My brows rose in surprise. “Maybe this girl and Sarah were friends.”

Breakneck gently laid the girl’s hand on her chest. He exhaled an anguished breath. Glancing over his shoulder at Chulo, he said, “We need the closest hospital or clinic. With that bleeding, coupled with whatever internal injuries she’s sustained, she’s got maybe an hour. I need to get in and stop the bleeding.”

Chulo glanced from Breakneck to me. “Thirty miles up the road there’s a hospital. It ain’t much, and it sure as hell ain’t no trauma center.”

“I’ll make do,” Breakneck replied.

“One good thing is most of the staff can be bribed, and we’re going to need that for sure,” Chulo said.

“Fine. Let’s go,” I replied.

As we started the van, I surveyed Breakneck one last time. With muscles taut throughout his body, the heart-wrenching agony was written over his face as well. His baby girl was dead. Murdered. It was likely that the finality of Sarah’s death would leave him a broken man. For our mission not to have been completely in vain, Annabel had to live.

With a swift nod in his direction, I tried to convey to Breakneck all my unspoken sympathy along with my thanks.

He shook his head. “Don’t be thanking me yet. She’s got a helluva long way to go to survive.” Although there was doubt in his voice, there was also a hint of firm resolve.

FIVE

ANNABEL

As I floated back into consciousness, a sigh escaped my lips. The excruciating pain that had cloaked me was gone. While I appreciated the blessed relief, a sudden panic seeped into my pores. Did the newfound peace mean I was dead?

Prickly fear crept from the top of my head down to my feet, and I shivered. My groggy mind whirled with questions. Where was I? What had happened to me? When I tried desperately to widen my eyes to see where I was, they would only open halfway. They felt too swollen to fully open.

Just as I struggled to remember what had caused my eyes to swell, the events of the last few hours came racing back to me. Mendoza’s face masked in rage, his fists flying in fury, and his harsh words, “I’ll kill you for letting another man’s name come off your lips.”

When a bright, blinding light snapped on above me, a hoarse scream broke across my busted lips. Any peace I had felt was fleeting as I realized I wasn’t in heaven. Instead, I was surely back in hell. But as I started thrashing around, I realized I wasn’t in Mendoza’s quarters. I was laid out on a hard table. Once an antiseptic smell entered my nose, I couldn’t help wondering if I was in a hospital.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. No one is going to hurt you.”

I froze at the kind words, which were spoken with such care. Fluttering my eyelids, I managed to open my eyes enough to see someone I didn’t recognize in front of me. He didn’t wear a Diablo’s cut. Instead, he was outfitted in medical scrubs. As if he could sense my fear and the questions I had racing through my mind, he said in a low, kind voice, “My name is Dr. Edgeway. One of my men found you back at the compound. You were hurt badly, and you needed surgery to save your life.”

Vaguely I remembered men arriving at the compound. Even though I had been in such agony, I remembered the chaos around me—the screaming¸ the explosions, the loud, threatening voices. But Mendoza had beaten me so badly I couldn’t do anything but lie on the floor and await my fate. Just as I felt myself fading, I had seen Jesus. He had gotten me out of Mendoza’s quarters. My savior had told me his name. I racked my brain to try to remember it. Finally it came to me.

“Rev?” I questioned.

The doctor’s brows shot up in surprise. “He’s just outside. If you want him, I’ll have him come in.”

For reasons I couldn’t understand, I wanted the stranger with me. “Please.”

He nodded. As he turned to the door, the room began to grow darker. I fought hard to stay awake to see my savior. When I saw him framed in the doorway, I couldn’t fight any longer, and I once again fell under the harsh tide.

When I resurfaced, I found myself in a darkened room. Relief flooded me as I imagined I must’ve made it out of surgery. When I shifted in bed, pain tore through my abdomen, causing me to gasp. A warm hand met mine, and I immediately jerked away, recoiling from the touch. I could hear the panic in the muffled cry of apprehension that escaped my lips. Who was touching me? Where was Dr. Edgeway? I didn’t like the nearly constant uncertainty I now felt.

“Shh, Annabel, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

That voice. It didn’t belong to the doctor from before, but somehow it was still familiar to me. Slowly I turned my head on the pillow, searching through the darkness for him. A light flicked on over my head, and I was finally able to see him. His kind blue eyes met mine, and they instantly eased some of the fear. The striking color seemed such a contrast to his mahogany hair. He sat in an uncomfortable-looking chair pulled up against the bed. In the silence, I drank in his comforting appearance—his long, jeans-encased legs, the T-shirt that appeared to be covered in blood or dirt, his shoulder-length hair that was swept back from the face that gave me a reassuring smile, his broad chest.

When I realized we were alone in the room, sharp jabs of fear prickled over my skin. My rational mind told me to be frightened of him. He was a stranger—a strange man at that. He towered over me with muscles that could inflict great harm. But everything I needed to know about him was in his eyes. Searching them showed me that he was a gentle giant, and he seemed like someone that I could trust.