to climb up and squeeze through.

He rushed toward the area where he’d heard Jax, finding him three cells down. Owen had to move fast—he didn’t know where Edwards had gone or if he was coming back with reinforcements. Jax was slumped over in the chair he was tied to. The door to his cell was locked, too. Owen used the knife he’d taken to fish around in the big skeleton keyhole. It worked. The gate came loose.

He hurried over to check his friend, who looked as mangled as Owen felt. At least he had a pulse. Owen cut the ropes binding him. Jax was in a fist-induced stupor. Owen wasn’t certain, in the state he was in himself, if he’d be able to carry Jax out…or even drag him.

He knelt in front of Jax and gently lifted his head. “Hey…you in there? Anything broken? Can you move?” They had to get out before Edwards came back.

Jax instantly came alert, ready to fight.

“Whoa. Whoa,” Owen said. “Just me. We need to move out. Can you walk?”

“Owen?”

“Yeah.”

“Edwards…”

“Is gone. For now. We gotta go.” He pulled Jax’s arm over his shoulder and hoisted him up from his chair. They moved as fast as they could down the hall to a flight of stairs. Up was the only direction to go. It was dark in that part of the building—no windows anywhere and no lights on. Owen had no idea what time of day it was, where they were, or what the hell they were going to do next.

They made it to an exit. A chain had been cut and now draped from one of the push bars on the industrial door. It was night outside. The climb out of the hellhole had let Owen’s eyes adjust to dark. They were nowhere. Absolutely fucking nowhere. The building was in the middle of wide-open prairie, inside a tall, walled space. No lights shone anywhere around them, not even on the outside of the building.

A single SUV sat in front on the overgrown driveway. Owen used the key fob to see if it belonged to the guy below. The lights came on. He ran with an arm around Jax to the vehicle and managed to get him inside, laying him across the backseat. Owen jumped into the driver’s seat and started the SUV up. The building they’d just left was lit up in the headlights. It was a stately brick monolith with gothic arches over the front and side doors. The headlights illuminated a sign over the grand front door: Hawthorne Sanitarium, est. 1878. Jesus. The guards could have just left them there to die and no one would ever know before they were a pile of bones.

“Hang on, bud,” Owen said as he got them the hell out of there…wherever there was.



When the sun came up, Owen changed directions, heading west. He knew the moment Jax woke up from the string of foul words he growled. They were so far east that there wasn’t a hint of the mountains, only miles and miles of parched prairie grass and dirt road in the predawn light.

Owen looked over his shoulder. “How you feeling?”

“I need to take a piss. And I could use a gallon of water.”

Owen stopped the SUV. “The piss we can do. Water, not so much.”

“Where are we?”

“No fucking clue. I’m gonna need gas soon. I got no cash, no cards, and no ID to get cash. How about you?”

“Yeah. I got my wallet. They didn’t take it.”

Owen pulled over. They both got out and relieved themselves in the dust on the side of the road. The sound of their streams made Owen’s thirst even worse. Afterward, he looked in the SUV’s back hatch, searching for bottled water. The trunk was empty. He slammed the door then glared at Jax. “What the fuck happened? How did Edwards know where we were?”