Amelia and I are a lot more hemmed in. She’s looking at me with the first stirrings of alarm. I grab hold of her and clasp the back of her head, pushing it into my chest.
“Close your eyes,” I order and quickly do the same with my own, at the same time ducking my head against her shoulder, shutting out as much light as possible.
The first flash grenade crashes through one of the glass panels a moment later and instantly detonates. Several more follow quickly. Searing white light blast my retinas. I’m temporarily blinded but that doesn’t prevent me from hearing the screams that break out all around us. People are panicking. When the initial surge of shock starts to wear off in a few seconds, they’ll try to run. The biggest and strongest may manage it; the rest will be trampled.
“Hold on!” I tell Amelia as a countdown starts in my head. Ten…nine…eight… We don’t have much time before the stampede starts. I push through the people around us, heading instinctively in the direction I mapped out in the few seconds before the grenades hit.
Beyond the screams, I can hear weapons fire outside. The sound is grimly satisfying. Only a handful of my men were close in to the Crystal Palace. The rest were hidden among the nearby trees, all of them well concealed by some of the latest tech to come out of my own labs. The attackers, whoever they are, are getting a nasty surprise. Whatever they had planned, they’ve been stopped in their tracks, buying us at least some time.
Edward is waiting on the edge of the chaos. The women are wide-eyed and obviously afraid but they’re holding it together. Adele and my mother are both tough old birds, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Marianne’s a different story. Nothing in her life has prepared her for anything remotely like this yet she isn’t so much as flinching. I’m damn proud of her.
“We can’t stay here,” Edward says as soon as he sees me. “One stray energy beam and…”
I know what he means. The glass walls of the Crystal Palace offer no protection. Without further delay, we head for the escape route that we agreed on earlier. I take point, leading the way. By sticking to the edge of the vast ballroom, we avoid the worst of the crush but the going is still difficult. Edward guards the rear, keeping the women between us. Neither of us wants to hurt any of the poor bastards who are just trying to get the hell out the same as us but we’re not about to let them get in our way either.
Before we can advance very far, half-a-dozen men come through the side door that Davos used. They’re dressed in black, helmeted but with their visors up to be sure they can be recognized. The weapons they carry are the latest design straight from my R&D division. Hollis is in the lead. He and I exchange a quick nod as my men take up position around us. They form a phalanx that clears our path through the crowd quickly.
When we reach the kitchens, they’re empty, the workers having sensibly scrambled for safety at the first sign of trouble. A trapdoor in the floor stands open, leading to a flight of wooden steps. Hollis and two more of my men descend swiftly. After several tense moments, Hollis sticks his head up and signals that the tunnel is clear.
I hang back as Edward helps the women descend. When they’ve done so, he jumps down to join them, then glances back at me expectantly.
“I’ll meet you on the other side,” I say.
Edward looks at me for a long moment, then nods. I don’t have to worry about him, he gets it. Not so the ladies, who all stare at me as though I’m nuts.
“You aren’t--” My mother begins.
“Ian, really--” Adele adds.
“You can’t!” Marianne exclaims.
Amelia doesn’t say a word. She just brushes past Edward and starts back up the steps as though she can somehow stop me all by herself.
Edward sighs, snags an arm around her waist, and pulls her back down. She doesn’t hesitate but responds with a swift kick to his shins. “Let me go!”
Hollis chuckles. With an apologetic shrug to Edward, I lower the trap door back into place just as Amelia lets loose with a string of curses that turns the air blue. Where she acquired that vocabulary I can’t imagine but damn, does she know how to use it.
Still shaking my head over the crazy idea she has that she could somehow stop me, I strip off my tuxedo jacket and vest, loosen my tie, and accept the body armor that one of my men holds out. Once its snapped into place, I feel more like myself. Moments later, weapon in hand, I head out into the fight.
The night is pleasantly warm with a hint of rain to come. I can smell dark moist earth sharpened by the ozone of high-energy weapons. I’m moving at a swift trot through the shadows, my muscles feeling loose and limber. This is what I do, who I am. I make no apologies for it even if there have been times, especially lately, when I’ve caught myself wondering about a different kind of life. One that more than anything else involves Amelia.
I can’t afford to be thinking about her now. With the discipline that I’ve depended on my whole adult life, I force myself to refocus. The bodies of attackers are scattered on the ground. I flip one over and take a close look. The dead man is clean-shaven, well-nourished, wearing camo with no insignia.
A high-energy beam strikes the ground inches from where I’m crouching. I barely notice. If it had hit me, the next-gen body armor I’m wearing would have absorbed most of the blast, assuring no more than a minor injury. All the same, my men respond instantly. More bodies fall.
I catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. My own weapon goes up automatically. I fire. Another of the attackers hits the ground and lies there, unmoving.
A short time later it gets quiet, except for the sirens I can hear off in the distance. The Municipal Protection Services are on the job or they will be shortly. What’s the old saying? When seconds count, the police are minutes away? They can’t really help that, of course, but the truth of that statement has never been more clear to me.
Knowing that lives hang on every moment, I move with my men toward the main doors of the Crystal Palace. As I suspected, they’ve been deliberately jammed from the outside. I can see the people smashed up against them, well dressed men and women who a short time ago were enjoying yet another pleasant evening in their privileged lives with no thought to the possibility of danger. Most of them are still pounding desperately against the glass, trying to get out. But a few are on the floor, ashen and unmoving.
Since there’s no way for the people closest to the doors to back up, my men can’t blast them open. Instead, they just sheer both sides off at the hinges, then do the same to several of the glass panels closest to the ground, creating other openings for people to escape through. They stagger out, gasping, crying, falling to their knees. The more aware among them are looking around frantically, calling out trying to find whoever they came with. I see several tear-filled reunions. Behind the crowd, on the floor of the Crystal Palace, a dozen or so bodies remain.
Whatever attack plan the assailants had in place has crumbled under the defense mounted by my men. The enemy has either fled or been subdued. I conduct a quick in-field debrief. We’ll review the engagement much more thoroughly later but for the moment it’s enough to know that our own casualties are minor and are already being evacuated.
With no interest in hanging around to deal with the MPS, I give the order to move out. My men and I are withdrawing from the perimeter of the Crystal Palace, advancing deeper into the park, when the air suddenly quivers all around me. In the next moment, I’m on the ground.
Spitting out dirt, I turn my head in time to see the entire structure of the Crystal Palace lift off its foundations in the instant before it flies apart. Huge, razor sharp splinters of glass rain down in a broad arc across the park. Diving for cover, I offer up a silent prayer that Amelia and the others are well away from the hell that is suddenly falling from the sky.
Chapter Nine
Amelia
We’re a short distance beyond where we exited the tunnel, deep in the park, when without warning the night shatters. I stagger a few steps as the ground rippl
es under my feet. Instinctively, I look back over my shoulder just in time to witness a sight that my brain can’t immediately grasp. The sky is filled with--diamonds? Huge, faceted, shimmering shards radiating white light are falling toward us.
Beside me, the blond man with the crew-cut who I think is called Hollis yells, “Down! Everyone down!”
Without waiting for me to act, he grabs me and throws me to the ground, his body arched over mine, shielding me.
I hear thuds in the distance, and screams but they hardly register. All I can think of is--
Oh, God, Ian!
He’s back there in the midst of this horror. That harsh, inescapable truth is agonizing. I can’t breathe or move or do anything except endure the fear for him that is turning my body to ice.
Images flash through my mind. Ian holding me in his arms as we danced. Smiling at my enthusiasm about the fireworks. Arousing in me the hope that we could both put aside our darkest fears and give us another chance.
And now… Too vividly, I see one of the monstrous shards impaling him, driving the life from him, his blood pouring out. Nausea overwhelms me. I’m on my hands and knees, Hollis hovering over me, as I come close to retching.
When I recover enough to realize that I’m not actually going to do so, I become aware of my grandmother to one side of me. Marianne is on the other, using the hem of her dress to pat beads of sweat from my face.
“It’s all right,” Adele says softly. “Ian’s tough and well protected. He’ll come through this.”
I don’t even question how she knows the source of my distress. And I’m far beyond embarrassment over what fear for him as done to me. When I finally stagger to my feet, Hollis steadies me. I can hear sirens coming from all directions. Helicopters are overhead, the fast chop of their blades cutting through the air.
Over the roar, I yell, “We have to go back!”
He looks surprised but that’s quickly masked as he shakes his head. “Not happening. My job is to see that all of you get to safety. Can you walk?”
I can but I’m not about to. He has to be out of his mind if he thinks that I’ll just go off and leave Ian --
“If you can’t, one of us will carry you,” Hollis says emphatically. He looks as though he knows exactly what I’m thinking and is prepared to take any steps that he must to deal with it.
I glance at Edward. Any hope I had that he would side with me is dashed the moment he says, “We keep going. Ian has enough to deal with right now without having to worry about you.”
The fact that he assumes Ian is still alive and in control gives me some slight comfort but it does nothing to ease the fear clawing at me.
“He could be hurt,” I say. “No matter what you think. We have to go back!”
Edward and Hollis exchange a glance. Not for the first time, I resent the way certain men have of communicating silently with each other, quite literally over my head. They can agree on whatever they want, it doesn’t change a thing.
I dart a quick look to the side. If I run, I’m certain that they will follow. The problem is that they’re likely to catch me before I get very far, especially given the ridiculously high heels that I’m wearing.
None of which means that I’m not going to try. I grip the sides of my gown and surreptitiously hitch up my skirt, taking a deep breath as I do so. Hollis and Edward are discussing the best route out of the park. When they are both looking away from me, I bolt.
I run full out, taking advantage of the strength and stamina that I’ve built up dancing. I’m heading in the direction of the red glow rising where the Crystal Palace stood such a short time ago. Almost immediately I have to veer around shards of glass that have pierced the ground. Each is taller than I am. I’m struck by the sudden, fanciful notion that they look like the teeth of a giant, mythical beast, a dragon perhaps, set out to form a terrifying obstacle course. Seeing them makes me realize how close they and others like then came to raining down on us. For anyone closer at the moment of the explosion--
I hear shouts and the thud of feet behind me and speed up. My heart is hammering, my breath becoming labored but I don’t care. Nothing is going to keep me from Ian--
The large shape of a man looms up suddenly in front of me. For a frantic moment, I think that one of them--Hollis, my brother, one of the other men--has gotten out ahead of me. I try to dart around but the man is faster. Big hands lash out. I’m hauled against a broad chest, all the breath squeezed from me, as a voice says, “Amelia! Thank God!”
Ian!
Relief more profound than any I’ve ever known rips through me, bringing in its wake a sudden, strange languor. If he weren’t holding me, I’d collapse.
I look up into his face, taut with worry, and something cracks wide open inside me. In the next instant, I’m sobbing uncontrollably.
“I thought…I was so afraid…” The words come out as little more than gasps but he seems to understand. A tender, somewhat surprised smile curves his mouth.
“Yeah, babe, me, too. If anything happened to you--” He breaks off as his eyes turn dark and grim. The back of his hand brushes my cheek with aching tenderness but a moment later, he frowns.
“Why were you running? What’s wrong?”
Seriously? Did he really just ask that?
“I thought you might need help.”
The gentle man of a moment ago vanishes in an instant. A jagged pulse springs to life in his clenched jaw. He stares at me with disbelief that wars with fury.
“You were going back? Putting yourself in danger deliberately? Don’t you have any sense at all?”
My momentary weakness dissolves in a flash. I am so tired of him or anyone else thinking that I am somehow fragile or less than capable. The hard truth is that I would never have survived all the years that I did with my sanity intact if I didn’t have a deep reservoir of strength. To be fair, I’ve never told him about the memories I’m not supposed to have but fairness is very low on the list of my priorities at the moment.
“You’re one to talk! You did exactly that for my sake but I’m not supposed to do the same for you?”
He looks at me as though I’m some species of creature that he’s never encountered before. His expression is a combination of stark bewilderment and pure male frustration that under other circumstances might be funny. Not now, though, not here in this verdant sanctuary that has suddenly been transformed into hell.
Finally, in stark exasperation, he says, “I’m trained, battle hardened, this is what I do. You’re--”
I hold my breath, more afraid than I want to admit of what he will say next. You’re a replica, good only for pleasure? I have a sudden image of a porcelain, tutu-clad figurine in an old music box twirling to a tune plucked out by tiny pins on a metallic cylinder. An automaton without a life or a will of her own.
His voice drops, softening a little even as his gaze remains scorching. “You’re an amazing woman but you’re not equipped yet to take care of yourself in this world.” As though he expects me to argue, he adds, “Running straight into danger as you’ve just done proves that.”
In the last few hours, I’ve had hope for a future I thought gone for good dangled in front of me, been caught up in a savage attack, and feared for the life of the man I can’t exist without. Only to discover that he doesn’t acknowledge me as a fully functioning adult capable of dealing with challenges, someone who might actually be of help to him. And with that, something inside me snaps.
“Do you have any idea how much strength it takes to--” Endure what I did all those years in the gestation chamber? Make sense of the world that I’ve been plunged into? Cope with the astonishing reality of what I am? All that reveals far more than I’m willing to under the present circumstances.
Instead, I retreat a little, taking refuge in what I fully recognize is a metaphor of sorts for everything I have faced. “How much strength it takes to dance? How much stamina? How much pain is involved in making it all look effortless? No, obviously you don�
�t. I am not a toy for you to keep safe on a shelf until you decide that you want to play with me. I’m a woman, your equal in every way. Either you get that, or--”
I break off because the blazing heat in his eyes makes me forget how to breathe.
“Are you giving me an ultimatum, Amelia?”
From the very beginning, I have understood that this wounded prince who walked out of the darkness to claim me is a man to soothe and placate, above all to please. More often than not I know how to do that. But this time when I open my mouth to respond, what comes out sounds inexplicably like, “Yes, I am.”
The night turns suddenly very quiet. I can hear my own breathing and the rapid beat of my heart. The air between us feels charged as though by an oncoming electrical storm. It prickles along my skin, entering through my pores, settling deep within me.
Ian takes a step forward, another. I remain where I am, refusing to back down, unable to look away. The moment stretches out, seemingly endlessly.
And then he is there, right in front of me, his big hands cupping my face with exquisite gentleness. He bends his head, slowly, giving me time to pull away. I see the desperate yearning in his eyes that mirrors my own.
Without thought, I close the small distance between us. My lips brush against his, savoring, tasting, parting. My tongue slips into his mouth and finds his. The passion that explodes between us is instant and overwhelming. It blocks out everything else, even the nearness of death. Or perhaps it is that shared knowledge of our own mortality that fuels it. Life is precious, every moment counts, and we have been apart far too long.
A low growl wells up in him. His hands, gentle moments before, close on me with roughness that far from being frightening, elates me. I want this man, all of him, the light he doesn’t believe exists in him and the dark that I long to banish. As maddening as he can be, he is mine every bit as much as I am his. Whether he understands that or not.
Anew: Book Two: Hunted Page 8