her teeth. Once the tie was positioned as Tag had instructed, she raised her arms.
Agony scorched her shoulders.
Holy hell!
She caught a scream in the back of her throat and rode the pain out. It seemed to take forever for the fire to dissipate. Gritting her teeth, she forced her arms higher. Height, velocity, and spread were the keys to breaking the bindings. Or so Brett had claimed all the times he’d forced her to practice the move.
Turned out he was right. She slammed her arms down as fast as she could while spreading her elbows, and the cuff snapped with a faint pop.
Wow—how about that? All those self-defense moves Brett had forced her to master were finally paying off. Another quick peek at her captor. He hadn’t shifted positions. His snores were still rising and falling. So far, so good.
She had to sit back down for phase two of her five-pronged escape plan. Her balance was so bad she’d land on her face if she tried to bend over. But even sitting down, with her hands free, the tiny silver straps were embarrassingly difficult to unbuckle. Her hands might be free, but her fingers were so stiff she could barely get them to move.
With her ears tuned to the raspy snores rising and falling to her right, she carefully worked the strap from the buckle and eased the pump from her right foot. It took less time to remove the strap from the left. Trying not to think of her stockinged feet touching the vermin infested floor, she eased her shoes aside.
With a deep, raw shudder, she planted her feet on the floor and slowly stood.
While her legs held, they punished her by burning and twitching and pitching a nasty fit. Why they hurt so much worse now, when she’d been standing moments before, was a mystery she didn’t have time to examine. Instead, she bit her bottom lip and tried to shuffle forward in the zip ties.
Right, that’s not going to work…at all.
She’d moved maybe an eighth of an inch. The distance from couch to armchair was only six feet, but at this rate they’d be spending the night in this dump.
As she’d suspected, she’d have to hop.
Gathering herself, she forced her tight, tingling calves to propel her up and forward in the world’s shortest, most shallow hop. She tried to land on the pads of her feet, but her heels slammed down. She bobbled, fighting to stay upright.
The snoring stuttered. Freezing, she held her breath. She wasn’t close enough to go for the gun.
As soon as the snoring started back up, she hopped forward again. She landed more lightly this time and the chain sawing didn’t falter, but holy crap the tingling in the soles of her feet and needle jabs through her toes were driving her crazy. The third and fourth hops brought her so close to the kidnapper she could smell that overly ripe, sickly sweet scent he shed.
One more hop and she’d be able to grab the gun.
As she tensed and bent her knees for the final hop, a shrill screech and crack came from Langley’s room. The snores fractured. The kidnapper’s head lifted, his eyes fluttering open.
Shit…shit…shit…
Sarah threw herself forward, scrambling for the gun. Off balance, she landed on the bastard. If the noise from Lang’s room hadn’t roused him, her sudden weight in his lap did. His eyes flew open. He fought to shove her aside and drag the gun from her stiff, clumsy fingers.
He was still half asleep, with his reflexes slowed. She was still off balance, with numb, tingling fingers. In a moment of pure irony, their equally matched shortcomings meant the weapon seesawed back and forth between their grasping hands.
And then the weapon discharged, its horrific crack filling and then deafening her ears.
Hands on his hips, Tag studied the burnt orange skyline surrounding the setting sun. They were losing the light fast.
He was as comfortable in darkness as he was in his own skin. Hell, using the night to their advantage was the whole reason for the vampire hours special operators kept.
But that was on team time while using team equipment—like night vision devices. Which he didn’t currently have access to. Sure, he had his high lumens torch, but fuck…the beam could give Sarah’s kidnapper a bullseye and open Tag up to target practice as easily as it could blind the bastard.
Better off going in dark.
“Take Danny back to his rig.” Tag turned to Tram. “I’ll stay. Keep an eye