The Buried by Brett Battles Page A

but her mind was still muddled and she couldn’t place it. “Good for you.”
    A hum whirred to life, followed by the sizzle and pop of an electric arc.
    “People in my home country call me Le Loup.”
    Oh, God, Helen thought, making the connection. It couldn’t be.
    “In English it means—”
    “I know what it means,” Helen said.
    The Wolf.

CHAPTER 14
     
    WASHINGTON STATE
     
    D ANI WOKE AGAIN , the clouds that had jammed her mind all but gone.
    She opened her eyes and saw she was lying in the backseat of a vehicle, her head to the driver’s side of the car. Quinn was sitting in the front passenger seat, so she assumed the one called Nate was behind the wheel.
    She tried to gauge the time from the sunlight, but the best she could do was rule out dawn or dusk. She could see an expanse of trees out the window so they probably weren’t in a city.
    Glancing down, she saw her wrists and ankles were restrained, but at least they’d left her arms in front. She tried to lift her hands so she could rub her eyes, but could only move them a few inches before they tugged to a stop due to two additional zip ties connecting those around her wrists with belt loops on her jeans.
    “You’re up. Welcome back.”
    Quinn was looking at her.
     “I bet you’re hungry,” he said.
    “Sure. Let’s pull into the next restaurant. We can go in, have a nice sit-down meal.”
    “No need.” He reached down by his feet and pulled up a bag that said Arby’s on the side.
    “Awesome,” she said coolly.
    A silent message passed between the two men. Within moments, the vehicle slowed as it descended a short hill, then turned a couple times before traveling several minutes down a bumpy road.
    When they finally stopped, Nate climbed out, opened the door behind Dani’s head, and helped her into a sitting position. She could now see they were on a narrow dirt road, with trees close in on both sides, removing any chance she could flag someone down for help.
    They were obviously in a forest, but which one she had no idea. Somewhere in North America, though in light of all the sedatives she’d been given, she could be wrong.
    She’d thought she’d waited long enough. Marianne had said not to come back for at least five years. She’d waited ten. Still, she had somehow been recognized. Her passport picture when she came through Immigration in Los Angeles? Maybe. Her alias? Maybe that, too. She should have never kept her real first name, but it had been so long, and she’d been afraid if she were called by a different name, she’d forget to respond and instantly expose the lie.
    They had seized her in a rundown motel just off the strip in Las Vegas. She mistakenly thought she could hide among the mobs of tourists while she worked up the courage to go to her final destination. Since then, she’d always either been blindfolded, kept in spaces without windows, or drugged. In a way, Mr. Black’s prison cell had been a relief after what had seemed like days on the road. What she hadn’t realized until these new creeps came onto the scene was that the cells had been in the basement of a house.
    Quinn handed the bag of food to his buddy and got out.
    “We weren’t sure what you’d like,” Nate said. “So we got you a roast beef sandwich and a chicken sandwich. Fries, too. The curly kind.” He touched the side of the bag and smiled. “Still a little warm.”
    “Are you going to feed me, too?”
    He gave her another one of his winning smiles before pulling out a pocketknife and cutting the ties holding her wrists to her belt. He did not, however, remove the bindings holding her wrists together.
    After putting a sandwich between her fingers, he said, “You should be able to manage from here.”
    “Did you get me anything to drink?”
    “Wow, you are demanding, aren’t you?”
    He pulled out a bottle of water from the bag.
    Once she started eating, she couldn’t stop. As she finished off the sandwich, Nate asked, “You want the