April 30th
10:01 P.M.
There was no worse feelingin the world than waking up and not knowing where you were and what had happened to you.
Yet that was exactly how Micah felt when he regained consciousness.
His body felt heavy, like his limbs had been encased in concrete, and although he tried to move them, he found that he couldn’t. His head also felt heavy, only in a different way. More like it had been stuffed with cotton wool and it was clogging up his thoughts so he couldn’t quite get them to focus.
Even his eyelids felt heavy as he attempted to pry them open.
Despite feeling so odd, he had no memory of what caused it.
One minute he’d been …
Flying out with his teammate Nathaniel to visit his friend’s new girlfriend. No, that wasn't right.
He’d bumped into the only girl he’d ever loved in the doorway to the Prey office building. No, that wasn't right either.
Teresa had been attacked, and he’d stopped the men from taking her. One had been killed, and the other had acknowledged that there was a bounty out on Teresa’s head and that he’d tried to collect on it, but he didn't know the name of the person who wanted her.
Their rocky history had seemed like nothing in comparison to losing her.
So he’d agreed to play bodyguard.
There was no way he wouldn't have taken every precaution necessary to make sure she stayed safe so they couldn’t have been caught.
Could they?
What else could explain the feeling that he’d been drugged?
Only, how would anyone have gotten close enough to drug him?
If anyone got that close to him, then they were too close to Teresa. And if anyone who was a threat to her got that close to her, he would have killed them, or at the very least, incapacitated them, since he did know they needed intel.
But itdidfeel as though he’d been drugged, even though he knew he wouldn't have let anyone inject him with anything.
A hazy memory forced its way through the cotton wool inside his skull.
A mask.
A mist.
Why are you pretending to care now, one way or the other if I'm taking care of myself, when you didn't care enough back then to stay? If you had even called or checked in just once I …
Teresa’s words echoed through his mind. That’s what she’d been saying right as he caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye. She’d seen it too because she’d trailed off and then screamed his name.
The terror in her voice as she did so sent a rush of burning panic through his veins, and just like that, everything snapped back into focus.
They had been abducted. Whatever the man in the mask had used had knocked him out before he could get his weapon free and fire it. He’d been unconscious, hadn't protected Teresa when she needed him, and now …
As Micah opened eyes that still felt a little too heavy, he saw that he was lying in what looked like a hospital room. He might have believed it really was a hospital room and the man with the mask and the mist were nothing more than an injury-induced hallucination if it weren't for the leather straps binding his wrists and ankles to the bed.
The reason he couldn’t move his body wasn't just because he’d been drugged, it was also because he was tied up.
Fury scorched through him just like the panic had, pushing more of the drug out of his system.
He’d failed.
