Page 35 of Rescuing Micah (Prey Security: Cyber Team #3)

Hammering inside her skull nudged her from the hazy, dreamlike state she’d been trapped in.

Teresa blinked as she opened her eyes, trying to clear her vision.

Everything was blurry, almost as if she were underwater, only she knew that she wasn't.

When she went to lift her hand to rub her eyes, attempt to clear them, and found that she couldn’t move it, she realized with a horrible sort of sinking feeling in her stomach what had happened.

Abducted.

Again.

The trafficking ring’s ploy to get to her by setting off the fire alarm at her building had worked. Someone had drugged her, pulled her away from Micah, thrown her out a window, and then put her in a van.

She would have sworn that she’d heard Micah calling her name right before she was passed off to someone in the van, but maybe that was more wishful thinking than anything else.

He did know she was gone, though, she remembered hearing his voice through the phone. He’d likely been not far behind her but not close enough to do anything to prevent her from being taken.

A heavy amount of fear pressed down upon her, but there was also a whole lot of anger.

A ton of it.

More than she would have guessed.

If asked, Teresa would have believed that terror would be the dominant emotion flooding her system, but she would have been wrong. It was definitely there, and she knew that at any moment it could spike and take over, but the anger was so much stronger.

Anger that these people put money over human life.

Anger that they took advantage of desperate people who were prepared to do things they normally wouldn't to save their life or the life of a loved one.

Anger that they believed they could just snatch innocent people off the streets and cut them open to sell off their organs.

And anger that they’d ruined her second chance with Micah.

Even though she’d told him she couldn’t make any promises about the future, the more time she spent with him, the clearer that future had become, the easier it had been to see past all the pain and betrayal.

To see that as she peeled back the protective layers she’d used to bury her heart, love still hid beneath them.

Micah Hart wasn't just her first love, he was her only love because he was her true love.

It was crazy to think that while she’d spent the last decade hating him for leaving her when she needed him the most, the love she’d once had for him was still there. It hadn't gone anywhere, it had just been buried too deep to find.

If it had survived everything she’d been through, and if she could see it peeking its way back out, finding its strength again with each apology Micah offered, each small thing he did to try to make amends, then she owed it to herself to see it through.

To open her heart again, let Micah in, and see if there was still hope for them.

Now these people were trying to ruin that.

They had the worst timing. She was only just realizing that she did want to at least try with Micah. If things didn't work out, then they didn't work out, but she didn't want to go through the rest of her life with regrets.

For so long she’d just been playing things safe. Always trying to look at things logically and weighing up the pros and cons to make the most informed decision she could possibly come to.

But love wasn't logical. It didn't make sense. It wasn't something you could arrange neatly in a box.

It was wild and messy, but it was in that wildness and messiness that it found its beauty.

Love couldn’t be controlled, and it couldn’t be caged.

When it came down to it, even if it was the scariest thing she would ever do, she wanted to give Micah a chance. He was trying to fight for her, trying to show her how much he still loved her and how sorry he was. Even though they couldn’t go back, they could go forward.

If she could get out of this alive.

“I hate you all,” she yelled out as loud as she could. Her voice was a little scratchy from being drugged, and it wasn't quite as strong as she would have liked given the sincerity of that sentiment, but it felt good not to be passive.

Just because she couldn’t save herself didn't mean she had to just lie there and take whatever they dished out. She hadn't last time, and it had felt great to fight back however she could, and she wished she’d bitten clean through that doctor’s finger and severed it completely.

If she got another chance, she was going to do whatever damage she could.

They had her, they could operate on her again, they could even kill her, but they couldn’t break her.

Nobody got to do that.

The only one who could break her was herself, and she had no intention of breaking.

So far in life, she’d survived a lot, but somehow, she always managed to come out the other side. Battered and bruised, not quite the same as she’d been before, but still there, still standing.

The same was going to be true this time around.

If her plan didn't work and she wasn't rescued, then she would die knowing she’d created whatever havoc she could.

“In case you didn't hear, I said I hate you all,” she screamed again, then looked around the hospital room with irritation. There were things she could use as weapons lying right around her, yet they had her tied to the bed so she couldn’t get to them.

“We heard you,” a woman who looked to be in her late fifties snapped as she breezed through the door. The woman was dressed in a doctor’s coat, with a stethoscope hanging around her neck, her light brown eyes were narrowed, and her lips pursed into a thin line.

“Good.” She eyed the woman defiantly as she approached the bed.

One thing she knew for certain from the work she and her team had been doing looking into the ring, and from what she’d learned from Ava and Isabella, as well as her own time spent as one of the ring’s captives, was that none of the medical personnel were to be trusted.

They weren't all here by choice, and some of them could maybe be persuaded to help, but she couldn’t rely on that.

Besides, this woman didn't appear to be here under duress.

“I’m glad we were able to get you back. Thanks to you and your team’s constant interference, we have to keep shutting down branches and trying to scramble to set them up in other places.”

“If you're waiting for me to cry you a river, you're going to be waiting one heck of a long time,” Teresa informed the older woman.

“Things can go easy for you here, or hard, up to you,” the woman said, the arrogance rolling off her so strong Teresa literally rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, got it. You guys really care about me, and you want to make my stay with you as pleasant as it can possibly be. Course you do. In case that wasn't abundantly clear, that was sarcasm.” The more Teresa talked back to the woman, the more empowered she felt.

Their goal was to strip her of power, strip her of humanity, and treat her as nothing but a collection of organs they could sell for profit.

Well, she was going to spend every second of her time there reminding them that she was a human being, and if they wanted to murder her, they had to admit to themselves that was what they were doing.

“You think being a sarcastic brat is going to save you?” The woman scoffed.

“Nope. Not at all.” If anything was going to save her, it was the little trick she had up her sleeve. And if it didn't work out, she had no doubt that sooner or later, Prey would find the head of the ring and destroy them. “But you have to know Prey isn’t giving up, and we always win.”

“This isn’t some movie where good triumphs over evil.”

Teresa laughed. “Oh, lady, don’t you know, movie or real life, good always triumphs over evil. It’s not a matter of if Prey is going to close you down, it’s only a matter of when.”

Muttering under her breath, the doctor proceeded to check Teresa’s vitals, and as she watched the woman work, her gaze fixed on her own wrist, praying that the small device inside would remain undetected.

It was her gamble, something she’d been working on for a while now, but it was still in the early stages, in fact, this was the first time it was being trialed.

It was still a prototype, still just something she worked on in her spare time, but she was putting her entire life in its hands.

May 7 th

10:16 A.M.

“You let her do what?” Micah roared.

While his tone of voice didn't indicate it, he was very much aware of who he was yelling at. Very much aware of the money and power Eagle Oswald and the rest of his family wielded. They wielded it for good, taking the fortune they’d inherited and turning it into a billion-dollar company that saved lives.

They did a lot of good, but Eagle had connections everywhere, and Micah knew if the man so chose he could end his career with a single word.

The idea scared him, but not as much as knowing he could lose Teresa.

And what he’d just learned sounded very much like she’d gone back to her apartment with the idea of playing bait.

Without consulting him.

Not that she was obligated to talk through any ideas she had with him, they weren't a couple anymore, weren't even friends, although it definitely felt like something was building between them again, but he thought she would have mentioned this.

At least clued him in because he was her bodyguard, and everything to do with her safety was his business.

But she hadn't told him.

Hadn't told anyone other than Eagle and Raven, if the expressions on the faces of the rest of her team were anything to go by.

“I didn't let her do anything,” Eagle said mildly, seemingly unperturbed by Micah’s attitude, which he supposed was a good thing and meant he wasn’t going to lose his job for confronting the billionaire retired SEAL.