Untouchable (The Blankenships Book 8) Read Online Free PDF Page B

that mattered. A bag went over her head, and something primal inside of her froze. She couldn’t make herself move when she didn’t know where she’d be moving to. The cloth was thin enough that she could breathe, but not well enough to be able to do much else. She could hear Leo speaking in a rapid string of mixed English and Russian, but she couldn’t make out the words. She understood the tone, though. Pleading. For his friends’ lives, she could only assume.
     
    Everything felt distant, distracted.
     
    Her hands were bound behind her by something thin and flexible, and she was led up a set of stairs. She wouldn’t have had any idea what was happening if she hadn’t just spent however long on a plane. As soon as it began to move, she knew what was happening.
     
    She was on a plane. She was being taken somewhere. She thought Alex was with her—after they’d pushed her down into a seat and strapped her down, there had been a heavy thump, as if a decently sized man had been tossed to the floor in front of her—but with the hood over her eyes, there was no way to be sure.
     
    She waited for the moment where her heart gave up. Where the fear stopped everything inside of her and she was reduced to absolutely nothing. It had to be just around the corner, after all; there was no way she could continue to hold out against the kind of terror that was threatening to consume her.
     
    But the terror didn’t come this time. The small kernel of hope that had bloomed when Leo was led away refused to disappear. She didn’t know why, but as the plane lifted off the runway, she found herself starting to laugh. Whether it was because she just wanted to live that much or because her heart had figured out some kind of a plan, even if it hadn’t told her brain, she didn’t know. But the terror didn’t devour her like she’d always feared. It sat in a separate part of her mind, as most of her was gently and quietly consumed by the need to focus on getting free.
     
    Her moment would come. She would just need to be ready when it arrived.

 
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    At some point, Zoey slept. When she woke up, her hands were painfully numb, her nose was running, and her lungs felt thick. She started to cough and couldn’t stop. The fabric meant that the air in her hood was thin, and she couldn’t pull in enough air to calm her panicking body.
     
    She heard words in a tonal language, combined with the sort of impatience that usually implied cursing, and then the hood was yanked free. Cool, fresh air on her face felt wonderful, but she coughed even harder as her body tried to regulate and settle.
     
    “Just breathe,” she heard, and the voice was familiar, calm, and it helped her listen, take a long, slow breath, and find something that would pass as quiet. The coughing faded, though the ache in her lungs didn’t. She wondered how much longer she would have been safe under that dark hood. Would these captors have cared?
     
    Alex pressed something against her lips, and it took her a moment to realize it was a straw. She looked at him, and he gave a small, slight nod. She took a long sip of water. It was stale, but cool, and the burning in her throat eased a little bit. She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the small, safe sensation—no one would be giving her water if the next step in their plan was to shoot her in the head, and Alex also wouldn’t be able to move around—and then opened her eyes and tried to take in everything possible about where she was.
     
    It was a plane, no question. It was much louder than the private jets she’d flown in with Alex and Leo. It wasn’t quite as barren as the innards of a cargo or military plane, but it wasn’t all that far off either. There was a guard standing at the front of the cabin area—a woman, actually, holding a large rifle. The barrel pointed at the floor, and her eyes were staring off into middle distance—focused on nothing, but seeing everything.
     
    It was