Demanding Ransom

Copyright © 2013 Megan
Squires

All rights reserved.

ISBN:
978-1484844533

ISBN-13: 148484453X

This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or
locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

There
aren’t enough pages in this book to contain all of my Thank You’s. With each novel
I write, my list of

encouragers,
cheerleaders, and supporters grows,

and I
could not be more thankful.

This
book is dedicated to all of those that took the time

to read
Demanding Ransom first:

my
editors, my beta readers, my ARC readers, my amazing cover artists, and my
friends.

Thank you
for everything you have contributed to Maggie and Ran’s story.

PROLOGUE

Doesn’t this thing go any faster? Isn’t dad
always talking about those 177 horses under the hood of this hand-me-down Honda?
Feels more like a horse-drawn carriage and I’m pretty sure I’m starting to hold
up traffic and will get pulled over for driving well
under
the speed limit, if cops actually even do that. The least
this car could do is keep up with the flow of traffic. Is that too much to ask?

I ram the pedal all the way to the floorboards,
anticipating the light to morph into green as I speed toward it, because it’s
currently red. Like blood red.
Come on,
come on, turn already.

Green…
Go.

I edge through the intersection, picking up the
speed my white knuckled grip on the steering wheel begged for moments earlier.
Stay green, stay green.
The sedan rushes
two more blocks; colored blurs of vehicles and pedestrians blend together at my
periphery.

My phone buzzes in my lap again, but I leave
it. It would rob me of those few precious seconds I just gained if I try to
fumble for it and read the latest text. Plus, Dad’s always harping on me to
stop texting while driving. I think now is as good a time as any to start
listening to him. I probably should have listened to him earlier.

Two more
miles. That’s it, not much further now.

We ran two miles last year for fitness testing
in P.E., and while my thirteen minute, twenty-three second finish time seemed
lightning fast then, it feels like this piece-of-junk tank is trailing even
slower than my legs did. Honestly, I might get there sooner if I abandon the
car and hoof it on foot.
Come on. Let’s
go!

Somehow, despite the less than ideal pace, I’ve
fallen in sync with the lights, so for the next three I glide under their green
glow. I should call him and tell him I’m on my way, but the no cell phone rule
isn’t limited to just texting. He’d be furious if he heard my voice on the
other end of the line, even under these circumstances. I know there’s a
hands-free device planned for my stocking this Christmas, but that’s three
months away. It would have been a nice going away present when I headed off to
college a few weeks ago, but Dad is nothing if not a meticulous planner. But I’m
sure he never could have planned for any of this.

I suck in a shallow breath, since it seems like
that’s all I’m able to do right now. Tiny, little breaths. I had tried to drag
in longer inhales, but they kept stopping short, like some tight ball in my chest
was pushing down on my lungs and prohibited any more oxygen from entering into
my system. I yank on the taut pull of the shoulder harness to loosen the
constriction and clench my teeth together until it hurts.

One mile
to go. Almost there.

The light up ahead is green—it has been
from the moment it came into view—so I doubt it will do me the favor of
holding that hue until I’m able to sneak under it. But it looks like it’s going
to. If I needed to stop, I’d have to start pressing the break right about now.
But it’s not even yellow. Nope, still bright green.

I gun it.

***

The warm sensation spills across my brow when I
rotate my head to the side, and there’s a pillow of glass at my hair. It makes
an awful, crunching sound like someone walking across bits of loose gravel. My
eyes hold shut—from pain maybe? Because it’s not to avoid the sunlight.
That started slipping out of the sky before I even got in the car back in
Davis. No, it must be from pain. But I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel anything,
actually. And I don’t hear anything. Or at least nothing intelligible. Anything
I
can
hear sounds funneled; the
distorted echo of someone talking through a toilet paper roll or those tin can
phones Mikey and I used to play with as kids. I strain to make out clear voices,
but I just hear the popping of glass—pop, pop, pop—as it gets
closer to my ears.

“Ma’am, just a few more moments and they’ll
have you outta there, okay?”

Ma’am?
Who is
he talking to? I’m only nineteen years old and that doesn’t qualify me for being
called ma’am. I almost want to sneak a glance toward the passenger seat to see
if my mother is in the car with me, but I know that’s not possible. We haven’t
shared the same breathing space for over nine years. No, he must be talking to
me.

Biting down hard on my bottom lip, I use the
piercing sensation to center me. I can feel that.
That hurts.
Good. I’m not completely numb.

“Can you feel anything, Ma’am?” There he goes
again. He must be from the south or something with that overly polite way of
addressing me. “If you can feel, I need you to tell me.”

I bite down harder and iron floods my mouth. I
feel that. And I feel my toes, too, trapped in the size-too-small, red leather
pumps I stole off Cora’s dorm room floor. I knew the moment I forced them onto
my feet that I’d regret it, because that throbbing sensation from nearly
tourniqueting them echoed in my toes. But right now I’m so grateful for these
shoes; I’m grateful for the heartbeat that pulses through my feet and lets me
know I’m not completely numb. I muster the strength to pry my eyelids apart,
ready to see the face of this annoying man that keeps calling me “Ma’am.”

When I finally succeed, my gaze is met with two
black boots, centered and planted just inches in front me, asphalt and shards
of glass pressed up against their thick rubber tread.

Oh God. I’m upside-down.
Upside-down.

If he’s standing, that must mean I’m…hanging. I
crane my neck down (or up, or whatever direction it is), and both see and feel
the slicing pull of the seatbelt across my lap—the only thing keeping me
from slamming onto the roof—
Oh God
—the
roof
of my car.

My whole world is turned completely on its
head.

For the second time today.

CHAPTER ONE

“Ma’am, I need you to lie still.”

The lights are so bright in here. Like at the
dentist when they angle you back in those uncomfortable tan chairs and then
give you sunglasses to shield the glare. Or maybe it’s to keep stray bits of
the plaque they scrape off your teeth from flying into your eyes. That’s
probably the real reason they make you wear them, because that would be
revolting. Whatever it is, I could use sunglasses right now. Why don’t they
have any in here?

“Do you have some sunglasses I can borrow?” My
voice is raspy, crackling like a pre-pubescent boy’s. I haven’t spoken since
the phone call, and it feels like I have to relearn how to place my tongue
against my teeth and the roof of my mouth to form the words and make them sound
the way they should.

He laughs at me, a low, sexy chuckle deep in
his throat that catches me completely off-guard. “No, Ma’am. We don’t have
sunglasses.” He turns to his left and mutters, “Trav, hand me that paper?”

I assume whoever “Trav” is does as he’s told,
because within seconds, and after the sound of tape being torn and paper
rustling, the light dims significantly.

“There. That any better?”

I attempt a nod, but my neck won’t allow it.
“Yes, much.”

“You need to try to stay still, Ma’am.”

I grit my teeth and open my eyes wide. “Ma’am?
Really?”

He laughs again. Now that the light isn’t as
blinding, I can see him more clearly, which is weird because I’d always assumed
you needed light to see. But before he was silhouetted against it, and now it
diffuses softly across his face. He has a nice face. I like his face.

Oh man, my head feels really light. So does my
whole body. Like a balloon filled with helium. I like balloons, too. Geez, what
did they give me?

“You don’t want me to call you Ma’am?” He drags
a hand through his hair and the brown strands situate back into their tousled
position.

“No, I don’t. I like your face and I like
balloons, but I don’t like being called Ma’am.”

A burst of laughter erupts from someone
positioned near my head—probably Trav—but the guy in front of me
holds his stoic gaze. “If you like my face, then why were you asking for
sunglasses? That would make it pretty hard to see me.” I glimpse a coy smile
pull up the corners of his mouth. His lips are full and ruby red. I like his
lips, too.

“Because you guys keep it so damn bright in
here.”

“Well, usually we can turn the lights down
while we’re driving, but something went haywire with them last week. Repairing
that has kind of taken a backseat to you know, saving lives and all,” he says,
still placed in front of me. I hear Trav scribbling something down on a piece
of paper nearby. “Plus, we’re supposed to keep a close watch on our patients.
Lighting helps with that.”

“You need light so you can see my face,” I
explain, just in case he didn’t get it. “I have a nice face, too.”

“Yes, Maggie, you have a nice face, too.” I can
hear the smile in his voice and when his hand grasps my wrist, the shock of it
spikes my breathing. “You have to slow down that heart rate or we’re going to
get in trouble for not stabilizing you in the field.”

“That would be easier to do if you didn’t touch
me.” I wiggle my toes. The shoes are gone. Crap. I hope they weren’t left out
there with my car. Cora’s is going to have my head if I don’t return them.
Maybe she won’t notice they went missing. Not a chance. Cora notices everything.

“You don’t want me to touch you?” He’s done
checking my pulse, but his fingers still hover over my skin, fluttering my
insides. “Cause I can switch with Trav and he can do all of this if you like.
But I guarantee you, his ugly mug isn’t as pleasant to look at as my nice
face.”

“Dude, you’re cruel.” Trav pipes up from his
post along the side of the ambulance wall. “It’s not right to mess with them
when they’re drugged.”

I nod—well more like roll—because
nodding my head makes it loll side to side. If it weren’t attached to my neck,
I think it might actually tumble right off my shoulders.

“I’m not messing with her.” He checks my pulse
again.

“Whatever, Ran. What’s her rate?”

“158.”

A gust of air rushes out of Trav’s mouth and it
smells like an odd mix of coffee and mint. “Dude, you seriously need to get
that down.”

“Working on it.” Ran pushes off his seat and
presses something into an IV bag hanging above me. It looks like a balloon.
Weird.

“Are you qualified to do that?” I ask,
gesturing toward the bag, lifting my hand slightly but it feels like there’s a
twenty-pound weight coiled around it, tugging with an equal amount of
resistance.

“Administer an IV?” Ran asks at the same time
he clips the cap on whatever is in his hands. “Yes, I am. I’m a paramedic and
have completed over 1,500 hours of training. That should give me a little
authority.” He drops the syringe into a canister near him and it clatters
against the plastic. “I’m more than just a pretty face, Maggie.”