Seven

A sigh escaped as she vaguely felt arms lift her, a memory fighting its way up from the darkness…

"Tara!"

His deep voice reached through the frozen fog of her thoughts, and she could have sworn she felt him shake her shoulder. But there was barely energy left to respond to him, so violent was her shivering now.

"M-m-myles?" she managed. Very gently, he scooped her up in his arms and started back toward the inn, keeping his hip against the fence.

"It's all right," he murmured, and she relaxed against his shoulder. She didn't care what else happened now; she wasn't alone in the cold anymore. Suddenly, he slipped, and they both went down hard. She lay there, shivering, and the light faded completely…

Dan Jones looked at the two agents they'd just dumped on the floor, and smiled at his two associates. "It's going to be a good day." He sealed the cell, led them back to the outer lab area and stretched out in one of the chairs they'd appropriated from other areas. The other men dumped the assortment of firearms, cell phones and radio equipment on the table, then sat down as well.

One of them, a burly man with a cropped shock of blonde hair, smirked and toyed with the small roulette wheel he'd been obsessed with even in the prison. "Yeah. That chick musta thought you were someone else, from the way she latched onto you while you were carrying her in here. And by the way, she's even cuter than you described."

"Oh, I know who was on her mind, Benny," Jones replied. "And I intend to use that little subconscious tidbit to its full advantage."

"So, boss…" The other man was slighter, with thinning red hair and a scar down the side of his left eye. "How long we gonna keep these two? Or are we gonna move 'em outta here?"

"Well…" Jones trailed off, staring at the spinning roulette wheel with a sudden gleam in his eyes. Then he glanced into the test room, where Myles and Tara were still unconscious. "Tell you what, Jet. Let's leave it up to fate. Benny, give that wheel of yours a good spin. If it comes up black, we kill 'em quick and head for Cabo San Lucas in a hurry. Red… we have some fun. And believe me, I know enough about these two to make it quite an entertaining venture."

Benny grinned. "You got it, Boss." He dropped the white marble into the wheel and gave it a whirl. "Round and round she goes…"