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Carefully, the boy tossed away the weapon and raised his ar behind hie khakis and T-shirt His broad forehead was furrowed, his hair buzzed short He was skinny, but it was tough to tell if that was froe lankiness

It all happened so fast, not more than five or six seconds, and in that tiiven the way the kid handled the rifle, he could have killed them in their hesitation What the hell were they supposed to do with him now?

Stella approached hiht "Go back into the trees, away from the aircraft"

Jose shoved the student onto Bubbles and followed her, scanning the trees "Stella, we need to leave"

The boy took a step toward her, hands still in the air "Let lish "Please, ma’am, take me with you Do not leave o"

"No!" The kid lurched forward "I know things, is I will tell you"

Anyone could say that, but if what he said was true… Shit They couldn’t stand around here chitchatting "The boy comes with us We don’t have time to sort it out now We’ll search him for explosives and weapons and if he’s clean, cuff him and load him up"

The boy didn’t even hesitate He thrust out his wrists Jose took the battered rifle, then patted hi no explosives

Bubbles stepped into the void and pulled out a set of plastic cuffs He zipped the kid’s wrists tight "Let’s bounce"

Jose escorted the kid, leaving Bubbles and Stella to haul the student the rest of the way to the waiting aircraft The crew chief inside the CV-22 reached out to steady each passenger up the back ra stretched along either side, o hold Jose strapped in the kid straight off, not trusting the teen, not trusting anyone Especially when Stella was involved

He didn’t give ten da she had This was his rescue His gig And he wasn’t lowering his guard for an instant until he had her safely back at base

The back load ra theineer Jose dropped into a seat and strapped in beside Stella just as the CV-22 lifted off Still, she had his gun trained on the kid

Could she do it? Shoot a teenager?

Their tiether hadn’t involved work, not after the initial meet-up in the Gulf of Aden They’d just been two people dating, getting to know each other He hadn’t seen her on the job, and he sure as hell hadn’t seen a wo tie un after all He closed his hand over hers, slipping the weapon frorip, and she didn’t even protest But then perhaps she was thinking like an undercover agent after all, trying not to draw attention to her training

Although her standoff with the kid a few roaned as they shifted, pointing the rotors forward The CV-22 accelerated, speeding forward at double the pace of a helicopter They were that much closer to freedom

Completely free for her to walk away fro of denial clear from his eyes and scoured the hollow inside of the aircraft Almost as hollow as he felt

Sutton pointed at the kid, shouting over the roar of the engines "You ith them, the ones who held us at the compound"

Jose looked fast at Stella Had she known that too from the second she saw the kid? If so, no wonder she’d draeapon And no wonder she hadn’t wanted to let the boy go

The teen held up his cuffed hands, fingers splaying in soesture "They made me I didn’t have any choice Until now I came to you"

Sutton turned wild, scared eyes to Jose "Are you just going to believe what he says?"

"Doesn’t matter," Jose answered "He’s in custody We’ll sort it out later"

So far they’d h the student had been eyeing the they had once dated

The way they’d worked together to get to this point had been so damn smooth, even when they’d been derailed by the land ether? He’d wanted her to just accept hi the best he could, one day at a time He could already hear her answer of how he should be, what he could be--a father God, she’d even suggested he go toso close, he found hi their last fight Really thinking, even though it ines shifted upward like a helicopter again Landing Tiather his scraht sun swelled inside, stinging his eyes He blinked, seeing the hangar that held their co He was back where he started

Except now the welco crew included more than the CIA dudes and the SEALs His PJ tea out front