WICKED INTENTIONS { Completed}

Chapter 27

Shakira woke up lying face down on some kind of hard surface whose rough fabric pricked painfully at her face. But that was the least of her pains. The massive headache she had clawed at her brains and seemingly splitting it into two. Wincing slightly, she took a breath but her lungs were immediately filled with some kind of musty smell that stung at her nostrils and clogged up her throat.

The process of opening her eyes was like prying her eyelids with a knife and when she did manage it, shadowy darkness met her. When she tried to move her body, she found herself wedged between two hard unmoving masses. To make matters worse her arms had been forced behind her back, with some kind of metal digging at her wrists and keeping them immobile, while her feet were bound together.

What the hell had happened to her?

Where was she?

It was only when she felt the soft vibrations beneath her body that Shakira realized that the floor was moving. She was in some kind of vehicle. The memories came flooding in like a waterfall then.

Karyn had kidnapped her.

I'm going to die. Panic immediately suffused as fear streaked its way down her spine. Her heart sped up, heat flared up her body and her face and her breath locked in her throat. Her head started to whir in cycles threatening to toss her back into unconsciousness if she didn't feed it oxygen.

Breathe, Shakira. Breathe. She took in deep gasping breaths, forcing the air, musty as it was, through her clogged throat. She couldn't afford to faint right now. Eventually her head began to clear again but immediately thoughts rushed to fill it. Frankly she was surprised the agent hadn't killed her yet but the answer of why she hadn't was clear – she wanted the thumb-drive badly.

Think, Shakira. Think. Ways to use the thumb-drive as leverage. I could... Wait, wait, wait! First she had to figure out where the blasted thing was. Shakira racked her brain to trace her movements prior to Karyn's attack. Nathan was working with it last night through this morning. When he woke me up, the drive was still attached to my laptop. We went through it, got all the info on Wayne and his scam then decided to leave the hotel. Nathan snapped the laptop shut, plucked the thumb-drive, put it into his pocket and then went to the bedr...

Nathan put it in his pocket.

Oh, God!

How was she supposed to use the thumb-drive as leverage without putting Nathan in danger? No. She'd have to find a way to use it without involving him. The last thing she wanted to do was get him killed too. But how? Maybe she could lie that she'd hidden it at the house or that she'd-.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden crunching beneath her and then the car ground to a halt. Shakira tensed and her ears pricked in awareness as she waited to see what would happen. There was a whooshing sound that sounded like the driver's door opening, some more crunching and then a slam of the door. Soon enough, the door next to her feet opened up, throwing light into the dark space. Shakira turned her head slightly to find her attacker looming at the door.

Shakira kicked out at Karyn as she unknotted the cloth she'd used to bind Shakira's legs. The struggling had no effect whatsoever and as soon as the red-head had Shakira's legs loose, she yanked on her handcuffed arms almost pulling them out of their sockets.

"Ow," Shakira whimpered as she came to her knees.

"Get out," Karyn ordered as she withdrew slightly from the car and pointed her weapon at Shakira. It was hard maneuvering herself out of the car with her arms behind her body but Shakira managed to shuffle her body backwards on her knees before gingerly stepping down.