Free The Perfect Hostage (A Super Agent Novella) (Entangled Edge) by Misty Evans Page A

side.
    John went down, and Lucie’s heart exploded with anger. Jumping to her feet, she slipped and nearly fell, cartwheeling her arms to keep her balance. John kicked out and caught Saunders in the thigh, sending him stumbling around the end of the ATV. The backpack fell off his shoulders and Lucie decided to go after that instead. One good swing to Saunders’s head and the laptop he so prized would be the very thing to bring him down.
    She crawled toward the backpack. John sprang up, glanced at her, then at Saunders. The man was climbing up onto the ATV. The engine roared to life, tires digging in and pulling away.
    With a loud, ear-piercing yell, John plowed forward and jumped him. The ATV skidded sideways off the incline onto the lake. Two wheels left the ground, spinning for a second in midair before John’s weight took Saunders over the side.
    The cart attached to the ATV broke loose as both men and the ATV hit the lake and spun in circles. Saunders and John skated on their backs to a stop while the ATV righted itself, and the tires dug in again.
    Lucie gasped. The ATV was headed right for them. Either it was an older model with no kill switch or the switch had been disabled.
    John rolled, grabbing Saunders by the hood of his coat and jerking him into the ATV’s path. The impact made a deafening crunch. Lucie flinched, covering her ears. The cart skidded past John and crashed into the ATV, now stalled on top of Saunders.
    Several seconds passed, the only sound the ATV’s motor. Lucie’s breath came fast, her pulse pounding loudly in her ears.
    “John?” She struggled to her feet.
    He came up on all fours, lifting a hand in a stop signal. “Stay there.”
    “You’re hurt, and you’re barely dressed. We need to—”
    “Stay there!”
    She pulled up short, watching him as he crawled over to Saunders’s body and checked for a pulse.
    John sat back on his ankles, exhaustion oozing from every pore. “He’s dead, Lucie,” he called. “It’s over.”
    Ignoring his demand to stay where she was, she rushed the ice, falling down next to him and hugging him to her. She laughed with relief and tried not to cry.
    Failed.
    His hand stroked her hair like she was child. His voice came out soft and low. “You did good, darlin’, but I need you to do one more thing for me, okay?”
    She lifted her head and nodded through the tears.
    “There’s a helicopter on its way, but I won’t be awake when it lands. Tell them I’ve been knifed in the back, could be my kidney, and I need…”
    His eyelids fluttered closed. He sank sideways, one hand fumbling in his pants pocket. Two cell phones fell out. Hers and his.
    She shook his shoulders, slapped his cheeks. Tried to get him upright again. “John, wake up. What do you need?”
    He didn’t respond, his body totally limp.
    For the first time ever, French failed her. English did not. “God damn it! Don’t you do this to me.” She had to get him inside and warm him up. She tugged at his dead weight. “I love you, John! Do you hear me? I love you and I need you.”
    He moaned, opened his eyes. With some effort, the two of them leveraged him into a sitting position. “I can’t feel my feet,” he murmured. “Grab my boots and coat.”
    In the distance, she heard a womp ing noise.
    The helicopter.
    “I’ll be right back,” she promised, picking up both phones and running for the cabin.
    The phones rang, one after the other. The display on John’s showed a weird number, but she’d seen it before on Zara’s phone.
    Langley. The CIA.
    Lucie’s phone ID read Zara’s number.
    Brushing tears off her face, she answered her phone as she made it to the cabin’s front door. “John’s in trouble.”
    “I know,” her sister answered. “Help’s on the way. Are you okay?”
    No. “What should I do?”
    “Unlock the front door and let the men in the helicopter inside. They can help him.”
    No need to unlock the door. “He’s bleeding. He said it was his