by Jenny Allen
They were almost to the door when the whole building began to shake violently, knocking loose ceiling tiles down on them. The air was thick with dust, making them choke, but they all pushed forward. Just as they all hit the double doors, Lilith heard the hiss of flames growing louder and louder. It was a deafening roar by the time they were outside in the early morning sunlight. Cohen broke off in a sprint, taking the most direct route to his car. Gregor chased after him, his skin already turning bright pink.
Chance was a little slower carrying her weight and the roar of fire was getting louder. Lilith glanced over his shoulder as the double doors started to swing shut and saw a bright burst of light at the end of the hall. “Oh hell! We have to take cover. Now!”
Chance swerved and ran as fast as he could for the next building. Lilith hung on for dear life, squeezing her eyes closed and praying they wouldn’t escape that damn torturous bastard just to die now. He ducked behind the far side of the next building and ran down the alley way. That at least gave them a buffer from flying debris.
It sounded like a demolition explosion. The ground shook and the force of the blast, even buffered by the building, knocked them both hard to the ground. The whole world went dark and the last thing she remembered was Chance curled over her like a protective blanket.
Chapter 25
Lilith’s ears were still ringing. Someone was screaming words, but she couldn’t make any of them out. Her chest hurt with every struggling breath. Why did it feel like a ton of bricks was lying on top of her? She had to blink several times before she finally opened her eyes. Cohen was looming over her, screaming and tugging at something on top of her. Once her eyes focused, she realized that Chance’s full weight was on her. His eyes were closed, he wasn’t moving. Pure panic gripped her until she forced herself to concentrate. She could feel the faint rise and fall of his chest. He was still alive.
Her eyes flashed back to Cohen as realization began to dawn on her. Cohen. He might have helped them escape, but that was after they’d pinned down Ashcroft. Up until then he’d been a willing, perhaps even eager, participant in Ashcroft’s little games. She wasn’t about to forget the fact that he wanted to study her like some kind of lab rat. He was still screaming at her, barking orders as close as she could figure, but she still couldn’t actually hear anything past the ringing in her ears.
Cohen finally managed to roll Chance off of her and stooped down to check his pulse. While Cohen was busy, Lilith scrambled to her shaky feet and put all her strength into a shot at Cohen’s jaw. “Don’t fucking touch him!” Being topless except for her bra hadn’t protected her very much. She could feel the abrasions on her back from the rough concrete scream as she cracked Cohen right in the face. He stumbled backward and landed right on his ass.
“Dammit, Lilith. I’m trying to help!” Cohen jumped back to his feet and grabbed her shoulders. His hazel eyes caught hers and the weight in them took the struggle out of her. In the far corner of her mind she wondered how that was even possible. “Lilith, listen to me. I was never on Ashcroft’s side. Please, let me help you both to the car and then I’ll explain everything. I promise. Right now we have to get the hell out of here before the cops show up.” Cohen pulled off his shirt and tossed it to her. “Put that on.”
Lilith stared down at his blue button up shirt. On top of the soot from the fire and the dirt from the basement, there were flecks of blood on it. Her blood. How the hell was she supposed to trust him and why the hell did she already feel like she could. Her shrewd eyes glanced up at Cohen. “Did you just ‘influence’ me??” Lilith shot up to her feet with every nerve in her body singing with tension.
Cohen sighed heavily and his head slumped down. “We do NOT have time for this. Put the shirt on. Gregor is safe in the trunk of my car. I need your help with Chance. We can discuss it all in the car.” When Lilith didn’t move or say anything, Cohen pulled himself to his feet and grabbed her shoulders again. “No tricks.” His eyes were the crisp blue she remembered the first time she’d met him.
“Your eyes…” Her brain was trying to comprehend just how they changed colors like that.
“I’ll explain it all. I’ll tell you everything you want to know…in the car.” His voice wasn’t demanding this time. He was pleading. The pain and guilt lay bare in his face. “I never wanted to hurt you. It made me sick, Lilith.” There were tears stinging his eyes when he spoke. His voice was tenuous and vulnerable. Either he was the best actor she’d ever met or he was being straight with her.
Lilith’s logical brain kicked in. She didn’t have any other options. Gregor was in his trunk. He was their only transportation out of this place in the middle of nowhere. Gut feelings or not, she had to trust him. Lilith nodded softly and stepped back to pull the shirt on. The early morning air was chilly and her skin was grateful for any kind of protection from the biting breeze.
Together, Cohen and Lilith pulled Chance up and carried him slowly past the remaining buildings. The explosion had done a lot of damage and they had to pick their way through chunks of cement and debris. Somewhere in the back of her mind it finally registered in her brain. Ashcroft was dead. He’d never hurt her family again. It was all over.
They finally made it to the car and managed to get Chance into the back seat. He was still unconscious, but he was breathing and his pulse was strong. The abrasions and cuts she’d noticed on his back were already healed. Lilith ran a hand softly over his cheek before taking the front passenger seat. Cohen collapsed into the driver’s seat and threw the car into gear, peeling out of the parking lot. He sped away from the ominous site as if his life depended on it. In a way, all their lives did depend on it. There was no reasonable, believable explanation for their presence there that didn’t involve lots of jail time.
Once they were back on the interstate at a normal speed, it felt like an enormous weight had been lifted. They’d survived. Her brain just didn’t seem to be able to comprehend it. Maybe it was because most of them hadn’t survived. Coffee gave his life to let them escape. Alvarez taunted the monster to keep his attention off of her. Tears trickled down her cheek as she thought about her partner, his balding head slumped at that unnatural angle, his shirt soaked in his own blood. Lilith wiped at her cheeks and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. She needed to think about something else. Anything else.
“Were you really close to Alvarez?” Cohen’s voice sounded soft and tender, even soothing. It just pissed her off.
She wiped angrily at her cheeks. “Of course I was. He was my partner for the past six years. I had coffee with his wife every Sunday and had dinner with his family at least twice a week. What kind of fucking question is that?” Cohen’s eyes widened, like he was somehow surprised at her tone. “What? You think that just because you helped us out of there after the odds changed that we’d be best pals that talk about our damn feelings. Fuck you, Cohen.”
His arms were tight with tension as he white-knuckled the steering wheel. There were a million conflicting emotions on his face, most of which she didn’t understand. His basic tank revealed every lean muscles that were still tensed and his jaw was painfully clenched. Why the hell did he look like a kicked puppy ready to bite her? A better question was why the hell should she care? “My name is Andrew, not that you care, and I was never on Ashcroft’s side.”
“You said you’d explain everything, so start talking.”
She could see the tension easing as he took in a deep breath. “Look, I was never in Ashcroft’s corner. I was never going to hurt you.” His eyes flickered over to her and there was raw pain in them. It made her skin itch. The pain in his eyes just seemed disproportionate.
“Bullshit. I gave you opportunities to give me some kind of signal.”
“I needed your fear and anger to be genuine. We sense emotions, Lilith. You know that. He would have known if I’d tipped you somehow.” Cohen’s jaw clenched again. “Believe me. I wanted to let you know. I would have if I thought I could. I had to do somethin
g. You were trying to goad him into killing you. I couldn’t just let you die. There was a plan in place and I had to keep you alive.”
“Wait. What? A plan? When the hell did you make a plan?”
“Hold on a second. This isn’t a conspiracy. Just let me explain.”
Lilith clamped down on her temper and sat silently in the passenger seat. Anger was still rolling over her skin, but she needed to hear his explanation and study every single muscle in his face with careful precision.
“I was exploring the south corridor with Whitmore and I noticed he was acting strange. I know…knew him very well and there were subtle differences in his behavior that didn’t make sense. He normally would have spent most of his time bitching about you and Chance, but it didn’t come up again, not even once. Something didn’t feel right.”
“So your evidence is that for a few minutes Whitmore wasn’t being a total dick? Wow. That’s compelling.”
Cohen decided to completely ignore her and just continue his story. “Coffee showed up just as Whitmore was about to make his move. I heard a shot ring out in the building somewhere and overpowered Whitmore during the distraction.” Cohen paused to look over at her and everything in his face looked genuine. “Do you know who fired that shot?”
“The shot was from Humphries’ gun.” Lilith paled and her stomach churned as the memories of those horrible moments replayed in her mind. Chance stumbling to his knees, coughing up blood, dying. She couldn’t help but glance back at Chance sprawled out over the back seat. It was if some part of her wanted to make sure he was still there, breathing.
Cohen glanced away from the road again, his eyes catching hers and his face full of concern. “What happened?”
Lilith had to swallow the lump in her throat as tears welled in her eyes. “He shot Chance in the back. It just barely missed his heart.” Lilith fought the tears threatening to spill. After a steadying breath she continued. “I knocked Humphries out and tried to help Chance but he was dying.” Lilith glanced down at her wrist. “I panicked. He was losing so much blood and it was getting harder and harder for him to breathe. The shot must have collapsed one of his lungs. So I did the only thing I could. I fed him my blood hoping that whatever healed me was enough to heal him. Obviously it worked.”
“What? You fed him your blood?” Cohen looked panic-stricken.
Lilith bristled at his reaction and crossed her arms over her chest. “You did the same for me. I was not about to let him die, Cohen. If there was even the slightest chance in hell that it would save him, I would have given him every single drop. You aren’t the only one that gets to decide who lives and dies.”
Cohen looked deep in thought as he nodded. Thankfully he didn’t push the issue. She already had a desire to sock him in the jaw again. Questioning her decision to try and save Chance definitely didn’t decrease that desire.
“So you made your move on Whitmore…” Lilith prompted him to return to the information she needed to know.
“Yeah. I managed to get a hit on Whitmore that sent him down like a pile of bricks. I grabbed Whitmore’s gun and was just about to shoot Coffee, but he just held his hands up in surrender. Coffee pulled me into a side room and started explaining everything.”
Lilith’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Wait. Coffee just surrendered and started explaining things? Wasn’t he under Ashcroft’s control?”
“No actually. Our influence doesn’t work on his kind. Ashcroft apparently has never come across it before and didn’t recognize him for what he was. Coffee…”
“Stop. His kind? What the hell…”
Cohen glanced over at her, surprised that she didn’t know. He shrugged and returned his eyes to the road. “That’s a conversation for another time. Can I just finish? I’d rather get you out of the “I want to stab you in the throat, traitor” mood, first. Then we can have a little heart to heart on all the supernatural species out there.”
Lilith rubbed at her temples in frustration and just silently nodded again. She felt like her mind was going to explode.
“Thanks.” His eyes returned to the road as he swerved around a stupid white Celica driving under the speed limit in the fast lane. “When Ashcroft and Spencer hit the lab, Ashcroft knocked him out before he could even get out of his chair. They locked him in the cold storage freezer. Eventually, he came back for him and tried to persuade him towards his cause with promises of power. Coffee was smart enough to play along. If Ashcroft knew his powers weren’t working, he would have killed Coffee then and there. So he decided to play the part of the dutiful minion and wait for an opportunity to present itself.”
“So he told you all this while Whitmore was out?” The humor of Cohen knocking out his partner in grand movie-style with a hit to the back of the head was not lost on her. It just didn’t seem to be the right time to joke about the dead.
“Yeah. We decided that we needed to know more information about the situation before making our move. We still didn’t know where you were and I figured that if Whitmore was compromised, then Humphries probably was too. So we played along. Coffee threw a couple punches to make me look the part and then he woke Whitmore up.”
“You definitely looked the part. Hell, that black eye took up half your damn face.”
Cohen subconsciously rubbed at his cheek. “No kidding. I knew it’d heal quickly but still. I barely stayed conscious from one damn hit.”
Lilith found a little smug satisfaction in that.
“Well considering Coffee was big enough to break the Hulk in half, it’s not that surprising.” Chance’s voice from the backseat sounded like music to her ears. She glanced over her shoulder to see Chance’s face looming between the two front seats. There wasn’t a scratch on him. Her blood must have really worked. She wondered if he had the same kind of side effects that she had, but there was no way in hell she was going to bring that up voluntarily right now. Less than half an hour ago Cohen was talking about studying her in a lab and she still wasn’t willing to trust that it had all been an act. She knew some part of Cohen wanted to study her, but she was no one’s lab rat and neither was Chance. She’d die first.
“So nice of you to join us.” Cohen intended for his voice to be light and friendly, but there was something else in his voice. Disappointment maybe. Although that hardly made any sense.
“So you knew about this ‘plan’?” Lilith fixed Chance with a skeptical look but he didn’t even blink at the question.
“With Coffee and Cohen? Yeah. Coffee filled me in when he found me upstairs. Nearly shot him when he busted into the room, not that I think a shotgun blast would have done much damage to him.”
“But you tried to attack Cohen in the basement.” Something was still nagging at her. It all seemed too convenient. Although, now that she thought about it, it hadn’t been convenient at all. It was chaotic and messy. They just barely got out of there before blowing up to smithereens, and not all of them had survived. She didn’t even have a body to take back to Gloria. The thought of her and her children burying an empty casket brought fresh tears to her eyes.
“I had to act the part, Cher.” Chance’s warm voice knocked her right out of her melancholy thoughts. “Besides, it didn’t take much acting on my part. I may have known that Cohen and Coffee weren’t on Ashcroft’s side, but that didn’t necessarily mean that any of us were gonna survive. It was pure luck that we got an opportunity before you really got hurt.”
She’d been hurt enough. That much was clear on Chance’s face. “I could feel what Ashcroft wanted to do to you.” His skin paled and he looked sightlessly through the windshield. She’d been too delirious at the time to really know what Ashcroft’s intentions were, but somehow, looking at Chance, she knew she was slated for something worse than Miriah’s tortures. Sometimes ignorance really was bliss.
“Do you really think he’s dead?” Lilith felt goose bumps fly up her arms and she rubbed at them absently. It was a terrifying thought. If he was still alive there was no way they
’d get another chance like that one to bring him down.
An uncomfortable silence settled over the car that definitely didn’t make her feel any better. Finally, Cohen broke spoke up. “He was already seriously injured and burning against the furnace. Not even trying to claw through Coffee was healing him fast enough to get out of that explosion in time. He couldn’t have survived. However, we have other problems that are about to rain down on us?”
Lilith just looked confused. She’d been so focused on ending the cycle of death between Ashcroft and Gregor that she’d forgotten anything else.
Cohen sighed, clearly irritated that he was the only one thinking of the big picture. “Whitmore called the FBI…” He just shook his head when he finally saw the realization dawning on Lilith’s face. With his eyes back on the road and his fingers gripping the steering wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white, he continued. “I have no idea how I am going to keep the three of you out of this.”
Lilith knew Cohen wasn’t just concerned with making their lives easier. What affected them, affected him. It brought too much attention and she knew by the way he talked about his family that they definitely didn’t appreciate the lime light.
“I need to get you to your rental car at the station. Then you drive straight to the airport and take the first flight back to New York. I’ll figure out the rest.” He had zero confidence in his last statement and with good reason. There was overwhelming evidence to tie them to everything and to tie them to Cohen.