At the bottom of the stairwell, driven by her deadline of one minute, Kara burst out of the doorway and ran for the back exit, punching the red button and the glass. The instant she stepped outside, she was aware of the dumpster to her left—a moment before a man grabbed her. Another man was in front of her as she kicked, but they were too big, and the cloth one of them held found her mouth, fumes penetrating her senses. And just like that, everything went black.

***

“Meet me at the back exit now. Kara’s gone. Go now and I’ll meet you at the door.”

Blake went completely still at Kyle’s words for all of two seconds, before he took off running. “Do you have her on camera?”

“She took off down the stairwell and exited the back door, and—”

Blake was already in the stairwell, headed down the steps, and his heart felt like it was going to explode out of his chest. “And what? What happened?”

“Blake—”

What the fuck happened, Kyle?” he growled, jumping four steps to get to the next flight.

“Two guys grabbed her and a car pulled up and”—a pause—“she’s gone, Blake.”

Every nightmare he could possibly have came to life in that moment. His world spun. His stomach rolled and his muscles ached as he pushed harder down the stairs. Everything was a blur until he burst out of the back door of the building. The van his team was using waited with an open door. Blake was inside and it was moving before Luke shut the door behind him.

“Tell me you’re tracking her,” Blake said to Kyle, who was sitting at a computer panel. Kyle pointed out the beeping dot on a large screen mounted on the wall. “That’s her. They’ve got a lead on us but we’re gaining.”

“Royce and the rest of the team are falling in behind us now,” Jesse called from the driver’s seat.

Blake cut Kyle a damning look. “I thought we had the exterior of the building covered. How did someone get to her?”

“They came out from behind a dumpster,” Kyle explained. “We never caught them on camera before that.”

Blood rushed in his ears and he flexed his fingers, fighting the urge to shake Kyle for letting this happen. “How the fuck did we not see them? And why did she leave in the first place?”

“You want to see this,” Kyle said, punching a keyboard. Another smaller screen lit up with an image of Kara. Blake squatted by Kyle, watching Kara take a call, and he saw the panic in her face, the calculation and fear in her eyes.

“Whatever they said to her, she felt like she couldn’t communicate with us,” Luke said.