“I’d appreciate it if you shared none of this with anyone. There is a lot more to this situation than you know, and the less people that know anything the better.”
“If it will stop you from hitting me again then I’ll do anything you want.”
The three men continued the trek back to the airstrip in silence. Derek had to rely on Gary’s support once more as the adrenaline of his fight with Rex wore off.
The inevitable cameras and tabloid writers swarmed them as they approached the parking lot, but they walked in silence, ignoring the commotion as best they could. There were dozens of people watching the spectacle—the crash had ground the races to a halt.
Loudspeakers blared as the announcer caught wind of Derek’s miraculous return.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Not only is Derek Devereux okay, but he’s walking under his own power back to the airport now! Give him a hand, everybody!”
The volume increased exponentially as a torrent of sound thundered down onto the brothers. Derek reluctantly gave a wave, playing the part of the pilot even though he had far more pressing concerns on his mind. The expectation would be that he go back to the pilot’s tent to update the race officials and mingle with the well-to-do sponsors of the sport, reassuring everyone he was all right. He had no intention of doing any of it.
“Here we go, bro, just about there.” Gary helped him to the passenger door and opened it for him before swinging around to get to his own. Unlike his older brother, Gary was less into the fast, precisely engineered sport machines and had chosen a much more mundane black BMW. “Now, let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Gary, the explosion was no accident,” Derek said. “In fact, I saw what caused it, although I’m not sure how it worked. And it was made by the company.”
Derek held on tight as the car almost veered into oncoming traffic.
“The company? I heard you say that to Rex but I thought you were just making a wild accusation. Are you serious?”
“Dead serious, Gare. It was the Onyx logo on the device, plain as day.”
“You saw the explosive?” Gary took his eyes off the road for a moment to look at his brother as though to reassure himself the eyebrows were still present. “It didn’t blow up in your face, then?”
“No. I’m not sure what it was, but a little black ball was attached to the dashboard. It beeped like crazy and it was really distracting. At first I thought it was something Rex put in my plane to make sure I couldn’t beat his time.”
Gary nodded. “That makes sense. You weren’t flying as clean as you usually do—I worried you were all up in your own head about Sara.”
“Sara… Shit, Gary, I left her out there with nowhere to stay last night! I let myself get so riled up by Ron I forgot she was in danger too.” Derek slammed his fist into the armrest. There wasn’t much he could do about anything while still in the car and without his phone. They hadn’t swung by the hangar to pick up any of his gear.
“I’m sure she’ll be okay. She’s a smart girl, that one, I doubt one night will be the end of her.”
The dry Californian landscape passed by, slowly turning into luxurious estates with massive houses and exquisitely watered lawns. Huge expenses just to look good… Derek was glad he’d made the switch to plants that didn’t need extra water.
“I hope you’re right, Gare.” He wouldn’t feel right until he got back to the house and could find out for sure.
The brothers finished the trip in silence, each occupied with their own thoughts.
Home couldn’t come soon enough. Derek barely waited for the car to stop before he hopped out. After a moment with his hand on the vehicle to steady himself, he marched toward the house, refusing to let his body hold him back any longer. Gary kept up with him, practice with the crutches letting him move surprisingly quickly.
Loud music blared as they approached, and Gary looked at him with a smile. “You know, I kind of like that Becky girl. She knows how to make herself at home, doesn’t she?”
The strains of the latest Taylor Swift chart-topper became almost painfully loud once the front door opened. Derek’s jaw dropped at the sight of his living room. It had been taken over.
Piles of fabric lay on every surface, and there were different arrangements of cut pieces laying out everywhere. It wasn’t a sight of his house he had ever expected to have.
Becky moved through the chaos in an elaborate dance, in time with the music. She picked through fabrics and brought them to a sewing machine where she set to work on them. She was oblivious to their entrance, the music drowning out any other sounds.
Derek found the control for the house’s electronics on the kitchen counter and cut the music.
“Oh, hey, guys! You’re back earlier than I thought, I planned on trying to get something together for dinner when you got back. Sara’s the cook, but I can do a couple basic things here or there.” Becky smiled.
Despite the urgency tugging at the back of his mind, Derek couldn’t prevent himself from asking the obvious question. “What is going on here?” He was going to elaborate further, but found himself unable to do anything more than point to the room.
“This may be my fault, bro,” Gary said. “Becky and I are going into business together, except she lost all her stuff in the attack on their apartment. I wasn’t about to let that stop me, so I told her I would finance whatever she needed to get back on her feet and creating again.” He looked around the room and picked up a swatch of lavender satin. “I wasn’t aware it would be so… pervasive, though.”
“Pervasive…” The word made it sound like an infestation. I hope I don’t come to view it like that! “Becky, have you heard from Sara?”
Becky looked at the two brothers as if they were daft. “Sara? Wasn’t she with you all day? I haven’t seen her since I gave her that dress last night and you took her away for that super romantic date, hot stuff! I’ve been dying to hear all the details!”
Gary caught his eyes. It wasn’t what they’d hoped to hear.
“Can you call her? I left my phone back at the airport, and I want to make sure she’s okay.”
Becky still looked perplexed, but dug around in the piles of fabric on the kitchen table until she found her phone. After dragging a piece of floral print away, she frowned at the display. “No messages from Sara, but I have a voicemail from a blocked number. What’s going on?”
Gary shook his head, eyes on Derek. They traded thoughts as brothers could, and the younger man turned back to the woman. “Derek and Sara had a kerfuffle at the restaurant last night, and Sara didn’t come back here, so we haven’t seen her since yesterday either. We expected to hear from her by now though, and considering what happened at the race, we’re worried there might be more to it.”
“What happened at the race?” Becky asked. “Something bad?”
“I’ll tell you after,” Derek said. “Can you check that voicemail?”
Becky’s eyes narrowed as the message played. “It’s from Sara!” She stared at him as the recording played out, and her eyes widened by the second. “She wants me to get you, Derek. She… oh, my God!” Becky’s voice died as she listened intently to the final words of the terse message. Before too long the dim sounds of Sara’s voice faded away, replaced by the machine voice giving menu options.
“Becky?” Derek asked. “What is it?”
“She… she’s been kidnapped. And she thinks they’ll kill her!”
Derek’s heart jumped into his throat at the words. This was all his fault. If he hadn’t needed his space, hadn’t shoved her away from him last night at the wrong time, when it was dangerous out there for all of them…
“Let me hear that!” He grabbed for the phone and fumbled with the touchscreen, trying to bring up the recording again on the unfamiliar interface. Finally he got it and put it on speakerphone for good measure.
They stared at each other as they listened to Sara’s hushed tones and dire words. Derek could feel her rising panic, the figh
t in her voice. By the time the words died out, he was halfway to the back door of the house.
“Where are you going, bro?” Gary asked him. “Sara needs us!”
Derek paused only for a second, his heart tugging him onward and screaming at any delay. “You and Becky take your car. And call Evan. I know where Sara is, and I’m getting there the fastest way I know.”
“But where, how do you know?”
“Because I was there just a few days ago, at the Onyx headquarters downtown Los Angeles, in the U.S. Bank tower.”
“Wait, Derek!”
He was already out the back door, not willing to waste another second.
Not when his love was in mortal danger.
Sara put her back to the wall next to the corner, peeking her head around the edge. Another long hallway, same as most of the others she had crept through, stretched away for far too long of a distance considering the extreme height over the city.
Buildings shouldn’t be this big and tall. It’s not natural.
To her surprise, there was no sign her disappearance had been discovered. She couldn’t help but continue feeling as though this whole exercise was fruitless—as though Chad sat in a room with a security guard somewhere watching her progress on a monitor, laughing at her as she crawled along through the corridors like she stood a chance of escape.
The need for secrecy and silence had slowed her, and every step down the halls was enough to tighten her shoulders and make her want to duck into a random office and hope she could hide and wait things out. She constantly jerked her head around to look behind her, convinced she’d been spotted from the rear and was mere seconds away from being tackled to the ground by the imposing cybernetic man.
She left the corner, exposing herself to being seen as she stole past closed doors and large windows that framed what would have been a stunning view for anyone else, but summoned nothing but pure terror for Sara. People shouldn’t be this high off the ground.
The windows at least told her she was alongside the outer exterior of the building—the elevators were likely closer to the center which would explain why she hadn’t found them yet. The longer she lingered on this floor, the higher the risk of being discovered.
As the thought crossed her mind, her luck ran out.
At the end of the hall a figure rounded the corner—none other than Chad himself.
He stopped dead as he caught sight of her, and the look on his face chilled Sara’s blood. She expected a yell, but he just broke into a dead sprint in her direction.
It was a long hallway, but he made up the ground between them terrifyingly quickly.
Shit!
The quietness of the pursuit was even more eerie than the chase itself. She turned and ran the way she had come, charging around the corner to find the last intersection she’d passed.
Come on, Sara, run!
She huffed as she motored as fast as she could. Chad’s quietness meant she had no idea how far behind her he was, and she didn’t dare look. Doors and windows whizzed by as she sprinted down the hallway, finding the hallway and taking the other direction.
Seconds later, an exit sign pointed her to a doorway that opened onto a stairwell.
Seriously?
There was no time to kick herself for making the wrong choice earlier—the one that might prove to be her undoing.
Sara glanced behind her, and Chad hadn’t yet made up enough ground to turn the corner. She had one chance to throw him off. If it came down to a straight race down the stairs, he would catch her. She had to lose him somehow.
She headed up the staircase instead of down.
When she had gotten a flight up, she slowed enough to make as little sound as possible, but didn’t stop climbing. It didn’t look like there was much further to go.
The door banged open below her, and Sara jumped in spite of herself. Echoes of the crash went on forever in the tall shaft, bouncing through the metal stairs and concrete walls, fading gradually into silence. She paused on the stairs, willing her breath to calm and the jittery fear in her chest to go away.
Silence. If Chad was still in the stairwell, it wasn’t obvious which direction he took. She couldn’t risk him slowly and silently making his way up to her. She had to hide. Sara kept moving, placing each foot carefully and not letting her shoes drag on the ground even the slightest bit.
The stairs came to an end soon after although there was a small landing and a small offset before another set of stairs. Sara had planned on hiding on the next floor up, but she hadn’t come across one yet.
Walking across the flat ground toward the new staircase, Sara wasn’t as careful as she should have been. She caught a slight bump in the concrete floor and stumbled, scraping her foot across the ground as she tried to catch her balance and avoid falling.
She waited, failing to breathe.
An explosion of sound from below gave her heart palpitations, the beat of steps furiously climbing the stairs echoing up to her.
There was no more time for secrecy, and nowhere to go but up for Sara. She launched herself at the staircase, attacking each step as if she had trained for it her entire life. The stairs flew by underneath her feet two at a time, hands on the railing to steady her and prevent a fall as she raced at a breakneck pace.
Finally, the top. And a door. She launched herself at it, praying that it was unlocked. What a fine end to a chase that would be. Cornered like a stray dog and put down the same way.
The push bar clicked under her hands, and the door swung open. As soon as a crack appeared, a fierce wind grabbed hold and ripped the door from her control, bashing it open against the wall. Sara sprinted through, squinting against the sudden onslaught of light that enveloped her.
It took time for her eyes to adjust. Too long. When she could see, she pulled the door shut behind her, and looked around for something to keep it closed.
What she found was the view she had dreaded since she first saw it through the office window. Los Angeles spread out beneath her, a short concrete wall between her and the dizzying height.
She had found the roof of the building and was confronted with the stark reality of the sheer height she dealt with. She wasn’t just at the top of the building—she stood on the tallest point in the city.
As visceral and biting as her fear of the heights was, her fear of Chad was even more overwhelming, and he would come through the door any second now. She took off at a run, following the curve of the concrete wall as she searched for anywhere she could hide or make a stand.
If I could somehow get behind him and keep him looking up here, then maybe I can race back down the stairs. It was an unlikely plan, but it was all she had. Her options had dried up.
There was one last set of stairs, and she had alternative but to take them. They led up to the helipad, the tallest point possible. The only saving grace was that it was closer to the center, further away from the edge of the building and the terrifying fall all the way to the unforgiving ground below. The downside was that there was nowhere to hide, nowhere left to run.
Sara was so focused on the stairs she almost missed Chad’s head rising over the edge of the platform to her right. The ease with which he pulled himself up and onto the platform reminded her of the attack on Derek she’d interrupted in the alley the night of the club. Chad—and it must have been Chad—had run away from the fight with a quick climb up to the roof of the nearest building, something she had forgotten about and nearly paid the price for.
“Why are you doing this? Is this what you want to spend your life doing: killing innocent people on another person’s orders? Is whatever you’re getting paid worth it?” Sara tried to appeal to Chad’s humanity. The wind tore the words from her lips, and she had to shout.
“Money isn’t the motivating factor,” Chad replied. His eyes burned into her, the intensity frightening. He walked toward her, and for every step of his she took one backward until she was dangerously close to the edge of the helipad platform. “Mr. Kn
ight took me in when the company’s experiment took off my hand. He’s the one who made sure I was taken care of, made sure I had a suitable replacement.” The fingers of the cybernetic hand flexed as though they were an obedient animal who had heard their name.
“Don’t you realize none of that is Derek’s fault? He had nothing to do with the experiment or the company’s treatment of you. He barely knows what goes on there!”
Chad shouted back, but a sudden increase in the wind swallowed his words.
If this keeps up, then we won’t have to worry about anything else. We’ll get swept off this roof!
It wasn’t until Sara saw her adversary’s eyes widen that there was a hint the wind wasn’t natural.
When she looked behind her, the wind buffeted her full in the face, nearly blinding her but not enough she couldn’t see the helicopter that had risen above the level of the roof. It was a large machine, and out of reflex Sara ducked down in fear of the blades that spun so quickly they weren’t even visible.
The helicopter was level with the platform and creeping closer. It rotated in place just enough to see the pilot beyond the glare of the evening sun on the windshield.
It was Derek.
“Derek!” Sara shouted, although the sound couldn’t have reached him.
She could see his lips form her own name in return, and her heart soared until he pointed frantically behind her.
By the time she clued into what he tried to convey and looked back across the platform, Chad was almost upon her, and she stumbled back at the fury in his eyes.
Derek edged the helicopter closer until the landing skid was just out of reach.
With a tremendous heave of her body, Sara flung herself at the tantalizing piece of metal, the savior from above. Her fingertips brushed the bottom before slipping off, and she landed hard on the platform, so close to the edge that she wobbled and almost toppled over.
The helicopter lowered by another foot, and Sara gathered herself before jumping with all the energy she had, hooking her hands over the metal and holding as tight as she could.
Taking Flight (A Devereux Novel) Page 18