Page 49 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

Wednesday

Time: Unknown

Location: Somewhere

Holy shit! Her head hurt. When Elizabeth woke up, she had no clue where she was, but it wasn’t where she went down. That was for sure. Now, all around her, it was dark, and she couldn’t move.

Yeah, this was bad.

Really.

Bad.

Wiggling her fingers, it didn’t take long to realize that her hands were tied behind her back, and she’d been restrained at the ankles too.

It was jarring to wake up and find yourself bound and in the dark.

Taking inventory of her body, it got worse.

Not only was she tied up, but her mouth was covered with something too.

This meant one thing.

She’d been abducted.

For now, and hopefully, quickly, Elizabeth had to get her bearings. This was now about survival, and she was at a disadvantage.

Her location was unknown, and she didn’t know how much time she had before her abductor returned.

Thinking back, she remembered running and being hit by something as she was chasing the mad archer.

That’s when it hit her.

That wasn’t possible.

There was no way that she could chase someone, see their shadow, and have them simultaneously plow into her to take her down.

Shit.

There wasn’t one of them.

There were two of them.

The Hollow wasn’t one person working to stop the FBI, and her, from investigating.

There were two.

Elizabeth knew she had to be somewhere soundproof because she couldn’t hear wind, or trees blowing in it. When she heard dripping water, her heart sank.

They stashed her somewhere.

How long had she been out?

Oh, they’d made a mistake trying to take her out. Now, she had a little more information just from waking up, and in the end, that would help her.

Only, if she could get back to her team.

For the time being, she was somewhere in the dark, and Elizabeth had no clue where.

How long had she been out?

That was the question.

Her head hurt, and so did her shoulder. All she could hope was when she tried to move, nothing was broken.

Pushing herself into an upright position, she got her hands under her ass, and then slid them under her legs.

Slowly, she moved them so that they were in front of her, and the whole time, there wasn’t major pain.

Nothing was broken.

That was good.

When she could reach her face, she pulled the tape off of her mouth, and then used her mouth to undo the ties on her wrists.

Someone had underestimated her, and for that, Elizabeth was damn grateful.

In the darkness, she could hear more dripping of water. That told her she was likely in a cave. The echo when the drops hit gave it away.

Was she still on the rez?

Now, she had to navigate the dark.

But first…

“MATE, can you hear me?” she asked, her fingers crossed that wherever she was, MATE was still linked up to the satellite that gave her the ability to communicate in the woods.

As soon as she asked, her vest activated.

Bless Chris.

She was kissing him as soon as she got her ass back to that clearing. All she could hope was the people who took her weren’t going back to do more damage, or to get to Ivan, who would be alone.

“Yes, Mom. Where are we?” MATE asked.

Oh, she had no freaking clue.

Elizabeth was kind of hoping her vest was going to be able to answer that for her.

Apparently, not.

“You can’t tell?” she asked.

MATE chimed, and it was a weird sound that she’d never heard before.

Yeah, already, Elizabeth knew the outcome.

MATE was damaged.

Son of a bitch!

Her vest assistant ran a diagnostic on itself.

“Unfortunately, you took a blow to my com system when you were slammed against something hard. My navigations are off because of the sharp puncture to the back of the vest. I can scan and say you are okay, but the rest is sketchy.”

Damn.

Oh, she remembered hitting the tree, and then something hitting her in the head. Touching her temple, it was wet with something.

Blood.

Yeah, whoever was behind this was NOT playing around.

Not.

At.

All.

They’d hit her with the intent to incapacitate her for a while, apparently.

Tapping the screen of her smart watch, she wanted to get the time, but it didn’t light up. It was on the same wrist that hit the tree, and it had been damaged too.

Elizabeth was betting the tracker that Ivan put there was also damaged. The watch felt jagged and incredibly wrecked.

Shit.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m at limited capabilities right now. Basically, this vest and your watch are toast.”

Of course, it was.

She tried not to think about the chaos that was happening at that very moment back at the crime scene. Once they found out that she had gone missing, Ivan would be in a tizzy, Chris would lose his mind, and Gene would call Ethan and then all Hell would break loose.

Then, there was Tony. With his attachment to his family, the nut would be nutting.

Now, she had to save herself, because she was betting that she’d been stashed away for a reason, and the only one that came to mind was to have a snack when the area had cleared out. She was not sticking around for that.

Jesus.

This was bad.

Well, at least she was alive.

Patting her back pocket, Elizabeth couldn’t feel her phone, or her gun.

And her badge was gone too.

Fuck.

She wasn’t wearing her cowboy boots, so she wasn’t sure if Ivan had time to bug her hiking boots like he normally did her other shoes.

He only tracked her phone, watch, and cowboy boots. This wasn’t looking good for her.

Yeah, she couldn’t wait around to find out. That they’d covered her mouth meant they didn’t want her making a sound for anyone to hear her.

As that panic went up, Elizabeth fought to stay as calm as she could until she could save herself.

“Your heartrate has accelerated. Lower it or you risk passing out,” MATE said, monitoring her vitals.

Oh, she was well aware.

Only, it was easier said than done.

“Can you turn on a light?” she asked. “I need to be able to see where I am.”

MATE complied.

The vest lit up, and she could see that where they’d dumped her was NOT a good place.

Inside, all over the ground, there were bones.

HUMAN bones.

Now, there was no doubt that they’d pull her later for incredibly nasty and nefarious things. It appeared from the look of it that she’d discovered the place they took the victim to end their life.

And it had been going on a while.

How did she know?

Skulls were lined up like some sick decoration deep in the cave. They were side-by-side, and piled up on each other against the wall.

And there were quite a few of them too.

Yep.

This was bad.

It was time to get the fuck out of there.

The last thing she wanted to do was make herself an easy victim. That would mean moving until she found a weapon that she could use.

As of that moment, MATE was her only lifeline at this point.

She was grateful that Chris’ R&D got her back from oblivion, or she’d be seriously screwed. The only thing that would make her feel better was if her vest wasn’t damaged.

And she could call Ivan.

It was time to get moving before the cannibals came back. Yeah, a week ago, this wasn’t a problem on her radar. That’s how quickly this went downhill.

“MATE, can you tell me if there is anyone around me that is alive?” she whispered.

Her hope was that no one was watching and lurking so she could make a break for it.

When MATE whispered back, she was relieved.

“You are currently alone. I detect no heat sources of humans anywhere near you.”

Thank.

God.

“Can you pull up a map of the reservation?” she asked, pulling leaves and sticks from her hair. The back of her jeans were covered in dirt.

She had to have been dragged at one point, and that meant she’d been out for a while.

What had happened when she went out?

Had she been drugged?

Was the hit to her head that serious?

Honestly, she was betting the former. She felt…groggy and off balance.

“I can, Mother. I can also answer your question before you even ask. You aren’t that far from the initial place of impact to my system. I can’t give you specifics, but I can say that from the time I felt the impact to when you woke up, it was only fifteen minutes.”

Really?

That wasn’t too bad.

She could work with this.

That meant she wasn’t out long. It wasn’t likely drugs then. They must have kept knocking her out.

“Show me a map.”

MATE asked.

“Is it a good time to tell you that there are spiders in this cave system? Big ones that like to eat people?”

Yeah, no.

This was NOT a good time.

It was also not a good time for humor.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t tell me. Focus for me, MATE. Ivan and my team are going to be panicked, and when that happens, they go insane. They’ll call in the military to find me, and I’m not exaggerating. Gabe will be crazy too.”

MATE didn’t question it.

As Elizabeth stood there, she could feel something running down her wrist, and when she held it up in the light, she could see it was blood.

And there was a symbol on her arm.

It appeared to be done with ash, or a black marker. That didn’t bode well for her.

For now, though, she had to focus and get moving before someone came back to have a snack.

Or worse.

Yeah, she didn’t want to be assaulted and then killed. The last thing she needed was her family finding her remains and having to deal with that trauma.

That made her heart race again. While she wanted to freak out, she had to stay calm.

And.

Think.

“On the map, pinpoint where I was, and where I am now. Please use the distance between the points to give me an estimated distance that I was dragged.”

MATE worked on that, and as she did, Elizabeth was focused on the assailants.

These persons were no longer sticking to the customary traditions of one person a year. Now, she was on the potential victim list, and there was no doubt why either.

Apparently, they didn’t want her digging into this. There was no shock that they had focused on her when she and Ivan split up.

“Oh, is this a good time to tell you that I completed my research on the symbols on the bone that Doctor Magnus found?”

Well, why not?