The Source: Book III of the Holding Kate Series Read Online Free PDF Page A

snapped. Then her tone softened and she pressed into Corey’s side. “Nothing in the world could bind me more tightly to you than I am now, Corey. But I will jump through their hoops, if it will make things better.”
    Corey kissed the top of Kate’s hair. “My lawyer is coming tomorrow. We’ll work it out.”
    “Okay, but if Chaps thinks for one minute that I am moving out of my bedroom and away from my husband, then he can think again!”
    Corey let out a snort. We really are becoming one person.
    The booming gong was so unexpected that they both nearly jumped out of the boat. A sphere fell out of the sky and landed over the boys near the shore. In a blink they were gone.
    Kate jumped up. “Corey, they didn’t have their survival packs!”
    He jostled to the next seat and grabbed the oars. “That is the least of their problems. That wasn’t a Heartwork sphere. That was Mattovdzky!”
     
    By the time they got to shore and ran up the hill to the QHR, the kidnapped boys were already back, bewildered, but unscathed.
    Corey and Kate stood behind the one-way glass and listened to the debriefing.
    “Where did you go?”
    Ash leaned forward and furrowed his brow. “It was a huge lab of some sort.”
    “In a warehouse,” Joey added.
    “This dude dressed in, uh—”
    “Like a pirate or something,” Andrew squeaked.
    “Yeah, this pirate dude screamed at us. ‘Where is she? She was supposed to be with you!’”
    Jose interjected. “He was a creep for sure!”
    “There we were, standing in our swimsuits, dripping on his linoleum while he screamed like a crazy dude.”
    “What else did he say?”
    “He asked us about Kate and if she had been near us.”
    “We just looked at each other and didn’t say anything to him.”
    “He said ‘I had her tracked to this moment,’” Joey remembered.
    “Yeah and he said something like ’the matrix…something something…quantum… timing is off by several minutes.’”
    “Then he pointed a cane at us and we came back here.”
    Kate staggered back and sat in a folding chair in the corner. “He was trying to get me.” She wrestled her palms together. “Corey, we don’t have days. We need to go in, now. Somehow he is tracking my movements.”
    Corey’s heart lurched and he gathered Kate to his chest.
    “He is snatching random jumpers to get to me.”
    “Kate, darling, he didn’t hurt them, though. He sent them back unharmed.”
    “For now!” Her voice trembled. “How long will it take him to realize that he can use them as collateral to get to me?”
    Corey’s heart nearly burst at the idea. Kate already showed her propensity to put herself in danger in order to save the ones she loves when she went into a dark cave with a baby dragon to talk its mother out of eating them. He didn’t want her getting any ideas like that again. He decided in that moment that he was not letting her out of his sight ever.
    Locking his arm around her, he lifted her to stand. “Come on, let’s get home.”
    He nabbed a charged golf cart from the garage and drove back to First Cabin. Tara came out of her room smelling like pomegranate shampoo, her wet hair wrapped in a towel.
    She took one look at Kate’s face and said, “What happened?”
    “Where is everyone else?” Corey asked.
    “Trip is upstairs dressing. I saw Dirk and Donnie go into the boathouse with some white coats earlier.”
    “I’m here,” Eunavae called from behind a large armchair. She leaned over and set her electronic sketch pad on the side table. “What’s up?”
    “Get the team together. Now.”
    “I’ll go to the boathouse.” Eunavae jumped up and ran out the front door, slamming the screen behind her.
    “Trip!” Tara called up the staircase.
    “Yeah, babe.”
    “Corey needs you.” Her cheeks flooded with color and she dragged Kate to the couch and sat her down. Unwilling to release her, Corey followed along. Tara noticed and her concern spiked along with her brow.
    Trip jogged down the