by Marie Harte
With the green flecks in her eyes twinkling, she gave him a tender smile. “You’re welcome.”
He pulled her into his arms, her head resting against his chest. “I got a little forceful when you teased me. I hope it didn't scare you.”
She giggled but gave no response. “Eve?” He forced her away from him, annoyed, but he lost a little steam when a curl fell in her face. She was still giggling. “What does that mean? Did I…hurt you?” It was never a question he had asked any woman before, there had never been a need before. He hated that there was a need to ask it now.
“No.” She touched the side of his face. “You didn’t hurt me, not at all. I was just giggling because, I really liked it,” she admitted then shrugged, “Guess that makes me a slut.”
He laughed, relieved by her admission. Her words and actions had eased his pain and fears and she made him feel…again.
“Are you done getting dressed? We should get moving.” Alex asked, stepping away and taking his heat with him. Why did she always seem to notice his heat?
She needed to use the bathroom and agreed to meet him in the kitchen when she was done. When she entered the kitchen a few minutes later, she found a green duffel bag on the floor, but no Alex.
She was about to call out when his hand went over her mouth. He pressed his lips against her ear. “Shhh. We have a visitor.” He pointed to the front door, shoving her purse and shoes into her hands. He reached down, grabbed the duffel, and clasped her arm, pulling her behind him. Stopping in front of the oversize mirror next to the bathroom, Alex traced his fingers behind the frame and stopped, a muted click filled the area surrounding them. The word PASSCODE appeared in a red glow on the mirror. He leant forward and spoke in a low voice. “Delta-Charlie-eight-seven-three-nine-one.” There was another click and the mirror swung away from the wall.
“Holy cow!” she whispered, then covered her mouth with her hand. He grinned at her as he helped her step through the wall and into the narrow opening. She pinned herself against the wall when he closed the door and waited silently in the dark. She heard a snap and Alex shaking something—a green fluorescent glow lit the way. “Hand,” he ordered. She held out her hand and he clasped it in his, tugging her down the black passage.
They hadn’t walked twenty steps when Alex stopped at a dead end. He pushed against the wall blocking them and it swung open into a room about the size of Alex’s bedroom, minus the windows and bed and any other furniture except a steel work bench. The walls were covered with steel cupboards and each one had a lock, as did the matching cupboards that sat on the floor. He dropped her hand and flipped on the light as he moved into the room.
Throwing the duffel onto the bench, he quickly moved to a keyboard and flat screen. He punched at the keys and four pictures appeared on the screen—two of the hallway outside of Alex’s apartment, and two inside the apartment.
Eve joined him and watched the screen. A man moved quickly past the hidden cameras. She didn’t see him again. But knew he was close because a warning flashed onto the screen. The word MOVEMENT, flashed repeatedly at the bottom of screen.
“Is it Miles?” she whispered her question.
He nodded, staring at the screen. “You can talk normally in here.”
“How did he know where to find us?” She turned and watched as he moved away and opened the cupboard closest to them. She found herself moving to the other side of the room when she saw the knives lined up on the wall next to a variety of small hand guns. Her heart began pounding in fear as he reached for a pair of short handled silver knives.
“I saw him following us, plus there is probably a tracking device in your…” He turned to face her but stopped when she wasn’t there. He slowly scanned the room until he locked Cade’s eyes on her. “Eve?” When he moved towards her still holding the knives, she stumbled back, bumping into the wall.
How could she have forgotten that this man was a killer? He killed dangerous people to protect society, sure, but he was still a killer. He stopped and studied her briefly before placing both knives on the bench behind him. He sighed and leant back.
Eve peeked at his face and saw his eyes were blue and the scar was running through his left brow. “I shouldn’t know about this place, should I?”
He simply shook his head.
She began to panic. “I shouldn’t be in here.” She leaned towards the door. “I’ll wait in the hall.”
“No you won’t. It’s not safe for you in there, it’s not soundproof.” Her pulse pounded in her neck as he crossed the room. Her breath was coming in short choppy bursts.
He stopped in front of her and glared down, his blue eyes glowing. “Stop it right now!” he commanded. “If I’d wanted to kill you, you would already be dead and this—” he waved his finger between the two of them, “—wouldn’t be happening.” He sighed, running a hand through his darker hair. “I don’t understand where this is coming from. We just had sex, I assumed we were good.”
“We…I…those.” She pointed over his shoulder to the weapons in the cupboard. He quickly grabbed her hand and pulled her forwards. “Calm down.” He fixed his eyes on hers and encouraged patiently, “Try again.”
“We are good.” She swallowed and looked over his shoulder. “It’s just that seeing all those guns, scares the shit out of me. They reminded me what it is you do and that scares me too.”
“Evening.” He tugged her closer, fixed his intense eyes on her. “Do you really believe that would I hurt you because you know about my weapons vault?” There was a look of insult on his face.
She pressed her lips together and shrugged, not sure what she felt.
Alex turned away from her and grabbed the knives, flipping them closed as he watched the screen. He reached up and pulled a sliver gun and corresponding clip from the cupboard. He checked the gun and loaded the clip before sliding it into the back of his jeans.
He was quiet as he worked, moving with precision as he filled his duffel with a variety of smaller weapons, the corresponding bullets, and a stack of small disks—leaving five on the bench next to him. He opened another cupboard that housed a safe and opened that too, pulling money, along with an assortment of ID’s. Eve stood watching his back and, after debating with herself, she said, “I won’t tell anyone.”
“I know,” he answered, sliding a black rifle into a basic canvas case. “You can keep secrets better than anyone I know. It annoys the hell out of me. Then again, if I had your ability, I would keep it to myself too.”
He was so damn reasonable about it, it made her feel all that more guilty about being scared of him. “Thank you for understanding.”
“What’s to understand? Just because I know where you’re coming from doesn’t mean I like you keeping secrets from me.” He assessed her over his shoulder. “You will tell me eventually, but now isn’t the time—we have to go.” He tapped the lower right side screen. “Miles has found the entrance to the vault. It won’t take him long to get in.”
Eve moved next to him to watch the screen, he could smell her light scent. “How do we get out?”
“I have an exit into the hall from this room.” He pointed to a tall storage cabinet. “Behind it.”
He scanned her face. Damn she stirred him up. He understood that his life was scary and he had scared her in the past, but with the recent time spent together he’d thought she had got past it. Realising now that she hadn’t, he wanted to do whatever it took to help her come to terms with it. Though why he needed to do that, he had no idea.
He took her purse from her and ordered, “Put your shoes on.” As she did so, he went through her purse until he found her wallet.
“What are you doing?” She stood next to him watching as he opened and pulled all her cards from her wallet.
“I’ve let Miles follow us this far.” He studied the black strip on the back of a card. “I don’t want him following us to my apartment.” Nothing, then he picked up the next one.
“But, we’re at your apa
rtment.”
He grinned, picking up the next card. “We’re at the one he knows about.” Nothing still. He went through every piece of plastic in her wallet and held up the last one, a credit card. “Here it is.”
“What?” Eve leaned in closer and gasped when he peeled off a clear strip of tape with a black line running through it from the back of her card. “What is it?” she asked.
He held it up. “This is a shadow strip. It sticks to the magnetic strip on your credit card. It’s easy to use and very hard to see if you’re not looking for it. We can follow you via GPS with this and it will inform us of any purchases you make.”
“What like gas or something?”
“Yes, but in most of my cases it’s usually guns and ammo, sometimes large plastic bags or dissolving chemicals and medical supplies.”
“For serial killers?” she whispered.
“Sometimes, but in your case Miles is using it to follow you and if, by some chance, he loses you, any purchases you make will send him your location immediately.”
“This is really high-tech. I had no idea there were such things available.”
“It’s not available commercially.” He began putting her cards back into her wallet.
He picked up a school picture of Noelle that had slipped from her wallet. “She looks like you, especially the eyes and hair,” he commented, handing her the picture. “The rest must be her father.”
“Yah,” she said lovingly, and for some reason that pissed him off.
Eve tossed the rest of her belongings into her purse and threw it over her shoulder grabbing Noelle’s picture in her hand. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
Moving to the passage between the vault and the main apartment, he grabbed two micro mines, opened the door and threw one down the dark hall. The tiny red light flashed indicating where it had landed. Satisfied he tossed the second just inside the door and closed it behind him.
“What were those?” Eve asked, standing next to the storage cabinet.
“Micro mines.” He grabbed the remaining three and placed them around the room.
“As in bombs?” she asked slowly.
“As in micro bombs. They’re small,”—he held one up—“Light weight, easily concealed but they make a hell of a mess.” He opened the DVD drive of his computer and placed the last bomb on the tray, then watched as it slid back into the hard drive. “When they go off, nothing in this room or the apartment will be identifiable.”
“You’re going to blow up your apartment?” Her eyes were huge.
He laughed. “I don’t want to. It will attract more attention than I want, but I can’t risk Miles getting in here and seeing my hard drive.”
“Why?”
“Because,”—he hit a button on the keyboard and his bedroom appeared—“there is footage on there of you and I…” he felt his chest squeeze, then sucked it up and said it, “…making love. Nobody gets to see that except us, and I don’t have time to make a copy.” He gave her a teasing wink when her face flushed.
“Oh! Good thinking.” She took a deep breath. “What’s going to happen when we leave?”
Alex shouldered the duffel and rifle case. “When I tell you it’s safe, we are going to go through this door, out into the hall where we will turn left and head to the elevator. The mines will go off in the hall that lead in here, first.” He pointed to the hall that connected his apartment to his weapons vault. “Then the ones I hid around the apartment and then finally the weapons room.”
She interrupted him, “You hid some around your apartment?”
He nodded. “When you were in the bathroom.”
“You knew he would come, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” His frankness sent shivers down her arms and legs.
“Easy. By the time they go off we’ll be in the fire escape on the far side of the building.”
“What will happen to the building? I have this picture of a massive explosion in my head.”
“No, nothing like that. This apartment was set up with a backup sprinkler system and is re-enforced, besides the mines aren’t that strong, they can’t blast through the extra concrete that surrounds this apartment.”
Eve jumped when a loud, thundering blast sent a small dust cloud under the door leading to the passageway.
Calmly Alex grabbed her arm—“It’s time to go.”—and dragged her behind the tall cabinet and into a small black room. He closed the door behind them just as the second blast went off. The walls and floor shook for a long time until Alex slid his arm around her waist, “Relax, we’re okay. Stop shaking.”
“Oh-kay.”
He pressed his mouth to her head. “Eve, slow breaths. I don’t want you passing out on me.”
She made an attempt to do as he asked, but found shaking much easier.
Standing in the dark, Alex shoved her behind his back. “Do exactly what I tell you, no questions. Understand?” The words, said between clenched teeth, were not meant to be questioned.
She touched his back so she knew she wasn’t alone. “Y-yes.” She couldn’t see his face but guessed it was set as hard as his words.
The muscles in his back and shoulders flexed once. “Let’s go,”—was the only warning he gave before the door flew open. He focused on the hall leading towards the apartment and began pulling her out when the first bullet flew past.
With the silver gun already in hand, Alex shoved her across the hall away from him and ordered, “Fire exit, move.” She saw him firing back before turning.
Moving back along the hall towards Alex’s apartment with her ears ringing and her heart pounding, Eve tried not to look back but desperately wanted to know if Alex was all right. She heard more gunfire and flinched, ducking her head low when she thought she felt the air around her head stir. She made it to within a few feet of the fire exit, when she felt a sharp sting to her thigh.
She tripped and stumbled to the floor, Noelle’s picture flying out of her hand. She panicked when she saw Noelle’s face smiling back at her, and for some reason which made no sense, she knew she needed to have that picture with her. She crawled, reaching the picture and grabbed hold before standing up. As she stood she saw that she was right at the opening to the small hall leading to Alex’s apartment, with the fire escape behind her.
Hearing Alex’s voice, she turned and saw him running towards her. That was when she remembered that Alex said the mines in his apartment would go off after the passageway. She turned as fast as she could and reached for the exit but it was too late. Everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Two
All Alex saw was Eve get picked up and slammed into the door of the fire escape. Her shoulder and the side of her body taking the full force of the blow. Miles fired another couple of rounds as smoked filled the hall. Alex swung around, dropped to his knees and fired back grazing his shoulder. He stared at his partner. “That’s one,” he called out, “I owe you two more.” Miles clamped his hand over the wound, giving him a hard look. Shock drained the colour from his face and he staggered back just as the mines went off in the weapons room.
Mine number one in the vault exploded through the door and out into the hall, knocking him against the wall. He picked himself up and dived for cover before the second and third mines went off.
Alex didn’t have time to enjoy the look of alarm on Miles’ face. He quickly turned to Eve and felt his heart seize up on him as he ran to her. She was laying on the floor half in the hall and half on the cold concrete of the fire exit stairs. There was a gash in her thigh that looked like a bullet had taken out a chunk of skin and her nose was bleeding.
With a shaky hand, he knelt down and felt for a pulse, fully expecting her to be dead. The blow she’d received from the mine, forcing her into the solid metal door, would have done serious damage to her. Still, he needed to know for sure and silently prayed to whoever was watching them, that she was alive. He pressed his finger deep into her neck then closed his eyes, waiting.
He e
xhaled, when he felt the strong beat under his fingers. His tense muscles suddenly relaxed. His hands still shook as he lifted her into his arms and wiped the blood from her nose. He quickly checked her limbs, neck, and chest. Except for the wound on her thigh he couldn’t find any major damage, which surprised him.
Coughing, he saw smoke filling the exit. He pushed to his feet, throwing the duffel and rifle over his head and picked her up. Probably not the best thing to do, she could have internal injuries, but there was no time to give her a more thorough exam and there was no way he was leaving her. Miles would be itching to finish them off. Even if he didn’t come looking for them and Eve was taken to the hospital she would still be at risk. The Project could access any hospital, and Miles would easily hunt her down.
* * * *
“Eve,” Alex’s deep voice broke through her sleepy haze. She sighed enjoying the sound of his voice.
“Eve.” He gave her a little shake. “Can you hear me? Wake up.” She came to, a little more when she heard the concerned edge to his voice.
“Yes.” She swallowed, her throat was dry. “What’s wrong?”
“You were hurt.” She could hear his frustration. “Can you open your eyes and look at me?”
She did as he asked and saw a worried scowl on Cade’s tanned face.
“Good. Now I’m going to give you a thorough once-over to see where the damage is.”
“Okay.” She remained still as Alex checked her arms and legs, then he moved to her chest, neck and head where he paid close attention and watched her face for any signs of distress. Despite the sting in her leg and some sore muscles, she felt pretty good for being thrown against a door by a bomb-blast.
He ran his hand down her sides, feeling each rib. “Anything sore?”
She bit the inside her lip and stopped herself from giggling when he touched a ticklish spot on her side. He looked very worried and very confused. He narrowed his gaze on her as he checked the shoulder that hit the steel door.