Victor beamed. And soon, very soon, my dear George, I will show your daughter what I’m capable of, too.
*****
No sooner did we open the door to our room than the soldiers began streaming out of the room next to us. Effectively catching them off guard, Ian and I charged at them one by one as we battled our way down the hallway. I struck first, landing a blow with the heel of my boot to the chest of the first soldier to come rushing out of the room, sending him sprawling down on the floor. Beside me, Ian landed a punch square to the jaw of another while delivering a blow to the chest of a second one with his elbow.
“Overachiever,” I quipped.
“Hey, when you’re good, you’re good,” he said, kicking the gun out of the hands of the next soldier to leave the room.
Ahead, I could make out the figures of those rebels captured during the raid on their rooms forcibly being ushered down the hallway toward the staircase. “We need to speed this along,” I called out to Ian. “They’re pushing everyone downstairs, and I don’t even want to think about what they’re going to do to them when they get down there.”
I caught a soldier by the arm, knocking his gun free before he even had a chance to take aim. The weapon fell to the floor, and I swooped down to retrieve it, promptly picking it up and fitting it inside my empty holster. In my peripheral vision, I saw Ian toss a gun he’d removed from another soldier down the opposite end of the hallway. It made a sharp scraping sound when it struck the wooden flooring, sliding nearly a foot before it came to rest.
On my right side, I saw a figure coming at me. Instinctively, I ducked as I attempted to trip him up, but not before he was able to take aim and get a shot off. It struck the wall behind my shoulder, inches away from making contact with me. In a flash, Ian struck the soldier, his fist creating a sickening crunching sound the moment it impacted with his jaw. The man crumpled to the floor, dazed. Yet another shot was fired, barely missing Ian this time. I looked up to see the last of the soldiers as he left the guest room, advancing toward us. Before he could get another shot off, I ran at him, throwing him down to the floor square on his back. With the gun still in his unwavering hand, he attempted to aim, but I held his hand down with my boot, hoping it would prevent him from firing. He loosened his grip, and I grabbed the gun from his outstretched hand and threw it down the hall in the same direction as the one Ian had thrown.
Ian and I backed down the hall, our guns trained on anything and everything, unsure of what horrors we would encounter once we got downstairs. From outside the building, we could hear screams and more gunfire as the soldiers descended upon the rebels. Our footsteps quickened toward the staircase, but we abruptly halted when we heard glass shattering throughout the rooms.
“Windows?” I asked, confused.
“It sounds like it,” he said.
“But why? They’re almost entirely boarded-up. There’s barely enough space to fit a fist through it. It’s not like anyone could fit through them.”
Another sudden shattering sound broke through the air in the room nearest to us. Startled and with guns still drawn firmly in front of us, we backed down the hallway to peer inside the empty room. As suspected, the window had been broken, but by what and for what purpose?
“What’s that?” Ian asked, pointing down toward the floor. I followed his finger to a red light that appeared, then disappeared, appeared, then disappeared again, drawing closer with each rotation. “It’s attached to something rolling.”
A small spherical object appeared from the room, slowing to a crawl as it came to rest inside the doorway. I looked at the blinking red light. Red, pause, red, pause, always at a one-second interval, methodically ticking away time as though it was preparing itself for a grand finale. “We have to get out of here now,” I commanded Ian, my fears rising to the surface. Sensing the terror in my voice, he backed away from the doorway and turned to sprint by my side toward the staircase.
“What is it, Celaine?”
“Whatever it is, it’s on a timer. I’m almost positive of it, which would mean…” Before I could finish my thought, the first blast occurred in a room further down the hallway. Seconds later, another blast resounded, and then another, all following each other down the hall in the order the bombs had been planted. We picked up speed, running as fast as our legs would take us, the heat from the flames chasing us the entire way.
When we reached the staircase, Ian pushed me forward, forcing me ahead of him so that he could provide a human barrier between me and the unrelenting flames. In my head, I filed away every argument and rebuke I wanted to make at that moment for Ian once again putting my safety ahead of his own, knowing that precious time would be wasted on any such reprimands now. Ian groaned in pain from behind me as we took the stairs two at a time, desperately trying to escape from a building that was either on the verge of collapsing upon us or burning us alive.
When I reached the middle of the staircase, another explosion literally rocked the building from below. In the throes of this blast, I lost my footing, and between my speed and the sheer force of the explosion, I tumbled down the stairs, landing on my back on the floor below. After some reorienting, Ian made his way upright down the rest of the stairs and pulled me to my feet. Together, we guided each other through the building, hurriedly running toward the tunnel we’d originally come in from when we’d first arrived at the bed and breakfast. Halfway through the tunnel, we all but ran into a barrier created by the ceiling having caved in during the blasts.
“We need to find a window,” I said as I grabbed Ian by the arm and pulled him back through the tunnel. My limbs ached from my fall down the stairs, a pain that I knew would be far greater once the onslaught of adrenaline in my body subsided. Smoke poured down the tunnel. Between the smoke and the flames, the time we had to find a means of escape from the building was being cut drastically short. Desperately, we ran down the hall, trying to take in as few breaths as possible. Above us, the building creaked and groaned, ready to give way and bury us beneath its dying structure. Though the smoke was thick, I could make out the smallest pinpoint of light from the outside coming in through the window in the lobby. It was our only foreseeable means of escape from the building.
A loud rumble, like the sound of two storms converging together, emanated from above us, conspiring to foil our escape. Our feet made haste through the room, slowed by overturned furniture and debris from the blasts above. I jumped over an overturned table and maneuvered my way as best I could, bumping into various objects while the pain shot through my legs.
Closer and closer we drew to the window, closer to our escape from the confines of one prison and into the unknown that awaited us on the outside. On the floor above, a loud rumble, followed swiftly by a tell-tale crack, made my blood run cold. The back to the building had broken, its vertebrae snapped neatly in half by the fires that raged internally. As I made my way to the window, the ceiling opened and its contents rained down on us from the floor below. Right over the top of Ian. He fell to the floor as a shower of burning wood fell on top of him.
“Ian!” I screamed, turning back to run to him, as I narrowly avoided being flattened by a falling beam. He struggled to break free of the debris, but it was both too heavy and too awkward for him to maneuver himself out of it.
“Get out of here, Celaine,” he said. His pain was evident, though he tried his best to hide it. “This whole building could come down on us at any minute.”
“That is exactly why we need to get you free.” I lifted the first of the smoldering beams from the pile, clenching my jaw as the heat found its way through my gloves and burrowed into my skin. Like Ian, I wouldn’t show my pain. The second a person’s pain showed, the more vulnerable they became, and the more vulnerable one was, the more apt they were to lie down and let the world consume them without putting up so much as a fight.
Ian struggled to free himself. Exhausted and in pain, he groaned with every move he made. With the full force of my strength, I lift
ed the first board away from the pile, affording him more wiggle room. Around us, the smoke grew thicker. It infiltrated my mask and I coughed uncontrollably as I reached for the next board.
“Celaine, come on, get out of the building, please. I can take it from here. I’ll be right behind you.” His voice was strained and, like me, he too struggled to breathe through the smoke.
“You risked your life to save me, Ian, it’s my turn to do the same.” I tried to lift the next beam away from him; my lungs ached, my body seared as though it were on fire. “Ian, I just need you to try and free your arm.” My cough worsened, and I grew lightheaded. “Free your arm and push up on the beam.”
Ian wrestled one of his arms free from underneath the pile and pushed up on the wooden board. The beam creaked and groaned as it lifted up just enough for me to grab onto it and move it off to one side. In its weakened state, it broke in half when it struck the wall on the other side of the room. I knelt down to Ian, who had begun to fight his way through the rest of the pile, successfully freeing his other arm, and was working on scooting the rest of his body free. He took my hand when I extended it to him and, together, we freed him from under the wood.
“Come on,” I said through coughs. “We have to get out of here before we both pass out from lack of oxygen.”
He nodded, making it to his feet. After taking two steps, he stumbled and all but fell to the floor as I swooped in to catch him and brought him back up to his feet. I supported his body against mine while we made it the rest of the way over to the windows. With all the doors either completely boarded or barricaded, they were our last hope. In a frenzy, I tore the first board away from the window. Ian grabbed a hold of the end of another one and pulled, grunting as his muscles strained to the max.
“Ian, what’s wrong?” I grabbed the board and helped him loosen its hold on the windowsill. Compromised, the remainder of it gave way and allowed us to pull it free of the rest of the window to expose the glass.
“My back,” he said. “It feels like one of the beams fell squarely on my spine.”
I reached up to grab the last board covering the window, the one that would allow us enough room to squeeze through and escape the smoke. My arms strained, and my jaw clenched tightly as I fought against the unrelenting wood, finding myself choking on the smoke as though it had grown fingers that were wrapping themselves tightly around my neck, slowly squeezing the life out me. Darkness invaded my peripheral vision and threatened to overtake me at any moment, a warning to me to push myself harder, to grab hold of the board and pull. Ian slumped against the wall, both out of pain and exhaustion as the smoke started pulling the life from him too.
Watching him slowly begin to wither away in front of my eyes caused something to snap inside my head. We wouldn’t die like this; we couldn’t die like this. In the relatively brief time I’d been alive, I’d seen enough death. It was time to break the cycle. It was time to fight as I’d never fought before. Like I’d always promised my parents I would. I threw my hands up and grabbed onto the board again, pulling it down as hard as I could. The wood slowly began to crack and splinter as the nails attaching it to the frame fought against me. Around me, the room grew hotter, signaling the advancing flames. Tightening my grip on the board, I mustered up what remained of my strength and pulled down on it again, refusing to let go. I had to win. There was no other option. In that instant, the board cracked, bowing in the middle before it split in half. The remaining half—the half I hadn’t been pulling on—fell and dangled by the nails on the windowsill. With its removal, the window was exposed.
Ian tried to stand up straight, clutching his back. “We need to do this together,” he said, not even trying to mask his pain anymore. “The oxygen from the outside is going to bring the fire over here.”
“Yes.” I nodded toward Ian. “Are you up for a running start?”
“As much as I can be. What’s a little more pain when it already has you by the balls, anyway?”
Another round of coughs escaped my lips as I braced myself against the window. The blackness in my field of vision grew more pronounced, and my breathing became shallow. “Now,” I said, barely able to catch my breath. “We need to go now.” Dizzy, I backed away from the window to get a running start, weapon drawn to break the glass just before impact. Ian followed suit, positioning himself next to me.
“On the count of three,” he said.
I nodded. “One,” I said, starting us off, moving my finger over the trigger of my gun.
“Two,” Ian said. He changed his stance, readying himself.
“Three.” My legs took off long before my mind had a chance to process what I would do once we jumped through the window, once we landed on the street and became prisoners to the soldiers who awaited us out there. In that second, that singular moment, all that went through my head was survival. How do I escape death and keep my heart beating so that I can cheat it again another day? My thoughts turned to my parents and to Jake. Did they even have the option of thinking they could survive, or was their fate so unequivocally certain that they didn’t even have a chance to consider whether they ever had a chance at all? I shook the thought out of my brain, raised my gun at the window and fired.
Our guns went off in unison, and as we both prepared to jump through the frame, the sound of glass shattering broke through the air. Milliseconds later, our bodies cleared the empty frame just as a surge of heat from the oxygen-hungry fire threatened to scorch our backs as it, too, made its escape from the building. As my feet hit the pavement outside, I lost my footing and tumbled over the cracks in the roadway. With stones embedded in my suit, innumerable bumps and bruises, and a likely burn across my back, I lay in the street dazed, but still alive. Feet away, Ian sat up, guarding his movements as though the act caused him excruciating pain.
I sat up and looked myself over for any obvious signs of injury, stopping short when I felt the unmistakable poke of the cold, metallic barrel of a gun pressed firmly to my back.
“Get up,” a cold, monotone voice ordered me to my feet.
The gun in my hand had been lost in my tumble down the sidewalk and was nowhere to be found in a quick cursory search of the street. Thankfully, I still had the one in my holster, but I wasn’t in any position to draw it out. With no other options available, I raised my hands in the air and stole a glance at Ian as I stood up. Another soldier, having spotted Ian in the street, ran over to him, gun drawn. Ian’s gun was still firmly in his hand, and I could tell by his body language that he contemplated using it, but decided against it at the last minute. Instead, he gently set it down on the pavement and stood up with his hands over his head.
“Walk,” the soldier holding the gun to my back said. Sluggishly, so as to let Ian catch up to me, I walked in the direction the soldier guided me. Up ahead, other soldiers had gathered everyone from the bed and breakfast together in a line. They each stood with their hands in plain view. An armed soldier stood, spaced one for every three rebels, ready to take down anyone who even thought about falling out of line. Jill stood near the center of the group, her eyes determined, calculating a way out. If any of them had a chance, it would be her.
“Let them go,” I said, eliciting a wide-eyed stare from Jill. “You wanted us, and now you have us. We’ll come with you willingly, if you agree to let them all go unharmed.”
A sharp laugh cut through the air as their commander stepped forth, separating himself from the other soldiers in his tone of voice and more fluid—less robotic—movements. “Now why on earth would you think it’s you we’re looking for, sweetheart?” He stood in front of me, mere inches away from my face. A smile revealing crooked teeth slowly appeared across his face as though the gesture had taken a great effort on his part. His hand brushed against the exposed skin of my neck.
Ian lunged forward, his anger palpable. If not for the guns at our backs, there was no doubt in my mind that he would have attacked the commander. The man smiled at Ian and the mere thought of having pushe
d his buttons. “Now, now, there’s no need for violence,” the commander said with a chuckle. “I wouldn’t hurt her—unless of course she wanted me to.” He smiled, knowing full well the anger threatening to boil over inside Ian. I reached out and grabbed Ian’s hand, squeezing it until I was forced to let go when the barrel of the gun was forced into my back even harder.
“You can take us to Brooks and collect on your bounty now,” Ian said, attempting to restrain himself. “I’m sure he’s waiting for us back on his throne, and I know you wouldn’t want to keep your master waiting.”
“Oh, please, don’t fool yourself,” the man said. He turned away from me to address Ian. “Don’t you understand the concept of a ruse, young man? It was never you President Brooks wanted. You were just the means to an end. A way to get what he was truly looking for. We knew our true target would be wherever you were, and we knew there would be those in your ranks who would find the bounty we offered for your heads too irresistible to pass up.”
“So, if we were never your target, who was?” I asked the question just as my mind formed the answer. The only other obvious option.
The commander smiled, all too willing to oblige me with an answer to my question. “Men, bring out Mr. Leitner.”
A collective array of gasps resounded from the line of rebels as soldiers led Marshall from an alleyway where he’d been kept out of sight from everyone else. Bloodied and bruised from an all too obvious beating, he still carried himself with the same poise and dignity he always did, a man captured but not broken. It had never been us—Ian and I. We were never really a threat to Brooks, but the leader of a nationwide movement—the only one of its kind since Brooks had taken office—was a force to be reckoned with. Remove Marshall from the equation and you have no way to solve the problem. There would be no end, no solution for anyone to turn to until another leader of his caliber appeared to take the reins, but by that time it would be too late. The rebellion would most likely die out without Marshall Leitner, leaving Brooks with few, if any, detractors, and the ability to maintain control over the public as a puppet master controls his marionettes.
Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) Page 19