Hadley gave a weak smile, “Anything.”
“Do you know?”
Hadley couldn’t be positive about what she was talking about, but only one thing came to her mind. She didn’t want to admit it if Jinni was talking about something else. But how would Jinni even know?
Before Hadley could say anything else, Jinni just blankly said, “Do you know about Saul?”
“Yes.” Hadley replied without thinking.
“I thought so.” Jinni smiled weakly.
“How do you know Jinni?”
Jinni wrung her hands together, and Hadley walked towards her desperate for any information. Hadley was always thirsty for it since she got a taste, she craved knowledge. She needed any answers that anyone had. She didn’t care who it was coming from.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Saul’s my brother Had.”
Hadley was not expecting that, “Why aren’t you with him then?”
“I’ve never agreed with him, or you. I liked the idea for a minute, but I never agreed with your tactics.” Jinni stated plainly. Then she turned on a heel and walked away, leaving Hadley alone once again.
Chapter Fifty-One
Hadley’s long hair was blowing all over the place and kept whipping her in the face. She knew she should have tied it up, but it was too late now. She looked around expectantly and saw a figure pull himself over the ledge. His hood was up and he was dressed all in black. He brushed off his pants and stood up.
There stood the tall daunting figure of Saul.
“Hi!” she yelled over the whistling wind.
“Hi!” he yelled back.
Saul rushed towards her and grabbed her hand harshly. He thrust the flash drive into it. His hand was warm and his touch sent lightning bolts up her arm and down her spine.
“I’ll be waiting when the helicopters land after your mission whenever that might be.”
“How did you know?”
“Oh Evans, we know more than you think.”
He winked at her and ran back to the edge of the building and jumped over. She gasped and rushed forward to see him rappelling down the side of the building. He smiled up at her with a wicked smile.
“Nice one!” Hadley yelled down to him.
“Always,” he yelled back and disappeared into the impending darkness below. Hadley couldn’t help but smile. The colour crept up her neck; she was blushing in the dark, completely alone. Her stomach was full of butterflies. She put her head down and ran back to the door.
She had about three hours until she needed to be at the helicopters for the evacuation mission and rescue plan. At that point she wouldn’t be able to get into Hemmer’s office until much later. Even now she had no idea if he would be there or how’d she’d get in. She was flying by the seed of her pants.
She ran down the metal stairs that lead to the roof and emerged into the hallway below. She walked towards the bird’s nest. She got within distance and saw Hemmer was sitting in his office. He was slamming his hands into his keyboard, typing away on his computer. She sighed and sat in a dark corner, waiting patiently.
She waited and waited. People started to go back to their bunks, and the atrium became empty. She had a rough idea of how I was going to get into the office. Who was I kidding? She thought. It had never occurred to her that she would have to get into his office immediately after getting the flash drive. She knew the storm was coming but she assumed she would have a few days to get the drive into Hemmer’s computer. She probably should have thought this out.
She watched the hands on the clock slowly move until he finally got up. She wondered if he had ever watched her for this long. The thought made her shudder. He turned off the light and closed the door behind him.
It occurred to Hadley almost too late that he was walking straight towards her. She dove deeper into the corner where she hid with her back pressed up against the wall and watched him walk by through the shadows. She waited patiently listening to his footsteps fade into the distance.
Then she went for it. She was at the door in no time and tried the lock. It was useless as she knew it would be; he had locked it.
She pictured what it would be like had she brought a bobby pin. Then she could have played a cat burglar and picked the lock. But alas, she had no small thin metal objects on her and even if she did she had only seen primitive break-ins in the movies. Those types of things hadn’t been able to pick locks in almost 500 years.
She searched around her, looking for another way in. The glass windows of the entire office were bullet proof. She looked up and down for a spare key. A heat vent. Any way into a room that any classic action movie with Brad Pitt had taught her. Nada.
She paced up and down, knowing her time was running out. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a sign on a door: Maintenance room. She walked to it not getting her hopes up it would be open.
When the door opened with ease she was astonished. Someone had obviously forgotten to lock it. Which she knew was against Hemmer and Kane’s protocol of locking all doors. They were almost paranoid.
The room was bigger than she expected. It was lines and lines of shelves with every tool and instrument you could imagine. Hadley grabbed a hammer and a screw driver. As she left she saw a mallet and grabbed it just in case. She hit the doorknob on the maintenance room as hard as she could with it. The doorknob fell to the ground and rolled away with a deafening ring. She had no intention of getting anyone eliminated for her own break in.
She went to Hemmer’s office and started to try to break in with the screw driver. She fiddled with the screws but soon realized they were welded on. She exhaled and grabbed the mallet. She reached her arms above her head and brought it down hard on the lock. The sound echoed through the hallways. She hit it again, and again, and again until she watched to lock fall off, hanging by a single bolt. It took almost 50 swings before the fragile looking lock had broken. Then she pushed open the door and took a step into the office.
The sound of the alarm made her jump. Her heart pounded out of her chest. Her palms became moist as she frantically searched her pocket for the drive. She listened as the alarm echoed through the hallways and atrium. It was so loud it was making her head ache. She ran to the computer knowing backup would be here soon and plugged the flash drive into the side. Nothing happened on the screen but a little bar across the drive started to fill with green light. She smiled. Elijah is a genius! Her brain exclaimed. She made a mental note to tell him that when she saw him, if she got out of this alive.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw men running towards the bird’s nest a few floors below. She dove under the heavy giant mahogany coloured desk and held her breath. A pair of feet walked up and stood right in front of her. So close if she reached out she could have touched them.
“Find them!” Kane yelled. He was the one standing right there. He tapped his fingers on the desk and waited. After a few minutes he sat down on Hemmer’s chair and as he kicked his feet under the table his foot made contact with her nose.
This brought tears to her eyes but she didn’t dare make a sound. She sat there letting the tears and blood run down her face. Then, someone came into the room.
“No sign of anyone sir. We’ve checked everywhere. They must have scattered when the alarm went off.” It was Jeremiah’s voice.
Kane swung his feet back and forth. Hadley pressed herself against the inside of the desk as far back as she could. “Smart move. It doesn’t seem like anything was taken. The computer is still locked and password protected. For now, we will forget it as there is a lot to do tonight.”
“Yes sir,” Jeremiah answered.
“Is everything ready?”
“Of course. It will go as planned.”
“I don’t need to remind you of the importance of Hadley not meeting Katrina.”
“No sir. We all understand.”
“Good.”
They left the room and the alarm and lights shut off. Who
is Katrina? Hadley crawled out from under the desk and didn’t bother to clean up the blood even though they would trace it back to her, it was too late.
She stood up and grabbed the flash-drive, surprised they hadn’t found it. She tucked it into her sports bra for protection. She ran out of the room expecting the quiet hallway to be deserted but Kane was waiting.
“Get what you needed?”
“Kane!” She was scared and surprised. Her eyes went wide and they stood staring at each other for a moment. She backed up slightly.
“I knew you were under the desk, but I was scared Jeremiah might kill you if I told him.”
“Why didn’t you let him?”
“I don’t want you dead, but this was something else Had.”
“I thought everyone wanted me dead.”
“How could you think that?”
Without thinking she whispered, “Don’t lie to me. Haven’t you two done it before?”
The colour drained completely out of his face. He was whiter than a ghost. He was not expecting those words to come out of her mouth.
“What?!” he whispered, his face emotionless.
Hadley studied him for a moment, betrayed she breathed, “You know. Don’t pretend. He would have just killed me again. Like the first time in the video.”
“But how do you know?” Hadley could see that his world was crumbling beneath him. She could see it. There was a swirling black abyss that was about to swallow him whole. She suppressed an urge to laugh in his face.
“Does it matter? You are a filthy lying scum bag. You disgust me.” Hadley went to slap him but he grabbed her hand. His reflexes were faster than hers. She spat in his face. He let go of her and wiped his face clean with his sleeve. Hadley turned on her heel and walked away.
“Hadley, wait!”
Hadley paused for a moment, waiting.
“You’re supposed to be with me. You always have been. Since you were just my student in a class.”
Hadley didn’t turn around but she replied, “You controlling piece of shit.”
“You’re everything to me, I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again, I love you.”
“You don’t though. You love the idea of fucking one of your students.”
She didn’t even look back to see his jaw drop to the floor. The rage spread across his face. Luckily she had made him forget that she had been in Hemmer’s office. He didn’t follow her. He couldn’t move; he was paralyzed and raging so he just watched her go. It was silent except for Hadley’s echoing footsteps.
For once, she had beaten him at his own mind control game.
Chapter Fifty-Two
There was a chill in the air, and the clouds were building up, preparing for the worst. The sky knew that the storm was coming, and that before long it would roll in with more power than ever before.
Hadley tucked the flash drive into a side pocket in her sports bra. She knew it would be safe there for the time being. She actually hoped it would be safe there until she had to give it back to Saul.
She hadn’t let her guard down for a minute for fear of Kane or Hemmer showing up in her room. Instead, since she had gotten back to her room she had sat holding a handgun she had stolen from the armory on the edge of her bed.
But they hadn’t come.
Kane hadn’t run to Hemmer. He hadn’t ratted her out, he hadn’t run to his superior to tell him who had stolen his information. Looking back, she wondered how long he had stood there staring after her.
Hadley zipped up her eco-jacket, which was made out of a compostable material that was waterproof and bulletproof. Her pants and gloves were made out of the same material, both were completely dark grey with minimal pockets and stitching.
She walked into the kitchen. Her eyes were red and her wits on end. She looked around, frightened at every little thing. Jeremiah, Stephen and Pax were sitting at the table. They were talking in hushed tones. Hadley coughed to make her presence known. She didn’t want to appear to be eavesdropping. Jeremiah would probably kill her for that, and she didn’t even joke about it.
They turned to look at her, quieting their conversation.
“Hey,” she said casually and went to the hot coffee pot. She opened the cupboard and grabbed a mug. She poured the coffee into it. She watched the ripples through the black liquid. She turned and leaned against the counter looking at the three men sitting at the table. She took a sip of coffee.
“Long day, Hadley?” Jeremiah growled
Hadley lifted an eyebrow and raised her mug to him as though to cheers. It took all her composure to act as though absolutely nothing was wrong, “Not at all, I was having a nap until the alarm went off. Any idea what happened?”
Jeremiah raised an eyebrow back at her, he was not buying it. She knew that she had hastily covered up her broken nose and black eye with some cover up and healing spray but she knew half her face still appeared blue. They were probably running the blood from the floor this morning and would be waiting for me at the rescue launch today. After that she didn’t know what would happen. All she cared about was getting the thumb drive back to Saul, no matter the reason he needed it.
“Someone broke into Hemmer’s office last night.” Stephen said casually. He swirled his spoon through his bowl. She took another sip of her coffee, taking in the information and giving it a second to settle.
“How is that even possible?” she asked with a little too much surprise. Hadley looked down avoiding their eye contact.
Pax furrowed his brow and looked at her quizzically. “They didn’t break in very well. They literally bashed the door in. Needed some strength to do that.” Her heart skipped a beat; that might have been the out she needed.
“That’s intense. I don’t think I could ever break in a door.” She looked at her arms and gave them a weak flex, almost willing them to look weak. Pax and Stephen laughed. Pax got up awkwardly, attempting to not give away their current disdain to anyone else.
Jeremiah was still staring daggers through her, but he left it be with a shake of his head. At least for now, she thought.
“All right lads, 20 minutes until take off. I’ll see all of you in the courtyard.” He gave a nod to Stephen and Pax and walked out of the room.
Stephen, looking awkward, grabbed his bowl and stood up. He walked past Hadley and Pax, avoiding eye contact. He gave Pax a slight punch in the arm and dropped his bowl in the sink. Then he hurried out of the room.
They stood in the kitchen, side by side leaning against the counter. Hadley took another sip of her coffee and finished the rest in her mug. She was so tired she turned around and poured herself another steaming cup. She looked sideways at Pax. “Ready?”
“You know it!”
She smiled at him, feeling the exhaustion sinking over her. Pax always had the easy air of confidence; he knew exactly what he was doing tonight. He looked at Hadley, completely head over heels with her. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he looked at her.
Hadley just yawned and took another sip of coffee. She was off in her own little world.
He grinned at her and side stepped so his chest pressed up against her back. He wrapped his arms around her stomach and she moulded into him. He put his head on her shoulder. “You’re going to be careful tonight right?”
“Only if you are?” she yawned.
He squeezed her tightly. “I have to live a little on the wild side.”
She took a sip of coffee and slowly turned around. She smiled at Pax holding her coffee mug with two hands in between their chests. She took another sip and held the coffee cup at her lips.
“You are so cute.” Pax said. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. She took her coffee cup and placed it on the counter. She wrapped her arms around his neck. He closed his arms tighter around her. She rested her head on his shoulder, almost falling asleep on his muscular shoulder.
It took her breath away. “Pax?”
“Yeah Had?”
“I’m sorry you
know?”
“We don’t have to talk about this now,” he said pulling away.
“Is there anything to even talk about though?” The words escaped her lips before she could stop them. As she felt them slip over her tongue she immediately regretted them.
“Stop pushing me away Hadley.”
“I can’t let you in.”
“Why not?”
Vanya, Jinni and Kirsten walked into the room. “Oh sorry didn’t mean to interrupt!” Jinni taunted shielding her eyes dramatically. She threw herself backwards and peaked out from the corner. Pax took a step backing up even further. She blushed, picking up her coffee cup again embarrassed.
The three girls giggled as they walked in.
“You both have rooms here—” Kirsten said as if offended, but a smile broke across her face. Hadley gulped back a mouthful of coffee. She half coughed on it. Pax smirked at all of them. He knew how private of a person Hadley was but he liked thinking for a moment they were together if everyone else did. She, however, really didn’t like that everyone knew about her and Pax. It was her own business not theirs.
“Midnight breakfast anyone?” Hadley said to cut the tension.
“Nah, we best get to the helicopters,” Jinni said and they all walked out of the room. Hadley set her coffee cup in the automated ecofriendly dishwasher on their way out.
Soon they emerged onto the helipad. Three Super stallions were ready to go. Their propellers were already running. The large helicopters had been redesigned a hundred times but had kept the classic look and power. Though now they could travel over 3000 km before refuelling. Everyone was just waiting around. Jeremiah was standing near the walkway to the helipad. He was glaring at Hadley so she gave him a brilliant smile; she knew it would set his teeth on edge. She continued to walk past him with Pax and the girls. Jeremiah grabbed her arm and pulled her back. He pulled her into a corner before anyone could stop him, and Hadley could hear his heavy breathing.
Jeremiah shoved her up roughly against the wall and the air was pushed out of her lungs. She coughed trying to get her breath back. He just pushed his forearm against her chest harder.
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