It was about an hour since we had left when Lucian finally stopped in the shade of an overhang in an alleyway, unzipped his backpack and handed me a bottle of water when I caught up to him.
“Thanks.” I murmured opening it and lifting it to my lips.
Unlike last night I was careful to take small sips this time, but I still only had half left when I was done.
“How much further?” I asked.
“At this pace? Probably another hour.” He said.
I groaned, but kept quiet, I really had no idea how the heat wasn’t even affecting him. He hardly even drank any of his water, but then again all those times in Australia I had always noticed the lack of affect the heat had on him. I guess he could just deal with higher temperatures better than most people. When Lucian started walking again though I stopped thinking about that and paid more attention to making it back to the hotel without melting into a puddle.
Jack spoke to me several times asking how much longer we were going to be and after asking Lucian I told him. I was pretty sure I was starting to walk slower at one point, but I forced myself to start walking a little faster. My water bottle was now almost empty, the last few sips in the bottom driving me crazy every time I glanced at it in my hand. Eventually we walked into an area that I recognized from when I had left the hotel and I was pretty sure we were only about twenty minutes away sending relief through my body.
Sure I would make it now because we were so close I gave in to the desperate need for the water and drank the rest of it so it couldn’t tease me anymore with every step I took. My steps sped up at the thought of getting back and the space between Lucian and I narrowed to around five feet.
“Taylor, where the hell are you two? Get your asses back here now, Eric has escaped and the soldiers have Cora.”
“What?” I almost screeched making Lucian stop and glance back at me.
“You heard me right, now get back here.”
Without a word I took off running, the heat of the sun forgotten, the tiredness forgotten, everything forgotten except the need to get back as quickly as possible and save Cora. How could they have let her get taken? Where the hell was Peter when it had happened?
Lucian yelled after me, but when he realised I wasn’t about to stop he followed. What I had guessed would take twenty minutes, we managed to do in around five as we rounded the last corner before coming to the hotel. I skidded to a halt outside the door and started hitting on them frantically, at least I did until Lucian grabbed my hands to stop me from making so much noise.
When the doors were opened Jack met us at the entrance and I immediately demanded. “Where have they taken her Jack?”
Without a word he tugged us both inside before the doors were closed, but if they thought I was staying in here and not going to help her they were wrong so they may as well have kept them open.
It was ten minutes later when Jack had told Lucian Eric had escaped and Cora had been taken and they managed to talk me into going up to room 215 with them to discuss it rather than rush off. They were going to tell us what happened before a plan of rescue was decided upon. When we reached the room we found all the usual people in it plus Peter who looked devastated. Everyone else looked upset too and Elizabeth was crying, I’m sure it would only be minutes before she was all over Lucian getting him to comfort her. That wasn’t important right now though, she could have him it wasn’t like he was mine and it wasn’t like he wanted me for anything other than a one night stand and to protect me just because he had made a promise.
“Ok, what happened?” I asked impatiently when no one spoke.
“As to how Eric escaped we have no idea, I guess we should have put guards around the room, but we didn’t think he’d get out of the cell. We should have been less careless.” Liam answered.
“The next thing we knew Eric had a knife to Cora’s throat and demanded for us to open the doors if we wanted her to live.” Danielle added.
“We didn’t have any choice, but to open the doors, so we did. He took her with him, there was nothing we could do.” Jack finished.
“Shit.” Lucian growled slamming his fist down on the table.
“They said something about her being good to trade.” Peter muttered. “We don’t know what that means though, who would he trade her to?”
“Some soldiers trade each other, they will trade humans for weapons, food, water, stuff like that. They are more valuable at around her age and females are more valuable anyway so Cora would be worth a lot.” I whispered looking down at the floor.
“How would you know that?” Jack asked suspiciously.
I sighed and admitted. “Because I was there once.”
“Why do they trade humans though, what would they want with them? It doesn’t make sense to get rid of food and water for a human to give to the zombies.” Peter stated quietly as if he was afraid of the answer.
I winced at the memories and clenched my fists as I tried to gain control of myself, I knew what I was going to have to do to get her back and I had never wanted to return there. “It doesn’t matter what they do, she isn’t going to be traded.”
“What the hell Mckenzie?” Lucian burst out. “How are we even supposed to find her? I know you’re determined to save everyone, but we can’t search the world for her.”
“We don’t have to, I know where they trade things, they do it in one place. It’s not just a random location. I can find her.”
“That’s good right? We can send a group of us in to kill them and rescue her and probably a few others.” Liam said.
I shook my head. “The moment you go charging in, they’ll kill any human there.”
“What do we do then?” Elizabeth asked and as predicted she sidled up to Lucian and snuggled up to him, bitch.
I turned away running my shaking hands through my hair. “I get caught and sneak her out.”
“You do what?” Lucian roared.
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea love.” Danielle said.
“It might not be a good idea, but with these guys it’s the only one that’s going to work.”
“You can’t do something like that.” Peter said. “I want her back, but what if you can’t get out or you get killed?”
“We aren’t even discussing this as an option.” Lucian yelled his arms still around Elizabeth. “You are not going, end of story.”
“Yes I am!” I shouted. “There is no way I’m going to let her get taken there, especially when I’ve experienced what will happen if we don’t get her out!”
“And if you don’t escape in time, you’ll be experiencing it all over again!”
I glared at him. “Which is another reason why I’m the only one who can do it, I know that I can take the shit and get through it!”
“Here we go again.” Jack grumbled.
“You may get through it, but you certainly don’t get through it unharmed. I know how tough you like to think you are Mckenzie, but even you aren’t invincible!” He hissed.
“I may not be invincible, but I’m pretty sure that doing this won’t break me Adams, I don’t need protecting from everything so don’t worry your stupid promise will still be kept.”
“Not everything I say to you is about that damn promise!”
“And I don’t have to get your permission for everything I do just because you made a promise! You try to stop me from doing things, but you know I will always do it anyway so why bother?” I screamed in frustration.
“Maybe I’m just hoping that one day you’ll have developed some sort of common sense!” He yelled.
“Fuck you!” I hissed before walking to the door.
“Where the hell are you going?” He growled finally letting go of Elizabeth and blocking the doorway.
“I’m going to get Cora out, now move!” I demanded.
“You must have lost your mind if you think I’m going to move.” He said.
I looked around the room once before my eyes fell on the window and I turned back
to him.
“You’re really not going to let me out the door?” I asked.
“Nope.” He said flatly.
“Fine.” I said moving away from him and grabbing the backpack he had dumped on the floor at some point before unzipping it and searching through it.
He snorted. “There isn’t anything that’s going to get you anywhere in there Tink.”
“I disagree.” I said as my eyes fell on some rope and I pulled it out.
He smirked. “What are you going to do, tie me up?”
“Not quite.” I said with my own smirk as I pulled out an arrow and tied one end of the rope to it before walking over to the window and opening it.
He frowned taking in the rope on the arrow and the window as I put the arrow into my bow.
“You aren’t really that stupid are you?”
I smirked, grabbed my bow, aimed the arrow at the wall opposite and let it fly before it buried itself into the wall.
“Mckenzie.” He growled warningly as I grabbed the end of the rope and threw it out of the window before climbing onto the windowsill.
The others were just staring at me in shock as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing and to be quite honest I was scared out of my mind, but I had to get Cora out and if this was the only way to do it then I would. After all I’d be facing worse things than this when I reached the camp.
“See you later Adams.” I said grabbing the rope and jumping out before I started abseiling down the side of the building.
With no harness or anything it was a pretty big risk I was taking when we were so high up, but it was almost worth it when I heard Lucian yelling angrily. I didn’t even look up, but I kept reminding myself not to look down either. As long as I kept moving my hands down one by one and moving my feet down I would be fine. It wasn’t long before my arms were burning, but luckily I was over half way down by that time. I half expected Lucian to be waiting for me at the bottom with eyes like thunder, but thankfully after a quick glance down when I was almost there I confirmed that he wasn’t. The rope didn’t reach all the way to the ground so when I was still at least eight feet up I had to let go. I bent my knees when I landed to lessen the impact and I was pretty proud of myself for making it down without injury.
The worrying thing was that, that was going to be the easiest part of what I had to do and most people wouldn’t have done that if they had been paid. Now I just had to go to the trading camp killing any zombies on the way, get caught by soldiers, find Cora, sneak us out and then get back here probably having to kill more zombies. All without getting me or Cora killed in the process, piece of cake right?
Chapter 11
With one last look at the outside of the hotel I turned away and walked straight into……Lucian. Dammit.
He gave me a glare even worse than the stormy one I had imagined before grabbing me around the waist and throwing me over his shoulder as if I weighed nothing. It happened so fast that I hadn’t even had a chance to fight him off before I was getting a view of his behind, and a very nice behind it was.
Snap out of it Taylor! I shouted in my head.
“Let me go!” I shouted as I started punching him in the back and kicking.
He sighed. “I know you can take down zombies Mckenzie, but I’m stronger than you, so quit wasting your energy.”
“I am going to kill you Adams!” I screamed as I continued my struggle. “I’m going to wait until you’re asleep and kill you before you know I’m even there!”
“Stop fighting Blondie.” He growled out sounding irritated as I continued to attack him with my hands and feet.
“I have to save Cora!” I shouted. “If she gets hurt, it’s on you!”
At some point he had walked back into the hotel without me noticing because we were now in the main lobby. Without warning he lifted me from his shoulder and slammed my feet onto the ground. The movement was so fast that I actually stumbled a little before he grabbed my shoulders and shook me as if trying to get something through to me.
“You were trying to leave while you’re still injured Mckenzie and not to mention you were going to leave without any food or water, you barely made it back here this morning with a bottle of water. You would have passed out long before you made it to Cora. Why can’t you think things through before doing them?” He growled.
“I could have grabbed some stuff to take if someone hadn’t been blocking my way out, causing me to take more drastic measures!” I shouted in frustration.
“You’re still injured!” He yelled.
“I’m fine.” I insisted.
It was a complete and utter lie of course, my stomach was burning especially bad after my little abseiling activity and Lucian’s out of order manhandling episode moments ago.
“And you’ve always been a bad liar!” He growled seeming really pissed off.
“And you’ve always been too nosy for your own good!” I returned, our voices escalating the longer our argument went on.
“Shit, this is serious Mckenzie, it’s not a game! It’s not like you can attempt to rescue Cora and if something goes wrong you just start again!”
“I know it’s not a damn game!” I yelled shoving him away from me angrily making him stumble back since I caught him off guard. “If it was I would have started again a long time ago and changed a lot of things starting with picking up that damn bottle in Australia!”
He must have seen the pain and guilt on my face because he whispered.
“That wasn’t your fault.”
I gave a dry laugh. “I chose to pick that bottle up, if I hadn’t she wouldn’t have had to try to get it off me and she would still be alive. What part of that isn’t my fault?”
“You can’t think like that, if that hadn’t happened one could have crawled on her somewhere else or something else could have happened to her, you’re blaming yourself for something that wasn’t your fault. You were ten years old for fuck sake; you weren’t responsible for what happened.”
I looked away from him and muttered. “It was unintentional, but it was still my fault. Trisha even knew it was, that’s why she left, she couldn’t bear to be around me.”
“Trisha wasn’t even there!” He yelled. “I was and I know it wasn’t your fault so quit feeling so guilty about it, it’s a waste of an emotion. Turn the guilt into hate and direct it at the zombies and soldiers who are responsible for this hell hole we are trying to live in.”
I smirked at him. “Last time I tried that I was grabbed and carried back into the hotel.”
He glared. “Quit being a smart ass Mckenzie and last time I checked getting yourself captured by them would be doing them a favour.”
I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t going to stay captured.”
“You’re still injured, you won’t be any use to anyone for a few days at least.”
“It could be too late by them.” I growled in frustration.
“Then we’ll have to hope it isn’t.” He sighed. “I want to save her as much as you do, but I’m not going to risk you getting trapped there too.”
“Damn you Adams!” I yelled before shoving past him and storming towards the elevator.
“Don’t bother trying to sneak away Tink, I have guards watching you!” He called after me.
The stupid idiot, I could be there and back within a few days, but it could be too late for Cora by then. They could trade her and be long gone in that time, I just had to hope she wouldn’t be. With any luck they would wait to auction her, which meant we would have a few more days.
I hated those zombies and soldiers and I hated Lucian. I really, really hated him and I never wanted to kiss him again. Never, ever, ever again, he was a real pain in my ass. Cora could be taken all because of him and his stupid need to keep his promise to take care of me. I could take care of myself and it was my decision to go after her, but no he just had to take that away from me.
Why did he taste so good though, and why did I want his arms around me? Why had I wanted him
to comfort me when I had mentioned Australia? It was entirely unfair that someone so damn sexy could be such an asshole. I was sure it must be some kind of trick to make women think they were going crazy. It made them want to kiss him all the time, but hate him too.
I groaned out loud as I walked out of the elevator and down the hall to my bedroom door. Why the hell did I have to have the room next to his? I guess it didn’t make any difference since I had, had it since being here, but I kind of wished I didn’t know about it. Especially when I knew I would be in my room building hate up towards Elizabeth for probably being in his room with him. Damn, I seemed to have so much hate going around lately. Surely it can’t be good for a person to hate this many people? I blamed Lucian entirely; he started me with the whole hate thing by proving what dickheads people could really be.
Since I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon thanks to him I decided to indulge in the shower that I had wanted earlier so the minute I slid through my door I headed towards the bathroom. Shedding my weapons, clothes and bandages I climbed into the shower letting out a sigh as I relaxed into the warmth letting it begin to soothe my sore muscles.
I wasn’t sure how long I was in there for, but when I climbed out my hands and feet had wrinkles from being in water for too long and my sore hand was stinging from the abuse of the shower spray. After drying myself I put new bandages on from the small first aid kit in my bathroom and headed into my room. I towel dried my hair before pulling on underwear and a t-shirt that was so big for me that it reached mid thigh.
Demon Hotel (Zombie Apocalypse Series, Book 1) Page 13