Chosen Prey Read online

  Pain burst through her skull and she saw white sparks against a gray background. She tasted blood in her mouth from where her cheek had slammed up against her teeth. The beatings were making her dizzy and weak, and the tears from the pain wouldn’t stop flowing. Only the adrenaline rushing through her kept her from passing out, and the press of the stake against her thigh gave her hope.

  He was going to pay. And he was going to pay big.

  Neal grabbed her arm and jerked her to her feet, brought her around so that the knife was again at her throat, her back to his chest. He dragged her backward, heading out of the tent.

  As Neal started to drag her from the shelter, the lights went out again.

  The entire compound was dark.

  More bombs went off, illuminating small parts of the compound at a time.

  Flames shot up into the air.

  People shouted and screamed—the sounds came from everywhere.

  When Neal jerked her backward even harder, Lyra cried out.

  “Shut. Up. Bitch.” From her side vision she saw that her mother was being taken in the same direction and, like her, had a knife at her throat. “Fight me and I start slicing up Mommy.”

  A combination of deflation and hope clenched Lyra’s chest. But hope rose above all. This attack had to be Dare with reinforcements.

  Lyra let Neal drag her into the pouring rain. Instantly she was drenched. She had to work to keep her footing on the slick, muddy ground.

  A flare from an explosion lit up the night. In that second of light, her gaze landed on Jason, who stood beneath the shelter.

  He smiled. A cold, cruel, and calculating smile.

  Then the lights went out again.

  * * *

  Dare jerked down his night-vision goggles.

  It was pure pandemonium in the compound with all the shrieking, shots being fired, and more explosions that helped serve as diversions as he searched for Lyra.

  He reached the canvas shelter and slipped around the back wall. Dare dodged cables and stepped over spikes holding the shelter up. He held his Glock in his right hand.

  When he made it around the back side of the tent, he saw two women being dragged away from the shelter by three men.

  Through the green glow of the goggles it was difficult to see their faces, but he knew in his gut that one of the women was Lyra.

  * * *

  The pain from the slice at Lyra’s throat burned like fire, and her head spun from being slapped so much, not to mention her other wounds. She might as well have been in a car crash. Everything was starting to catch up with her, and she had to fight the dizziness away as Neal dragged her toward the Temple that was illuminated by an occasional explosion.

  Smells of smoke and something sharp and acrid filled the air despite the heavy fall of rain. Cold, wet night air chilled Lyra, and goose bumps rose on her flesh.

  The men dragged Lyra and Sara up the steps leading into the Temple. Two armed men stood at either side of the doorway, their guns aimed at the five people approaching them.

  “Stop pointing the fucking guns at me,” Neal growled.

  The men lowered their weapons.

  The door burst open. Lyra saw a fat man run through the doorway, illuminated by a fiery glow in the background.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going, Larry?” Neal shouted as the man rushed past him.

  The man didn’t pause as he ran down the Temple steps. “I’m out of here.”

  Neal turned his gaze on one of the guards. “Kill him.”

  One guard raised his rifle and shot the man called Larry in his back. The fat man dropped without a sound, and Lyra’s belly churned.

  “Just get out of the way and let me into the Temple.” Neal shouted. He paused and looked at both guards. “Shoot anyone who comes near.”

  “Yes, sir.” both men said.

  Mark backed up so that Neal could enter first with Lyra. When Adam opened the Temple door, Lyra blinked from the low lighting coming through the doorway. Additional generators, no doubt.

  Lyra couldn’t see Neal’s face from the position in which he held her, but she was able to see Mark’s. He glanced at Lyra’s mother, who stood placidly beside him.

  “She’s not going anywhere,” Mark said with a smirk. “She’s so drugged, she doesn’t even know what’s going on. After all these years, this time she took them without a fight.”

  Lyra stared at Sara. They’d drugged her mother?

  Neal moved Lyra forward through the foyer and to a door. Adam jerked it open. Neal removed the knife from Lyra’s throat and shoved her. She fell through the doorway into a room lit only by flickering candles. She landed on her hands and knees, jarring her teeth.

  The Temple’s main Prayer Room, a place she’d been to many times before she escaped. The immediate scents of burning candles and an all too familiar sickly-sweet smell met her nose, along with the odor of polish from the wooden floor. The only thing in the room was yet again one of Neal’s altars with his “tools of the Light.” This altar was bigger, though, extending from one side of the room to the other.

  Neal jerked her up by her hair again. Blackness started to close in on her until all she saw was a pinprick of light. This time it was much harder to keep from blacking out. She took a deep breath to get oxygen into her system. Her vision blurred, then slowly cleared.

  A measure of relief flowed through her when Neal released her so hard she landed on her ass. At least the knife was away from her neck and he wasn’t pulling her hair.

  She rested her head against the wall she was next to and tried to slow her breathing and her heart rate. She watched her mother being forced into the room onto the floor. Sara didn’t even make a cry when she was thrown into a corner and kicked in the side by Mark.

  Neal first. Lyra would kill Mark next.

  Adam shot a bolt in the door, locking it. In the glow of the candlelight, Lyra watched Neal, his eyes wild and his long, wet hair sticking to his face and neck. Despite all he’d done to her since she’d been kidnapped and brought back to The People, she’d never seen him look so furious. So furious that his face was red and he was shaking with rage.

  “I should kill you and be done with it,” Neal said to Lyra.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Mark’s and Adam’s expressions. Mark appeared pleased, where Adam looked shocked.

  “However, you are the Chosen,” Neal continued, “and you will face your destiny once we get through this.” He stepped closer, his dagger still in his fist. “But the Prophet Jericho said nothing about not beating you daily once the baby is born.”

  Lyra swallowed and shrank against the wall. Neal had an insane light to his eyes and looked like he was barely holding himself back from beating her now. She didn’t know how much more she could take before passing out and being unable to help herself and Sara make an escape.

  The press of the stake against Lyra’s thigh was constantly in her thoughts. How was she going to use it to get herself and her mother out of here?

  “Weapons,” Neal said to Adam and Mark without looking at them.

  Each man grabbed a rifle from a cabinet Adam opened. It was filled with what looked like sophisticated weaponry. With a series of clicking noises, they loaded their rifles. Mark handed his to Neal and snatched another, loading it with the same efficiency he had used with Neal’s rifle.

  Neal grasped the dagger he’d held to Lyra’s throat in one hand, the rifle in the other. He slid his knife into a pocket of his robe yet still watched Lyra. Adam and Mark did the same, putting their knives away in the pockets of their jeans in favor of keeping both hands on their rifles.

  Lyra’s heart thumped as she looked from Neal, to Mark, to Adam. All three were prepared to use their guns. All three were prepared to murder anyone who tried to rescue her and her mother. Lyra and Sara were hostages. Truly hostages. And Neal was a madman.

  “Through the tunnel.” Neal grabbed Lyra’s hand and jerked her to her feet as he looked at Adam and
Mark. “If anyone follows us, shoot to kill.”

  Neal’s gaze met Lyra’s and she went cold. “You promise now to fully cooperate or your mother’s dead.”

  24

  After the men shoved the women into the Temple and the door closed behind them, Dare slipped through the darkness toward the building. He analyzed the situation, taking in the pandemonium around him as well as what he had to get through to make it to the Temple and in the door.

  To either side of the entryway stood a guard who searched the night with his rifle, ready to take out any unwelcome guests.

  Dare holstered his Glock and jerked his rifle from over his shoulder. At this distance he’d need it.

  He pushed his goggles up, raised the rifle, and looked through the night-vision scope just in time to see one of the guards aiming directly at him.

  Dare dropped and rolled, continuing to move at the same time bullets whizzed past him. He didn’t hesitate, and as he turned he popped off a round of shots, taking out the shooter and the man next to him.

  When Dare was certain the men were both down, he pushed himself to his feet, checking around him to make sure there were no more guards. He slung the rifle over his shoulder again. He’d lost his goggles when he rolled, and he had to scoop them up and slip them back on.

  Even as he made his way through the mud puddles and pouring rain, more explosions continued around the compound. Sounded like the boys were having a good time with those diversions.

  Dare drew his Glock and Beretta, each one aimed at one of the guards’ bodies. He crept up to the huge building and cast glances over his shoulder to make sure no one else was in sight. When he was certain both men were dead, he holstered the Beretta.

  His earpiece crackled.

  “Where are you, Lancaster?” came Nick’s voice.

  “Temple, main door.” Dare wrapped his hand around the door handle.

  “Two seconds,” Nick said. “I’m right behind you.”

  Dare cast another glance over his shoulder. In moments, a shadowy figure approached. Dare crouched and held his gun steady. Through the green view of his goggles, he couldn’t tell if it was Nick, and he wasn’t taking any chances.

  “It’s me, buddy,” Nick said as he got closer and Dare made positive identification.

  “Watch my back.” Dare glanced at each felled guard. He’d never let down his awareness of them. “I’m going in.”

  “I’ve got you,” Nick said, this time without the transmitter, as he reached Dare.

  Dare nodded and opened the door. He held his Glock in the ready position as he peered inside. Not a sound. He rounded the door frame and found himself in a foyer. A door directly in front of him, hallways leading to the left and the right. At the end of one hallway a blue glow spilled out of a doorway. From his position it looked like there were cameras and monitors—some kind of surveillance room.

  It was dark in the opposite direction. With his goggles on, Dare saw they were in the clear.

  Nick closed the door behind them and they both paused. Dare clenched his fist tighter around the butt of his Glock as he listened. Still not a sound. He looked at his feet and saw smeared footprints leading into the door directly in front of them.

  He tried to open the door. Locked. He glanced at Nick, who was looking in the direction of the room with the blue glow.

  “Freeman, Harrison,” Dare said over the transmitter. “Temple, front and center. Manning, Lloyd, take the back.”

  All four men acknowledged Dare’s orders, and he turned to Nick. “I’ll head through here,” Dare said as he removed a silencer from his belt and screwed it onto the end of his Glock. “You check out that room.”

  Nick gave a quick nod and headed down the hallway. Dare pointed his weapon at the door handle. Two shots and the bolt was history.

  Hinges creaked as he pushed the door open to reveal a room lit only by candles. He held his gun ready and cleared the room. The room was empty, as he’d suspected. No exit in sight—but muddy tracks were smeared on the wooden floor along with water puddles from the rain.

  Dare closed the door behind him—he didn’t want any unwelcome surprises creeping up without some kind of noise. The creaky hinges would take care of that.

  The room smelled of candle wax, wood, and something else. Dare sniffed. Marijuana.

  Not much in the room. An altar, candles, a few supplies. To the right an open cabinet with a few choice weapons, and empty slots where others must have been.

  Through the green glow of his goggles, he followed the muddy trail of smeared footprints to a wall. The seams blended so well with the rest of the wall, he almost couldn’t make them out.

  He didn’t have time to figure out how to open it. He drew one of Nick’s IEDs from his weapons belt. This one was special. It was designed to make little noise while it more or less burned a hole through whatever it was attached to.

  It already had an adhesive strip. Dare pulled off the plastic covering the adhesive—it would give him ten seconds to get away from the wall.

  Just in case, Dare went as far back as the door and ducked down. In seconds, the IED flared with a crack and burned a hole through the thin plasterboard.

  Flames still burned around the edges of the opening as Dare reached it and stepped through into a dimly lit area. He pushed up his goggles. He was on a landing, and a set of stairs led down to a hard-packed dirt floor and dim lights were strung overhead. They probably used the tunnel for illegal activities, not to mention it made a great escape route.

  It had been too long since the men and women had entered the tunnel. He needed to get going and get going fast.

  “I see you, Lancaster,” came Nick’s voice over the transmitter, and Dare looked up to see a camera overhead. “This is a surveillance room. Can’t see our targets. There’s a well-monitored exit. Has to be their destination.”

  “Harrison, Freeman?” Dare said into his transmitter as he hurried down the tunnel, following the tracks and drops of water smudging the dirt.

  “Just reaching the Temple,” came Freeman’s voice.

  “Check out the rooms to either side of the one dead center,” Dare said as he made his way down the tunnel. “Then follow me.”

  “One minute and I’ll be covering your—” Nick’s voice crackled just before Dare’s transmitter went dead.

  * * *

  As she was forced down the tunnel, Lyra felt the press of the stake against her thigh. A lot of good it was going to do her against three big men with guns.

  The five of them were drenched and Lyra’s teeth chattered. The mud that had been beneath her feet had been replaced by hard-packed earth.

  Neal gripped his rifle with both hands and glanced at Lyra. “As soon as we get out of here, I’ll take you where you’ll never be found, where you can never escape again. If you ever try, I’ll kill your mother.”

  Lyra found it hard to breathe. Just the thought of what Neal could do made her chest seize.

  They reached a sort of garage and came to a stop. Boxes were stacked on boxes around the circumference of the area. But in the middle were two black Hummers.

  Neal pointed his gun directly at Lyra. “Don’t move.” He glanced at Sara, who had been shoved down the tunnel and looked like an automaton. “I have to thank your mother for bringing you to me.” Neal smirked. “As soon as I met you, I knew you were the Chosen. I made sure you had nothing to keep you from being brought to the Temple of Light.”

  Everything started to blur around the edges of her sight. “What do you mean?” she said slowly as her skin began to tingle and the hair at her nape rose.

  Neal’s wicked smile moved from Lyra to her mother and back. “I set your father up. Called in the report about the bank robbery. Had a sniper ready to take your father out.”

  With every word, Lyra’s heart sank, her head spun, her legs wobbled. “You had my dad killed?”

  Neal shrugged. “I needed you and that couldn’t happen while he was around.” He glanced at Sara. “Wit
h your spineless mother, I knew I’d have you both once the cop was out of the way.”

  Fury chased away every ache, every pain, and for the first time since Lyra arrived in this place she could think clearly. “You bastard.” Her voice rose in strength. “No matter what happens right now, or in the future, you’ll pay. One way or another, you’ll pay.”

  Neal narrowed his eyes. He aimed his rifle at Sara’s head.

  A shot echoed through the room.

  Adam dropped to the floor. Red stained his shirt over his heart.

  Lyra looked up in time to see Dare around the corner of the tunnel. At the same time, she shoved up her robe and jerked out the stake.

  A loud boom from Neal’s gun.

  Sara screamed and grabbed her left shoulder. Blood blossomed on the tan of her robe as she fell and landed on her back.

  Lyra screamed, too. She tightened her grip on the stake.

  Mark swung his rifle toward the tunnel and started shooting at the same time he backed around one of the Hummers. His weapon was an automatic, and every bullet kicked up dirt from the tunnel walls.

  Despite being shot, a suddenly very alert Sara dug her hand into her robe.

  She pulled out the stake she had taken in Lyra’s tent.

  Sara launched herself at Mark and buried the stake in his thigh.

  “Fuck.” Mark shouted, and fell behind the Hummer, his rifle clattering beneath him. His legs disappeared as he started crawling out of sight.

  Neal grabbed Lyra’s arm and started to pull her around one of the Hummers.

  With all the fury piled up inside her, Lyra twisted away from Neal’s grip.

  She gripped the stake as he turned back to her.

  Lyra drove the point of the stake straight into Neal’s groin.

  Neal screamed, a high-pitched sound. He dropped the rifle and fell to his knees. He yanked the stake from his groin and doubled over, still shrieking. Blood poured over the dirt floor. The stake rolled away.