Page 53 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

In The Woods

Unknown Location

Same Time

What wouldn’t she give for her gun and a flashlight at that very moment? That would definitely be making her day that much easier if she could at least guarantee she was safe.

Because at that moment, she didn’t feel like she was.

Not.

At.

All.

Her heart was racing, and her mind was playing tricks on her because of the lack of light.

And none of it was good.

In fact, this was the most scared she’d been since seeing Charlie being taken from the school forcefully by Sally Martinez.

This was a bone-chilling fear that had her by the balls.

For a few brief moments, she swore she was being followed, and had to ask MATE to scan for any heat signals around her.

Paranoia was rampant.

The dark was making her twitchy and off balance. She was alone, but her brain was telling her to look around.

And she didn’t want to.

To be honest, everything about this was terrifying. It was like that feeling of going into a haunted house, and not being able to see anything but knowing it was coming. At any second, she was expecting to be jumped by two people.

Elizabeth’s fight or flight was on deck, ready to kick off.

For real.

Now, she was listening for any sound, and that’s when she heard it.

Running.

Water.

It was faint, and it wasn’t that far away, either. That might help her out, and lead her the hell out of there. Well, that was her hope.

Growing up, Charlie had always told her if she was lost, find a source of water, and follow it. At some point, it would lead to civilization.

Well, that was her plan.

It felt like she was moving uphill, and that meant maybe out of the cave-like structure where she’d been dropped.

Maybe they weren’t going to eat her. Maybe they dropped her alone in the dark for her to starve to death and die of dehydration in the cave.

God.

They were assholes.

For now, she had to focus on the primary objective. She needed to get back to her team.

ASAP.

With each step, Elizabeth could hear the sound of it tinkling down onto the rocks, and that gave her some hope. The last thing she was doing was touching walls in the very dimly lit space.

MATE was losing power, and that was likely from the damage. What wouldn’t she give for a new vest or a way to power it back up?

Time was running out on her having the ability to see her surroundings, so Elizabeth had to move fast.

“Is that water, MATE?” she asked, hoping her vest would hold up until she could get outside. In the woods, she’d have a fighting chance.

Once she found a weapon.

If she found one.

The one thing she was grateful for was that her vest was at least working for now. Having someone to talk to was keeping her sane. Oh, but when she got out of here, she was having a breakdown.

Bet.

On.

It.

When MATE didn’t reply, she got worried.

“MATE?”

The system chimed, and it made that weird sound like it had before. MATE was compromised. The damage was taking down her ability to be effective.

That didn’t stop Elizabeth from talking to her.

“Can you mark this cave system so we can find it again?” she asked.

MATE replied after a few very long seconds.

“I can do that.”

When MATE went to continue talking, her light flickered, and Elizabeth stopped her.

Oh.

Hell.

No.

If she lost light, she’d freaking lose her mind. Then, she’d have to navigate by sound and touch. The last thing she wanted was to be bit by a poisonous spider, or whatever else was on the walls.

“Save your energy. You have to get me out of here. Don’t talk. I’m good.”

She hoped.

As she was walking, MATE stayed silent, and Elizabeth kept moving. That’s when she knew one thing.

Mate’s time was off.

How she shared the amount of time between Elizabeth’s vest getting damaged to her waking up was definitely off.

She’d been knocked out far longer than she thought. There was no way she was only out fifteen to twenty minutes. It wasn’t possible.

If only her smart watch was not damaged too. That hit to the fallen tree had done a number on her tech and her body.

The walk from where she was dumped to the spot that she was at now was at least that, and she saw the distance from where her vest was damaged to here. That was a fifteen-minute walk easily for both.

Elizabeth had been down longer than suspected.

What she needed was to get to Chris so she could get her blood drawn ASAP before whatever they’d used was out of her system.

They might have given her a clue as to who had taken her and was behind this.

There was no doubt in her mind that these assholes drugged her after knocking her out.

Oh, they were lucky. Had she come to, she would have inflicted some pain.

That was for damn sure.

Thankfully though, Charlie had taught her some survival skills because she was on her own. Picking up a rock, she scratched something into the stone wall, and then kept moving.

That would be a way to find her way back. At some point, they would need to get back here to gather up all of the skull trophies that were against that wall.

There had to have been a hundred of them.

EASILY.

The crazy was running rampant here. She was scared, but not for herself.

Okay, she was scared for herself too.

Here she was alone, battered, and in a cave system trying to navigate the way out. The men in her life, by now, had to be losing their minds.

Oh, she was getting lectured.

Bet.

On.

It.

Taking a few more steps, she hit something with her toe, and looked down.

It was a big rock, and it was beside some trickling water.

Oh, yeah.

She was at the small stream that she’d previously heard.

From here on out, she was following the traveling water to see where it ended up going. If she was lucky, it would take her back toward the cabins on the reservation.

Okay, she had hope now.

Maybe, she’d be okay.

The small trickling water was easy to follow. It was downhill, and around a corner. When she made that turn, it opened up into a cavern.

And she saw light.

Hot.

Damn.

She found the light at the end of the tunnel—literally, and her way out of there.

Holy shit.

It was wild, but she actually found her way out of the caves alone and against all odds.

Now, she just had to get to the opening. Looking up, it was about eight feet off of the ground. Most of the cave had to be underground. That opening was obstructed with more rocks, and vines of some sort.

She hoped nothing poisonous.

As she approached the cave opening, and was planning her escape, she saw something off to the side tucked away in the shadows.

Her eyes were adjusted to the lack of light, and she could make it out.

It looked like…a deer head, antlers still attached, and that made her curious.

Why?

Oh, for its size.

It was huge.

It looked like it could fit on a human head. Only, what the hell was it doing down here? It was out of place because there were no other deer bones near it. Just a pristinely bleached head in a corner.

Call her curious, but one of these things did not fit in the area, and that was it.

Poking it with her foot, she moved it, and that’s when she saw a knife.

Holy fuck.

Was this part of The Hollow’s scare tactic?

Had the persons used this, and dumped it here after their last kill?

It was clear that the knife had trace on it.

Valuable trace.

Elizabeth began putting it all together, and what she was thinking was this cave had two ways in, at least.

They couldn’t have dropped her down in here. It was eight feet down. What if they went in the other way, and it wasn’t a long trip from that side to the skulls inside.

She hadn’t looked with the dim light.

That meant if they came back, they were going to be behind her.

Yeah, she had to get out of there.

This was the opposite way she’d been brought in. There had to be a hidden opening in the cave elsewhere, and she wasn’t sticking around to have someone come up behind her.

They’d kill her next time.

What she did know was that she needed the skull and knife as evidence.

Desperately.

As the rain came down outside the cavern system, she carefully pulled off her blazer, and shirt. She was down to her vest and tank top underneath it.

Only, she needed her clothing to carefully transport the knife. Yes, it would be contaminated with her DNA, but the techs could exclude it.

If she got a bead on the killers, the two of them, she could use that to fuel her investigation.

What wouldn’t she do for an evidence bag?

Picking up the knife, she placed it on the blazer along with the bindings they’d used on her.

Yeah, she was taking everything.

That’s when she heard MATE’S voice again.

“Are you gathering evidence, mother?”

She was grateful to hear her voice.

“Yeah, MATE. I need to keep the water off of it. She looked at her arm in the light, and checked out the blood dripping down her flesh.

It wasn’t hers.

Using the bindings they used, she wiped it from her arm to preserve it as best she could. From her pocket, she pulled out a glove she’d use on a scene, and tucked the bloody bindings in it.

Then, she tied it shut.

This would be even more DNA.

If this was blood from one of the people who assaulted her, she’d make sure she got their DNA, and when she found them…

They.

Were.

Caught.

That’s what happened when someone abducted her, bound her, and dumped her with the spiders.

Fuck that.

Grabbing the one antler, she carried it with her to the opening that she couldn’t quite reach from where she stood. It was above her, and the newest part of the puzzle.

Yeah, she wasn’t in the clear yet.

This was going to be the hardest part.

Wrapping vines around the antlers, she could hear the pouring rain just outside the cave. Her whole focus was on getting out of there with the evidence.

Thinking on her feet, Elizabeth used her shirt to tie her blazer to her body, protecting it a little more from the rain.

“Where is Tarzan when she needs him?” she muttered, jumping up, and grabbing one of the vines.

Immediately, it snapped.

Shit.

She landed with a thud on the ground.

Well, when in doubt, keep going.