“You know someone else here?” She sank down onto the window sill, where she’d been when he first saw her, her eyes wide with surprise.
“Yeah.” What was it about this woman? She was breaking his heart.
“I’ve been here nearly three years,” she whispered. “And you’re the first person who wasn’t a doctor or an orderly that I’ve met.”
And then he knew. This was HER. Good old Doc Greenway’s secret weapon. “We have to go,” he said, his eyes moving from her to the door.
If she was who he thought she was, they would be coming any second now.
2
She hated they were going deeper into the facility, rather than out, but she also couldn’t bear the thought of leaving others behind. Others just like her.
As she ran, one or two steps behind Nate, she noticed a camera up ahead and she blasted out a pulse of power. Not quite the top of what she was capable of, she sensed, but close to it.
Ahead and from behind them, she heard pops in quick succession, camera lenses blowing out.
She felt the quick, hard tug as some of her energy drained.
“What the hell?” Nate stopped short so fast, Kel ran straight into the back of him. “What was that?”
“Just me.” She stepped back, but he grabbed her arms, jerked her closer.
“That was one creepy sensation.”
She shrugged. Shook his hands loose. “Sorry.”
He stared at her, then blew out his breath. “Well, warn me next time, will you?”
She nodded, but he didn’t wait for her to respond, he was off down the corridor again.
She did not follow him, and after a few steps he sensed it and turned.
“What?”
“Who is Giles? Who are you, for that matter?”
He shifted from foot to foot with impatience, and she suddenly realized he didn’t have a scratch on his face. He’d had a swollen cheek, bruises and cuts from his fight with Evans and Longmore, but now, his skin was smooth. He looked too good for a man who’d recently been beaten up.
“Look, ma’am—Kel—can I tell you as we go? They’re not going to let you go without a fight, so we need to get moving.” Again, he didn’t wait for her answer, he turned and ran, and she had no option but to follow.
“Well?” She panted a little as she asked the question, but she was keeping up.
“What do you want to know?” They reached the door through to the testing rooms, and Nate punched in a code on the keypad.
She’d been about to blow the door, and had to pull her power back. A strange feeling, like the way her stomach dropped and then caught up again on a rollercoaster.
He shot her a look, and she realized he’d felt it.
“Sorry.” She put her hands up. “I had no idea you knew the access codes.”
“Giles gave them to me.”
“Oh. And how does Giles know them?”
The doors opened with a swoosh, and they stepped through into the main room. She smelt the familiar lavender air freshener with a caustic undertone of disinfectant. It was always deserted when Kel was brought here. It was deserted now. But there was an empty feel about it. No one waited behind one of the doors of the test rooms this evening.
“Giles reads minds.” He had already skirted the curved reception desk in the center of the foyer.
“And what do you do?” She’d guessed, but was curious to hear what he said.
“I heal.”
They’d reached the far side of the room, and the second set of doors. Kel waited for him to tap in the code, peering through the glass to see if there was anyone on the other side.
It was clear.
And it was unnerving. Could they really be alone? After all the years she’d plotted her escape, tried to work out which way to go, how many she would have to take out to do it, would it be as easy as simply walking out?
No way.
“I just want to tell you something.”
She flinched as the sentence popped up in her mind. Reverberated like some kind of urgent warning. This was new. Before, it had always been just before she fell asleep. But right now, she was as wide awake as she had ever been.
She realized Nate was looking at her, a frown on his face, and she lifted her shoulders, loosened them like a boxer. “Can you heal others, or just yourself?”
“Others, too. That’s why I knew so many of the inmates.”
Ah. Well, how convenient for Doc Greenway. No embarrassing calls to the hospital. Just call in Nate if the orderlies went too far, or someone got sick.
He had stopped staring at her like a lab specimen, and was jogging with a clear sense of where he was going, and she had to put on a burst of speed to keep up with him.
“You only want to get Giles out, no one else?”
He reached a t-junction in the passageways and waited for her. “You, me and Giles are the only ones left here. And I was being shipped out.”
She stumbled, but he was moving again.
There were only three of them left? How could that be? She’d never seen any others, but she’d heard them moving down the corridors, heard the murmur of voices behind other test room doors.
When had they been moved?
Nate was pounding on a metal door halfway down the corridor. “Giles.”
“Nate?” The shout from the other side of the door was muffled.
Kel walked to join him, wondering what door they had here. Hers had been an electronic lock with a bar across the front. If the bar was lifted, unless a specific code was punched in, a second steel door came down in front of the first. Not impossible for her to lift, but time consuming.
And by then, Greenway and Co. knew what she was up to. It was the best they could do to keep her in. It had worked for three years. She’d only tried to escape four times. Just thinking of the consequences she’d suffered made her stomach lurch in fear.
She took a look at Giles’s door. It wasn’t electronic. It looked like a simple deadbolt lock. No codes for Giles to read from the minds of his keepers.
She flipped it, and the door clicked open.
Nate stepped back, his gaze on her face, and something hot flashed in his eyes. Goosebumps danced along her arms.
“You’re handy to have around.” His voice sounded a little deeper than it had.
Before she could respond, the door swung fully open. Giles stood, stooped, in the doorway.
Kel forced back a gasp.
He looked around the same age as Nate, just a couple of years older than herself, but his lips were cracked and dry, his skin too pale, with dark rings under his eyes. He was wasting away. His scrubs looked as if they would fall from his hips and his t-shirt was loose on his thin frame. She could see he had once been as muscular as Nate, and even though he was clearly very ill, there was something about him that made her think they had been together in the same team. The army or the marines or something. They had a way of standing.
“You’re right.” Giles flashed her a grin. “Special forces. Glad I haven’t completely lost the look.” His voice was raspy.
She blinked. Smiled back. “Can I shield my thoughts from you?”
“Maybe. If that was you I felt, earlier.”
“It was,” Nate interrupted, impatient.
She looked across at him, but his focus was on the way they’d come, as if he expected to see reinforcements at any moment.
“Kel, do you want to keep the syringe gun, or give it to Giles?”
They had taken the two guns with some drug still left in them. The full one off Evans, and Harvey’s, which she’d partially used on Longmore. Kel shrugged. “If we’re in this together, it doesn’t matter which of us has them, but Giles looks like he won’t be able to evade as well. You can take it.” She handed it over.
“Thanks.” His hands were too thin, the bones showing as he grabbed the silver weapon. He closed the door behind him, and gave Nate a sidelong look. “You do bring the nicest surprises.”
3
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Giles was leaning on Kel, playing the ’poor me’ sick card for all he was worth, his arm draped over her shoulders, and Nate was almost sorry he’d come back to save his ass.
As soon as the thought formed in his head, he looked up and saw Giles giving him a sly grin. It looked all the more macabre on his too-thin face.
“Will you stop it? Jeez. I want to kick your ass when you’re like this.”
“Kick someone else’s ass instead.” Giles tipped his head toward the foyer, and Nate took notice.
“Someone coming?”
“Someone coming, in a panic, because their little treasure is out of her cage.”
“You said something like that before.” Kel looked between them.
“Later.” Nate stepped in front of her as he tucked the syringe gun into the waistband of his scrubs. He’d use his fists first. The syringe was too precious to waste until they had their victims down.
He signaled to Giles, asking how many. Two skeletal fingers were raised.
That was okay odds, with a little help from his friends.
He felt a ripple in the air, that weird, creepy spider-web feel of Kel pulsing her power out, and he shot her a look over his shoulder.
“Radios,” she mouthed back at him, holding her pinkie and thumb to her ear.
Giles lifted a hand to his head, as if the sensation gave him a splitting headache. Maybe it did. He shouldn’t feel glad about that, but he did.
He had no claim on Kel whatsoever, but something in him wanted to tell Giles to back the hell off.
“Um. Gotcha. But there are two guys with dart guns coming.” Giles even whispered like an old man on his deathbed now, making it impossible to do anything but feel sorry for him.
He was really such an asshole.
Two men came round the corner at last, and Nate sized them up. He’d seen one of them before, Jenkins, but the other was new, or maybe he was the driver of the truck brought to ship Nate out. He was built like a tank, whoever he was.
Nate widened his stance, blocking Kel and Giles with as much of his body as he could, and then started moving forward.
But something was wrong. They weren’t paying enough attention to him. Their eyes were moving beyond him, and they were scared.
“Where is she?” Jenkins lifted a dart gun, trained it at Nate’s chest, and he stopped, still making himself as large a target as possible.
Jenkins eyes kept moving, although his arm was rock steady.
Nate couldn’t help himself, he looked over his shoulder, saw Giles leaning heavily against the wall. No Kel.
Giles gave a minute lift of his eyes to the ceiling.
Forcing himself not to look up, Nate faced forward again. “Who are you talking about?” Anything to jerk them around and waste a bit of time.
“Don’t fuck with me, Halliway, or I will fuck with you. Where is Kelli Barrack?”
“Kelli? Pretty name.”
“Goddammit, tell me where she is or I’ll make sure you don’t just get shipped out, you freak, I’ll make sure you’re buried in the facility grounds. You and your buddy here.”
“He isn’t bluffing,” Giles said. “He really means it.”
At that moment, Kel dropped from the ceiling like a parachutist in a jump, arms and legs spread, coming down hard on the heads and shoulders of the two men. Harder than gravity alone could explain. She was putting some force behind her descent.
They went down with a shout, and Jenkins shot off a dart as he fell. Nate felt the rush of air as it flew past his arm.
Then Giles, faster than Nate would have thought, was on Tank Man, depressing the trigger, leaving Jenkins for Nate.
He pulled out his gun and gave Jenkins a nice, hefty dose, catching the orderly’s gaze as he placed the syringe against his neck. He gave him his happiest smile.
Kel was hovering just above them, still in the spread-eagled pose, ready to drop again if needed. When she saw they were done, she lowered herself gracefully, touching down beside him. He could see the strain on her face. Keeping herself suspended had cost her.
The shock of what she’d done—the control and power he sensed coming off her—almost canceled out his temper. Almost. He counted back from ten. She’d gone off and made her own plan. Without a word. Even if it had worked, he couldn’t protect people if they didn’t stay put.
“Spur of the moment thing?” he asked her lightly.
She nodded. “Yep.” Then she smiled, a flash of brilliance so bright it blinded him, made him blink.
His little lecture died on his tongue and slunk away.
“They really have been bastards to you, haven’t they?” Giles was still crouched beside Tank Man, but he rose to his feet, holding the wall for support.
Kel had gone still, like she was listening to something in her head—just like she’d done earlier, in the lobby. Her teeth gripped her lower lip so hard Nate wondered if she would break the skin.
She didn’t answer.
“That’s a pretty good block. I can’t read you at all.” Giles’ voice was soft, but it jerked Kel out of whatever thought held her. Giles looked as gray and wasted as the wall he leaned against, a concentration camp survivor.
She moved over to him, offered him her arm. There was a tenderness on her face, and Giles looked away, with no smart comeback. Then she turned back to Nate. “Now what?”
He tried to ignore Giles’s hand on her delicate wrist. “We need money, and clothes. I say we take the risk those two were the last. Break into admin and see what we can find.”
“They were the last two in the building, but they called Greenway. He’s probably called a couple of others who are off-duty. Jenkins was hoping to have us all back in our cages by the time the doc showed.”
Okay, Giles did have his uses.
Kel bit her bottom lip again, and her gaze caught Nate’s, torn. Nate knew why. Giles was in no shape to run if Greenway arrived while they were still here.
“I can run.” Giles closed his eyes. “Well, lope.”
“So we hurry. We do need money, and I’d like to grab my file from the doc’s office.” Kel tucked Giles against her side, and he towered over her like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz.
“Now that’s unkind, Mr. Tin Man.” Giles shot him a hurt look. “You have no heart.”
Kel narrowed her eyes. “Did he think you looked like the Scarecrow?”
“Didn’t Dorothy like Scarecrow the best?” Giles asked her with a smile that made his dimples flash.
She laughed. The first time Nate’d heard her do it, and it cut him to the bone. It was a beautiful sound, like a bird set free. “To the Emerald City, dear Scarecrow,” she said in a sing-song voice, and clicked her heels. They started down the passage, as fast as Giles could go.
Nate had no choice but to follow.
In front of him, Giles lifted a hand, as if to scratch the back of his neck, and flipped him the middle finger.
Just great.
* * *
Tick. Tock.
She could feel the weight of time, the press of minutes against her skin, scratchy, like rough wool.
Giles half-lay on the reception couch, his face pale and slick with perspiration from their run to the admin offices, his dark blond hair sticking to his forehead.
“I just want to tell you something.”
Damn it to hell. She shook her head to clear it.
Nate stood shoulder to shoulder with her as they searched the big reception desk, and she inhaled his scent, plain soap and man, and forced herself not to shiver with anticipation.
He pulled open a drawer and lifted out a knife, one of those promotional things with a company logo on the hilt. He flipped the blade, pressed it against the skin of his thumb and slipped it into his pocket.
She tried not to stare at his hands.
How long had it been since she’d been touched by someone who didn’t want to hurt her?
He brushed against her and she shifted, so torn, so compelled, she made
herself crouch down and pull out the bottom drawer on her side of the desk.
“It’s like imprinting,” Giles said, hauling himself up into a sitting position. “If I’d been the one to find you, you’d want to do that to me, too.”
His words forced a startled laugh from her, even though her cheeks burned. “You comparing me to a wild animal, Scarecrow, dear?”
Giles waggled his eyebrows at her, and she laughed again, with no reservations, until she caught Nate’s gaze, and the laughter died in her throat. She stood, holding tight to the edge of the desk.
“Want to let me in on the joke?” His eyes were so hot, so intense, her mouth went dry.
“I think you can work it out.” Her voice came out lower than usual, husky. She saw his nostrils flare. A hunter catching the scent.
“You might like to know Greenway just pulled up in the car park.” Giles was looking toward the blind-covered window, and from a storey below, she could hear the pop of gravel under tires.
They stepped away from each other, and she felt like an astronaut with her tether cut, free-wheeling out into space.
Nate pulled out a cash box and she flipped the lock without even looking at it, heading for Greenway’s office. She wanted her file so bad, she could taste it.
“About a thousand dollars. Should help.”
She glanced back as Nate tossed a bundle of notes in a little plastic bag at Giles.
Then she fried the electronic lock on Greenway’s office and stepped inside his lair.
4
He watched her step inside Greenway’s office, ordered himself to get it together. Now.
This was not the time for gooey-eyes.
Behind him, Giles sniggered.
“I swear, Giles…” He spun, but Giles had his hands up in a gesture of truce. Then his eyes went hard.
“Hurt her, just one little prick of pain, and friend or no, I’ll pound your face in.”
Now, this was the old Giles. The mean, kick-ass Giles the way he’d been when they’d been brought here. It was such a shock to see it, Nate gaped. Closed his mouth. “You think I’m going to hurt her?”
Breaking Out: Part I Page 2