Soon the door opened, with more caution than he would have expected from any of the guards who must be there, or any of the doctors, and he wondered if it could be the nurse he’d scared back to check on him.
But it wasn't a woman who stepped through the doorway.
It was a man.
Dressed all in black with a weapon in his hand.
Had to be a guard.
Knowing he was only going to have one chance to strike, he made the most of it. Darting forward, he wrapped an arm around the man’s neck and jerked him back, the blade of the scalpel pressing into the other man’s skin, ready to slice through his carotid artery.
“That any way to thank your friend for coming after you?” the man drawled, and Micah froze.
That voice.
It belonged to Nathaniel.
At least he thought it did.
But his heart was thudding in his chest, and he was so afraid to move in case he was imagining it.
“Can't mess this up,” he murmured, unaware he’d spoken aloud until Nathaniel spoke again.
“Then let me go and we’ll find her. She’s not dead. They don’t want her dead yet. They want to keep her alive until there’s nothing left for them to take. Let’s go find your girl.”
Find Teresa.
Yes.
That’s what he had to do.
He couldn’t fail her again.
Slowly, he removed the scalpel and released his hold on the other man. Nathaniel. It was his friend’s eyes he saw when the man turned around, so full of empathy, an understanding that came only because Nathaniel had also messed up with the woman he’d fallen for and almost lost her to this same ring.
“They can't have her,” Micah murmured.
“No, they can't,” Nathaniel agreed.
“Where are we?”
“Believe it or not, about an hour outside the city.”
“Still in the US.” If they were, Nathaniel shouldn’t be there. Navy SEALs weren't allowed to operate on US soil.
“Better not tell anyone I'm here then.” His friend winked and then grinned. “Come on, man, let’s go find Teresa and get you both the hell out of here.”
That sounded perfect, and he kept his grip on his scalpel as he followed Nathaniel to the door. “Who else is here?”
“Tobias, and a couple of other Prey people they could pull together at short notice. Enough of us. We got this.”
Holding onto that belief, they both slipped back out into the hall, and he saw he was in one room off a long corridor. There were so many doors, and Teresa could be behind any one of them.
A shout sounded down the hall, and Micah didn't think.
He started running toward it, ignoring Nathaniel’s yelling at him to stop.
Locating the room where the shout had come from, inside he found Teresa lying unmoving on a bed. The doctor she’d bitten stood beside her, a scalpel of his own in his hand as he held it to one of her fingers, a couple of nurses were huddled in the corner, and a man he had to assume worked for Prey held a weapon on the doctor.
