“Just stick to what I’ve asked you. Tell me what you know about Derek and the company. Once we’ve ascertained you’re no threat, we can let you go so long as you promise to never attempt to return to the city, get in contact with Derek or his brothers, or poke your nose into the company’s business ever again. And trust me, the company has ways of knowing what you are doing. There is no way you could ever get off a single inquiry without them hearing about it—online, offline, in a coffee shop, or elsewhere. The name Onyx is never to cross your lips again, or else your life will end faster than you would believe.”
It sounded like a bluff. There was no way anyone could follow through on such a threat, but his face betrayed none of the telltale signs of such lies. Signs Sara had been trained to pick up on and detect. He spoke with the easy confidence of those who spoke nothing but the truth.
It was still hard to believe a shadowy corporation could have so much power, but she’d seen government contracts and research grants. The man’s hand alone was proof it wasn’t all a mirage.
Onyx research… didn’t I read something about an Onyx experiment ending badly?
Sara’s memory was fantastic, one thing that helped her draw together seemingly random and unrelated facts and events and correlate them. She’d found only one article about the Onyx company, and it had involved a soldier testing equipment and losing a hand in the accident. Everything started to make more sense. Human nature was always the central driver behind any mystery.
It gave her an upper hand. Not much of one, but it was all she had to go on. If this man could be believed, the threat against the Devereux brothers originated from within the Onyx Company all along. Rex had been nothing more than the idiotic fool they had all thought. Any other foes had been mere distractions. The real question was why the company wanted to kill Derek and his brothers. Evan had inserted himself into the thick of things—was it possible his efforts made someone high in the company nervous? Was he on the verge of discovering something big he might not agree with?
“Why are you going after the Devereux brothers?” Sara asked again. “They own the company, and you shouldn’t be doing anything that might harm them. Are you acting in the interests of the company, or is there someone else you call master, Chad Hunter?”
He stared at her, jaw dropped. “How the hell do you know my name?”
It had been an educated guess, but Sara didn’t let on. “Tell me, Chad, are you bitter you lost your hand in service to the company? Is that why you were so willing to turn on the owners? Did you think they deserved to suffer pain for what you went through?”
The cybernetic hand lifted to his chest and his remaining flesh and blood hand cradled it and stroked the artificial material. Chad’s mouth hardened. “They don’t care about the people who work for them. When I lost my hand, the company wouldn’t do anything about it. If it weren’t for Mr. Knight, I would have been crippled for the rest of my life. He’s the one who got me this replacement straight out of the development labs. I would have had only half a life if it weren’t for him.”
“Who is Mr. Knight?” Sara asked. “What does he want? Is he the one who sent you after Derek? I assume you are the attacker in the alley the night we were out at the club. Were you also the driver who ran him off the road?”
She dropped back against the wall when Chad jumped to his feet. He took a step toward her, hands clenched, but stopped there. Sara waited for the blows to fall, knowing they were inevitable. She had wanted to provoke him, goad him into making a mistake, and she had pushed him too far.
“It’s true, you are a smart woman,” he said. His fingers, both flesh and machine, loosened from the tightly drawn fists at his sides. “I have enough information to go on now. Once I tell all of this to Mr. Knight, he will want to proceed with the termination.” A sharp smile on his face sent a shiver through Sara. He didn’t need to say what he meant by termination.
Chad left the room the way he came, and as soon as the door closed, Sara nearly burst out into tears.
You’ve done it this time, Sara. Terminated. That’s what will happen to you.
There wasn’t much she could do to escape, not with the zip ties that bound her together. There was nothing sharp in the room to cut them, either. It would have been short-sighted on Chad’s part to make such an elementary slip.
Despair rose within and threatened to drag her down. Part of her hoped Derek would burst through the door and rescue her, but that wasn’t likely. He wouldn’t even know where she was.
If she wanted to live, she had to save herself.
She stood, hunched over because of the ties. She hopped awkwardly over to the desk, searching for anything that might help.
As she got there, an overly aggressive jump overbalanced her, toppling her over and sending her hard into the ground. Her face scraped the carpet, giving rise to a wide region of hot pain. When she could open her eyes, she saw she had come only a few inches from impaling them on a jagged piece of wood that had rained down from Chad’s demonstration of strength earlier.
That was close! She couldn’t think of a worse way to spend her last few minutes alive than in incredible pain after piercing an eye with a sharp chunk of wood.
Wait a second…
With newfound determination, Sara shifted on her knees and elbows until she brought her wrists to the piece of wood. A couple of the edges looked sharp—dangerously so. Exactly what she needed.
She had to steady the debris with her knee before she could use it, but when she did she brought the zip tie up to the edge and ran it along as hard as she could.
Nothing.
She fought against defeatism as she brought the material up to the light where she could see better.
There!
A small nick had appeared in the band, just enough to give Sara hope. She set to with fervor, repeatedly ripping the tie against her makeshift tool, swearing under her breath as she worked to free herself.
The moment the pressure around her wrists gave way with a sudden snap was a sweet one, and Sara spared a second to send a “thank you” out to the universe at large and any deity that may have been watching and helping. She rarely believed in such things, but she wouldn’t be picky now. Any help that might mean the difference between life and death was welcome.
It was far easier to maneuver once both of her hands were free, and Sara followed the same steps to rid herself of the zip tie that bound her feet together. Her body freed from its persistent hunch, she stretched and felt vertebrae pop as they settled back into their proper place. Then she looked out the window and froze.
She was high. Very high. The metropolis spread away underneath the window, continuing on and on to a hazy horizon.
“Oh, shit,” she sank down and crouched as though she were in danger of losing her balance and toppling through the window to her death far below. “That is not good.”
Now what? There was only one way out of the room. She had two options—try to leave, or wait in here and try to take Chad by surprise on his return. She didn’t like the odds of the latter, and she would somehow have to make it down to the ground without getting stopped either way.
It was possible Chad waited on the other side of the door and this was all a cruel joke to make her think she had the opportunity to try to escape. It didn’t matter.
One way to find out!
There wasn’t much in the way of weaponry with which Sara could arm herself, but she picked up the piece of wood that had already served her so well and hefted it in her hands. It was better than nothing, and it would have to do until she found something better. She wouldn’t have much of a chance if it came to a direct confrontation, but she would put up as good of a fight as she could.
She held her breath and eased the door open as tiny of a fraction of an inch as she could. There was no immediate response from the other side.
When she pushed it open enough to see out of, all that entered her vision was empty hallway. She opened the door enough to squeez
e her head through and looked the other way.
Clear.
Sara slunk out of the room, placing each foot as carefully as possible to avoid making any noise. With as delicate a touch as she could manage, she pulled the door shut behind her and picked a direction to move—they looked identical, but a dull murmur that might have been voices came down the hall to her right, so she went left.
Maybe it was because of the weekend, but the office was a ghost town. She didn’t come across any occupied offices.
The third office she looked in had less of an empty feel than the others she had seen. All were replicas of the one she’d woken up in, but this one had paperwork scattered across the desk. More importantly, there was an office phone.
With a final check both ways in the hallway, Sara entered the office and closed the door. She picked up the receiver and nearly cried at the sound of a dial tone. She almost dialed the police, but she held back. From things that Derek had said, they might be corrupt and she would just alert the wrong people. No, the only person she wanted to call was Derek. He could help her.
Her finger hovered over the dial pad, and her stomach sank as she realized she didn’t know his number. He had put it into her phone and she hadn’t looked at it. It hadn’t been memorized.
Urgency pulled at her, and she found her finger dialing a number out of sheer reflex. When she finished she remembered whose it was.
The rings had never sounded so long. After three rings, it went through to voicemail, and Becky’s chipper voice greeted Sara.
“Hi, you’ve reached Becky Williams! I’m not able to take your call at the moment, but please leave a message with your details and I will be more than happy to get back to you!”
After the beep, Sara talked low and fast. “Beck, listen. I need you to get a hold of Derek. I’ve been kidnapped, and I think they will kill me. I’m at one of the big towers downtown, but I’m not sure which one. I need help, and I need it fast. Onyx is behind everything. Derek needs to know, even if I’m not able to get out of here alive. Tell him as soon as you get this, Beck. Stop at nothing.”
Sara paused. She couldn’t spare any more time, but this might be her last chance to give a message to her best friend. “Beck… I love you. You are an incredible woman and I know you will accomplish all your wonderful dreams. If I don’t make it out, know that I believe in you.”
Her voice cracked, and she laid the receiver back down in the cradle before she could get any more emotional. Hot tears splashed down her cheeks, cutting a trail straight to her jaw before free falling to the desk below. She wiped them away and tried to settle her breath. She wouldn’t give up yet.
Dim shapes slipped into focus around him, and with them came a cacophony of sound and intense pain in his arms, shoulders and chest.
Derek rolled onto his side and coughed. Water came out, and his brain dimly noted that wasn’t supposed to happen.
“Derek! Thank God!”
He couldn’t place the voice, but it was hard to force his mind to focus on anything at the moment.
“Derek, look at me, please. Come on, look this way. Focus on me.”
A hand had taken control of his head and held it so that a blotch of beige hovered in front of him. Slowly, ever so slowly, the beige resolved itself into a face. A grim mouth under a thin nose and narrowed eyes. It didn’t look familiar.
“He’s coming around. He might be okay,” the lips formed words as Derek stared in fascination. “He should go to the hospital now, and they will run tests to make sure he’s come out of it without permanent damage. If he had been under for any longer he would have been a goner. He’s lucky those people fishing at the shore went after him when he hit the water.”
“Derek?” That voice was familiar. He had heard that voice more than any other during his life.
He tried to speak, but it caused another bout of coughing. His stomach burned from the continuous spasms.
“Gare? Is that you?”
“Yeah, bro. It’s me.” His brother knelt beside Derek. “You put up quite the performance today, they’ll be talking about this one for a long time.”
Derek felt a smile tug at his mouth even though the situation didn’t warrant it. “You know me. The spotlight loves me.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Gary said. “You are more than welcome to it, although you could take a break for a while after this stunt. I thought you were done when I saw the explosion.”
Explosion?
Memories flooded back. The race. The beeping. The little black ball. The explosions. The cut straps on the parachute.
“Gary,” Derek looked around. There were several people in the area but the race staff had done a good job of holding the media and public back at the airport. The paramedic who had checked him out still knelt there, listening. “We need to get out of here, now. There are things we have to figure out and discuss.”
He felt better by the minute although not all of him felt right. His arms were so leaden they could barely move, and his fingers felt as though they were stuck in the claws they had formed in the desperate struggle to hang on for his life.
“You need to get into the ambulance and go to the hospital,” the paramedic said. “Making sure you’re okay is the highest priority.”
Derek shook his head. “No, I can’t afford to take the time or be under someone else’s care right now. It would put me in a position of vulnerability and I’d be a sitting duck for the next attempt.”
The medical officer cocked his head to the side and looked as though he wanted to ask a question, but Gary’s eyes widened. “You mean this was another…?”
“Yes. I’m sure of it. We need to get out of here, now.”
“Excuse me, I can’t let you take off without a proper medical evaluation!” The paramedic looked at the two brothers as if they were crazy. “You almost died. It’s a miracle you’re alive!”
“That’s right, and I need to make sure I stay that way,” Derek said. “Help me up, will you, Gare?”
His legs wobbled and his vision grayed out as blood rushed out of his head from the sudden change in orientation. Gary wrapped his arm around him before he could stumble and fall. “Whoa there, bro. I’ve got you. Let’s get back to my car and we’ll get you sorted out.”
With one brother on crutches and the other wobbling from his ordeal, they hobbled away, supporting one another.
They passed the medical officer who stood with a hand outstretched and his mouth moving even though no words came out. Poor guy doesn’t know how to react or what to say. Not that it matters—there’s nothing he can say that would make me go in that ambulance. His foe could be waiting inside to finish the job. Gary was the only person he trusted in the entire airfield.
Halfway back to the airstrip, a lone figure trotted in their direction, wearing the flight suit of a pilot.
Derek’s gut burned with fury when he got near enough to recognize Rex.
“That son of a bitch!”
“Derek?”
He wouldn’t let the bastard finish the job, and wouldn’t give him the chance to get Gary, too.
“Stay here,” he growled to his brother.
Derek stumbled his way into a sprint, almost eating dirt before straightening and finding his balance. Long loping strides ate up the ground between him and Rex.
The other pilot slowed his own trot as they drew close. “Derek! I was coming out to make sure you were okay.”
Derek didn’t answer and didn’t stop his sprint. His vision swam from the exertion so soon after fighting for his life.
Rex’s eyes widened when he realized Derek was coming right for him and he tried to get out of the way.
Too late. Derek launched himself at his rival and speared him in the side. The impact was hard enough to lift Rex’s feet before they crashed to the ground, Derek’s full weight driving into the other man’s chest.
“You asshole!” Derek shouted as he straddled his opponent and slugged him in the face. “Coming to f
inish the job? I’ll fucking end you.”
“Ah, fuck! What the hell are you talking about?” Rex struggled to get his arms up to protect his face against Derek’s assault. “I did nothing wrong!”
“Derek!” Gary had caught up. “What are you doing?”
With fist poised for another blow, Derek looked up at his brother. “This bastard blew up my plane using an Onyx explosive, Gary. He’s responsible.”
“I didn’t do anything! What’s Onyx?” Rex peeked around his arms. His face was bloodied and lip already swelling.
“Don’t you dare fucking speak. You know exactly what Onyx is.” Derek readied himself to deliver another flurry of blows.
“I don’t! I don’t! Please, stop hitting me!” Rex quailed below him, arms offering a pitiful defense.
Derek held himself back. Something didn’t feel right. The masked assailant in the alley had been an unarmed combat specialist with incredible reflexes. Unless Rex was the best actor of all time, they couldn’t be the same person.
“You threatened me last night, and you expect me to believe you had no part in what happened today?”
With no new blows raining down, Rex’s arms parted so he could plead his case. “I told you then, it was just trash talk. It meant nothing. I’m serious!”
“Then why were you coming out here if not to finish the job?”
“I told you, to make sure you were okay. We might not get along, but a crash changes everything. I also thought we could call off the bet. I won’t take your money because your plane exploded.”
Derek looked up at Gary. His brother shrugged. “He sounds honest, Derek.”
He changed his focus to the beaten man beneath him. “If we both agree to donate our money to charity, then you have a deal.”
Rex’s eyebrows knit together. “What? Just give it away?” He eyed Derek’s fist still hovering above him. “I mean, that sounds good.”
Derek rolled off his rival and got to his feet. He fought off a bout of dizziness and nausea before offering his hand to Rex.
Taking Flight (A Devereux Novel) Page 17