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Too bad she wasn't the type of girl to give in that easily It sure as heck would have s a lot simpler all around

Noelle huddled in the chair, pulling her legs up under her to help keep them warm The shirt smelled like David, clean, with a faint hint of male warmth and some manly deodorant, and she couldn't help but bury her head in her arms and breathe in his scent for co the past twenty-four hours, he was the only one who had shown her even a ents were repetitive autoht in their lives

And Colonel Monroe Well, he was just about as cold awhat happened to her, when deep inside, she was sure he was calculating the odds of her cooperation and how his role in this enda

The whole thing just made her want to cry, but tears didn't help In fact, the three-ed to make her nose run and her head pound

She went to the door, surprised to find that it was unlocked On the other side was a pair of guards wearing the sa oF freakin' guns at their sides and a look in their eyes that said they weren't strangers to using the?" she asked the blond guard

"I'll check," he said as she shut her door, and she heard a lock turn on the outside

Solocked in

A couple of minutes later, David returned with a bottle of water, thite pills and a briefcase

Noette's belly fluttered at the sight of hiular face shadoith stubble Even though she could see the signs of fatigue etched under his arctic blue eyes, he held hith in the world, as if he could just keep going until it was convenient to stop His expression was relaxed, giving her soht She kept wishing that he'd touch her again like he had in the , or even an arood toward helping her believe that she was going to h this

But she was pretty sure that hugging was not on the agenda for a secretive military ned to kill her if that hat they decided to do

What a time to develop a crush Sheesh

David handed her the water and the pills, watching as she washed them down

"1 hope that wasn't cyanide," she said with a touch of huet rid of my headache"

"Not poison I pulled theh"

He wasn't joking

Noelle's stomach filled with acid She flopped down into one of the hard wooden chairs and just focused on breathing

It was beginning to sink in that her days were truly nuits

David shed the windbreaker he earing and draped it over her shoulders The warmth from his body sank into her skin and helped to soothe her nerves

Until she looked up at him He noore only a black T-shirt under that black multipocketed vest His arly fluorescent lighting, she could see a fine network of scars over his hands and ar life-threatening Just a testament to the way he lived his life

David No-Last-Naerous man

But, he was also the only man in this house for whom she held even a sliver of trust

"What are they going to do with me?" she asked

David turned the chair across the table around and straddled it "I won't lie to you It doesn't look good They want this code broken, and, failing that, they don't want sooing to kill et aze slid away and silence stretched out between theers

She knew the truth then She was a dead woed to whisper

David's eyes flickered toward a corner of the roo to see the small black hole that undoubtedly housed a tiny camera lens

"I don't knohat their plans are for you," he said evenly, holding up two and then four fingers on a hand that was hidden from the ca twice about your position"

Twenty-four Days? Hours? Was that all the time she had left?

The rooe before her

This time tomorrow, she could be dead

It was al to happen At least when she wasn't sure, she could pretend that things were going to work out okay

"I don't want to die, but I will if I have to I won't let you use my work as a weapon"