by Mara, Alex
The webbing dropped faster than I'd thought it would, and suddenly Terrell’s left hand and three fingers of his right sat apart from him, cauterized and black at the point of separation.
His sound came feral, like nothing I’d heard from a man before.
Behind him, the doorway opened. Two Gales came through, running at full pelt. They didn’t even seem to touch the ground.
54, who'd taken up the rear, spun hard, the baton slotting to its full length as she awaited the Gales. "Get Terrell through," she said, her back to us.
I scrambled to my feet and lurched to the panel, pressed my finger to the activation. The screen pulsed. Five seconds.
“We have eight seconds before they reach us, Darcy,” Blaze said.
In four seconds, they had covered nearly half the distance.
In five seconds, the guards had released their hook shots. The metal of the first one speared a path toward 54, pulled air where her head had been.
She leaned left, dropped as the second shot speared the spot where her heart had beaten. And she continued on down, her legs swinging around and that baton carving through the hallway, meeting shinbone with cruel force.
Two seconds.
The first Gale went down with the blow, and the other leapt. She rolled onto her shoulder, struck her foot vertical into the air and caught him in the spot that would instantly drop a human or a clone.
"54," I said. "Come through!"
The second Gale fell, but the first was already aiming his hook toward me. 54 rolled, clipped him on the back of the head with the baton. He grunted, lost his aim.
The screen pulsed green, and the webbing began to lift. In a second, Blaze dragged Terrell through by the stump of his hand and the fingers he had left, and then I hit the override button.
A hook followed before the webbing dropped back to the floor, nearly clipping my boot. The second Gale had climbed to his elbows. “Raise webbing at lift 3,” he said into his mic, his voice an unbothered staccato.
So he had been the one who’d called for an emergency override the first time.
"Remember, Darcy," 54 called, yanking the second Gale into a headlock and pulling him bodily over. "You made a promise."
No. No, no. My hand went for the netting's activation, but Blaze stopped me. I spun back around, and from beneath the Gale, 54's soft eyes met mine for a single second. We'd called them sweethearts for a reason.
My face crumpled as I watched the webbing fall between us and her.
Blaze threw his arm over my shoulder, Terrell under the other, and pulled us to the third door. Terrell went slow, stumbling, trying to form words.
“What is it?” I twisted my face around Blaze to see Terrell.
“Let me, let me—” he was saying.
“Your finger, Darcy,” Blaze said, lifting my hand. We were at the third door, and he placed my fingertip on the screen.
“Spit it out, Terrell,” I said, my eyes on the screen.
“We won’t make it. The elevator will be blocked,” he finally managed. He was right: they knew exactly where we were headed, which was why the webbing trap had fallen in the hallway we’d just passed through. They would be lowering the webbing in front of the elevator to stop us. “Take him to the evacuation shaft,” Terrell said. “I’ll hold the stop.”
“What?!” I said. The screen pulsed green, and the door decompressed. “The evacuation shaft emerges outside Beacon. That’s suicide.”
Even as I said it, I knew it was the only chance we had.
The hall appeared before us, deceptively empty—except for that grid of hairlike blue threads, the tell-tale distant hum. To our left sat the door to the evacuation shaft.
The three of us passed through the entrance into the main hall, and I spun toward Terrell. “Come with us."
“You know I won’t fit,” Terrell said, gesturing me on with the two fingers remaining to his right hand. His foot was already pressing the emergency stop. On the other side, one of the hook shots clanged into the metal. They'd gotten past 54. “Don’t cry, West. Just go.”
My face contorted anyway. "No." Blaze’s arm came around my chest, and he found my hand. “I’ll find Maura,” I promised Terrell. “I’ll make sure she’s okay.”
Terrell nodded, his freckles illuminated under the fluorescents.
I backed slowly, turned, and Blaze led me down the tight corridor. Between his speed and the painkiller, my head swam. My finger pressed the lift activation—only two seconds to authorization instead of five for this emergency route—and the door swept open.
Inside, the lift was small, only intended for one person, really. We stepped in together, our chests pressed in the space. The door closed behind us, sealing us into the fluorescent half-light.
We stood still, breathing hard. In the almost-darkness, I stared up at him. “If you’re going to kill me, now’s your chance.”
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“You’re going to get out of here. You don’t need me anymore.”
He almost laughed, but his face registered pain. He pulled me closer to him. “Darcy, don’t you remember what I told you?”
“Told me when?”
“In the interrogation room, after 8017 fell that day.”
I shook my head against his chest. “Sorry—everything’s a bit fuzzy right now.”
“I promised you I would never betray you,” he murmured into my hair. “And I never will. You’re everything to me.”
Tears hit my eyes, and I let a small sob into his chest, the fingers of my good hand grabbing a section of his shirt. He had been truthful, and the overwhelming knowledge of that seeped through my chest like fire.
I leaned back, staring into his green eyes. “I have to tell you something,” I said, my finger touching the button that read G. I depressed it, and with a beep, the lift jerked into motion.
The force was so sudden I felt pressed to the ground, but Blaze’s arms had gone around me. I stared up at him, at his green eyes. Evergreen. They searched my face, his pupils reflecting my own face back at me.
“In a moment, Darcy,” he whispered, and then his mouth came hard over mine. My breath caught at the feel of his lips, soft and firm.
This wasn’t the right time, I thought at first. But then our lips parted, and our tongues met, searching, discovering, and I realized that there would never be a right time.
There was only now. And now felt infinite.
There was so much I had to tell him. That the world would be darker than he ever imagined, and we might not reach the light in time.
That everything would be different—harder, more painful. That he would be hunted. Outside, the night would grip us like a vice. It was a blackness so deep that it even dimmed the stars.
But right now, my mind said only this:
He's the one, Darcy. He's the one.
Available in November: Firestorm
Book 2 in the Infiltrators of Ides series
He's the only thing standing between her and oblivion.
Blaze and Darcy have escaped the Ides facility, but they're far from safe. Terrors lurk aboveground, and with Darcy's shoulder in a tourniquet, and Blaze fresh from cryostasis, the two have to rely on each other to get to safety.
They're headed for the last human bastion, an outpost called Beacon. Darcy still doesn't know if she can trust Blaze not to betray her, but she's thrown in her lot with him. Every look, every touch tells her that he's "the one"—not just for her, but to save humanity.
And Blaze? He's decided on one woman, and he intends to claim her—and protect her—at any cost.
Firestorm is the second novel in the Infiltrators of Ides series, following the romance between Darcy and Blaze. It includes a cliffhanger, but NO cheating. Get ready for dark science fiction, action and adventure, and a couple with so much heat between them you'll need a hand fan.
Hi Reader—
I hope you enjoyed the first installment of Darcy and Blaze’s romance! I loved writing it,
and I think you’ll find book two in the series a real page-turner. Plus, you’ll get the explosive consummation you’ve been waiting for between those two. If you get a chance, it would mean a great deal to me if you’d leave a review for Blaze on Amazon.
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Thanks so much for your support.
Yours sincerely,
Alex