49
Gagged and Bound
Jana awoke in a sea of darkness. She was disoriented and sat upright and looked around. She was in her bedroom at the safe house. Her hands were free but her jaw hurt. She touched it, and what felt like an electric shock pulsed. She could feel the swelling.
She stood and steadied herself. In the distance, thunder rumbled—the storm had moved past. She heard voices and opened the bedroom door, then squinted into the brightness of a lamp.
“Oh, come on, you big baby,” a voice said. “It’s not that bad.”
“Ouch, dammit, that hurts,” she heard Stone reply.
In the blur of her vision, it looked as though Cade was applying a set of butterfly bandages above one of Stone’s eyes to seal a gash.
“Hey,” Stone said, “you’re up. You feel okay?”
Jana placed a gentle hand on her ja
