The Black Wolves had kidnapped Wendy and then she offered to pay ransom for her freedom, even though that wasn’t the reason for kidnapping her. However, they decided to go along with it anyway, just to see what would happen. Of course Wendy had tried to set a trap for the Wolves, but it didn’t work and instead the trappers became the trapped. And the Wolves had Wendy’s money, which was 2 million dollars. Definitely a nice sum, but she wouldn’t even notice it was gone. After Carine came in with the money that had been brought by Wendy’s men, then Aari came in too.

“I see my wife made a deal with you Miss Wilder,” said Aari, “and don’t worry, we will honor our part of the deal, even though you tried to play my wife for a fool. You lost only 2 men this time, the others surrendered. However, they lost their weapons and we had to make sure their vehicles would not operate.” “We will take you somewhere to meet your men,” said Carine, “and the place will have a phone for you to use so you can call your men, but we won’t wait for them to arrive.”

“Yes, we can hardly trust you after what you just did,” said Aari. Wendy then stood up and came over to Carine. “Okay, take this off my hands,” said Wendy. “I don’t take orders from you Wendy,” said Carine, “you will speak nicely to me or I will slap you, hard.” “We first need to wait and see if my brother-in-law is alive,” said Aari, “remember I told you before, if he dies, then you die. However, you did pay us to release you, so we will do so, but only after we learn what has happened.” “And how long will that take?” she asked.

“Hopefully no more than 2 or 3 hours,” said Aari, “but that might depend on where your men dropped them off.” Aari then went back outside. “Is there a bathroom in this tin shed?” asked Wendy. “Right over there,” pointed Carine. “A plastic bucket,” she complained. “That’s more than you gave Steve and the others,” said Carine. “What about Mr. Giant there?” asked Wendy. She was referring to Bear who had been standing with his arms folded, looking at Wendy. “Bear is my bodyguard,” said Carine, “I will tell him to turn around.”

Later Wendy tried lying down on the wood floor and using the folded air mattress for a pillow, but it didn’t work too well. “Does that Bear ever talk?” asked Wendy, “He gives me the creeps.” “He doesn’t say much,” said Carine, “he also doesn’t complain or disobey orders.” “Hey big guy,” said Wendy, “I could use a bodyguard like you and I will pay you double what they pay.” “Not interested,” he said.

Meanwhile, back to us in the cave. It was now late evening but it hadn’t really started to cool off yet. However, we were still in our cool bubble in the cave. Some of the girls were responding better to the water than others. Milena, Jackie, Misty, Ivy, Brandy and myself were the worst off. The others are weak, but doing better now that they have water. Still, it is only a temporary reprieve. We need to be rescued soon, I doubt that Misty and I could survive another day. Due to all the times my body has been injured over the years, I just can’t handle this kind of stress on my body.

Jennifer is afraid that even if I do live through this, my body will be too weak to continue going on any more cases. For that matter, I may not be able to do much of anything after this. Poor Misty, she wasn’t planning on coming along, it just happened because she was helping put Kitty’s backpack on her. That’s when I called Sky and since Misty was touching Kitty, she just naturally came along. And now she’s almost dead. All because of me. This isn’t even a real case we are on, we were kidnapped. How will I tell Cristy? If I survive this then I will track down this Wendy Wilder, and she won’t like what happens when I do find her.

Right. Like I will be able to do anything. I may as well just live in the clinic, that’s where I am most of the time anyway. I’m finished. I’m no leader. I will give leadership to Kat and Jennifer, they know more than I do, and they can’t be killed. They can actually go with the team on cases, I can’t. How can I stay home and tell others to go on a dangerous case and possibly get killed? And while they do that, I will just stay at home, lie in bed and watch TV. My brain is swirling around and around, thinking about 100 different topics all at once, and nothing is making sense. Where am I? What happened to me? I can’t even move…

“Angel, quick, give Steve some more strength,” said Jennifer, “but not too much, he’s terribly weak right now.” Angel quickly warmed herself back to normal body temperature, then she put her hands on my chest, one over my heart and she began to share some strength with my body. “There, that should do it for now,” said Angel, “but Steve needs water soon.” “I know, and he can’t swallow anymore,” said Jennifer, “I hope that helicopter is equipped with some way to give Steve some liquid intravenously. At least we know that Samantha is along, so that will help. Perhaps you should check on Misty too.”

So Angel went over to Misty and gave her some strength as well. Misty responded better than I did. “Water please,” she said, barely audible. Steffie was there watching. “I want to help Auntie Misty,” said Steffie, “I know how, I was watching, just use this spoon and give two spoons full.” Angel stayed and held Misty up while Steffie gave her one spoonful at a time, nice and easy. “Good job Steffie,” said Angel smiling. Steffie had a huge smile on her face when Angel said that. Then she looked over at me and came to Jennifer crying.

“What’s wrong sweetheart?” asked Jennifer. “I’m scared,” she said quietly, “I not want Daddy to die.” “He won’t die Steffie,” said Jennifer as she hugged Steffie, “we will keep him alive.” “Promise?” she asked. “I promise,” said Jennifer. At the 3 hour time Friskie was again boosted high in the sky to communicate with Kat and help them pinpoint our location more precisely. Sky again boosted Kitty to catch Friskie and help slow her down so she didn’t crash onto the rocks. She would likely have survived anyway since she wasn’t going as high now, but there’s no point in taking chances.

Unfortunately it was taking them longer than expected and there will actually be two helicopters. One is for Kat and her team, the other one is for us. It was nearly 2am before the helicopters arrived and were landing not far from our cave. Since they were military helicopters, they also provided the pilots for them as well. I guess we must have looked worse than everyone here thought, considering the looks on the faces of the Wildcats and Samantha. Soon everyone was on stretchers and being loaded onto the helicopter.

Meanwhile, back with the Black Wolves. “Well Miss Wilder,” said Aari, “I guess we can let you go now, my brother-in-law and his friends have been rescued. Don’t try anything like this again because next time I will not be so nice.” “We will take you to a coffee shop that stays open all night,” said Carine, “they have a phone for you to use. But, we need to blindfold you for now, just until we get there.” The place wasn’t far, but they drove around for a while to make her think it was further away, then they dropped her off and left…

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.