by Paula Graves
She met his gaze. “When I woke up and discovered my parents were missing, my first thought was how utterly alone I was without them. Even though we don’t even live in the same state, I always knew I could call my mom or my dad to talk if I had something on my mind. And suddenly, I had something terrible happen to me and there was no one to talk to.” She brushed tears from her eyes. “But then, suddenly, you were there. All the time, every time I opened my eyes or turned around.”
“Like a bad penny.”
“Like a lifeline.” She unfolded her legs, dropped her feet to the floor and leaned forward, touching his face. “And I want you. I want you with me. I want you to hold me, to let me hold you.” She dropped her hand to his bad knee. “I want to take away your pain and help you get better. I want to know what it feels like to wake up in your arms in the morning.”
She spoke the words flatly, straightforwardly, without a hint of provocation. But their seductive power nearly ripped the breath from his lungs. Not just because she was confessing her desire for him but because her words so perfectly summed up how he was feeling as well.
“You feel it, too, don’t you?” she asked, rising to stand over him again.
He stood, cradling her face between his hands. “Yes.”
“Does it scare you as much as it scares me?”
He bent his head, resting his forehead against hers. “Yes.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Stop thinking about it so much,” he answered, bending to kiss her.
She rose to her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer, her body aligning with his so exquisitely he had the crazy sensation that she’d been created specifically for him, and he for her. Her mouth was perfect, soft where it should be soft and firm where it should be firm. Her touch was alchemical, everywhere her fingers grazed his skin turning to fire.
She drew him backward with her, toward the bed, and together they fell onto the soft mattress in a tangle of arms and legs. He had just drawn his mouth away from hers to ask whether she was sure about what they were doing when the room went utterly black.
He froze, his pulse thundering in his ears. Except for their ragged breathing, there was no other sound to be heard, not even the ubiquitous hum of electricity through the wires.
Come on, auxiliary power, he thought. Kick in.
Please, kick in.
But ten seconds passed and nothing happened.
“What is it?” Annie asked, her voice faint and trembling.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Auxiliary power should have kicked in after ten seconds.” He rolled away from her and sat up, digging in his pocket for his flashlight. He ran it around the room until he spotted their supply bag and hurried to pull his Glock and holster from inside.
“What does it mean that it didn’t?” she asked.
He strapped the gun to the waistband of his jeans and looked at her in the faint beam of his flashlight. She looked scared and vulnerable, and the urge to protect her at any cost gave fuel to his determination.
“Nothing good,” he said.
Chapter Fourteen
“Damn it.” Wade shoved his cell phone into the pocket of his jeans. “Cell service is out.”
“Blocked intentionally?” Annie felt herself skating precariously on the edge of panic. She had to keep herself together. If they were in as much danger as Wade clearly believed, he didn’t need to be saddled with someone in full freak-out mode.
“Most likely.” Wade edged his way to the door and opened it quickly, taking a peek outside. “We need to get to Jesse. He may know more about what’s going on. Plus, safety in numbers.”
She knew he was right. Whatever was going on outside, they were sitting ducks in here. On the move, they had half a chance to escape.
But even with Wade and his big black gun by her side as they crept out into the darkened corridor, Annie felt as if she wore a neon target on her back. There were no lights in the hallway, and very little ambient light bleeding through from the handful of rooms with open doors. Wade didn’t seem fazed by the darkness, moving with unexpected grace down the hallway, sweeping the open rooms in search of lurking shadows and hidden threats. Encountering nothing on the current floor, they slipped into the stairwell at the end of the hall.
Wade wrapped his arm around her shoulders, holding her close. The heat of his body enveloped her, doing wonders for her shattered nerves. “Be still and quiet. Let’s just listen.”
Her heart was pounding too relentlessly in her ears for her to be able to hear much else, but Wade seemed satisfied, after a couple of moments, that they were alone in the stairwell. “Jesse’s office is in the next building over. We need to go down two flights and then take the covered walkway to the main building.”
He moved ahead slowly, leading with care as they descended two pitch-black flights of stairs. Reaching the door at the second landing, Wade paused, catching Annie’s hand in his own. “Once we get out in the walkway, we’ll be exposed. It’s glassed in but not closed in. Anyone outside the building can see us moving. The glass is bullet-resistant, but—”
Her pulse notched up wildly. “Should we take it at a run?”
“If you’re up to it, yeah. Not a bad idea.” Wade pushed at the door but it didn’t open.
“What’s wrong?” Annie asked, her nerves rattling.
“Something’s blocking the door.” Wade pushed his shoulder against the door again, digging in harder. The door moved forward a few inches, allowing him room to slip through the narrow opening.
“Wait,” he said as Annie followed him through the dark gap, but it was too late. Her foot caught on something just on the other side of the door and she sprawled forward, landing painfully hard on her side.
“Annie!” Wade’s arms wrapped around her, tugging her close. “Are you okay?”
She felt something warm and wet beneath her hand. A metallic odor burned in her nose.
Blood.
She scrambled backward, out of Wade’s grip, and rubbed her hand frantically against the nubby carpet. “Wade?” Her voice wavered.
She heard a soft snick and light glowed across the floor. A few feet in front of her, his body partially wedged against the door, lay a man in a dark blue security guard uniform. His head was twisted at an odd angle and blood pooled, crimson-black, around his upper torso.
“Who is it?” she breathed.
“Fiorello, one of the guards.”
“Is he dead?” The question seemed stupid, considering how utterly dead the man looked.
“Yes.” Wade reached her side and pulled her to her feet, wrapping his strong arm around her shoulder again. “Let’s go find Jesse.”
“Take it at a run?” she whispered, gazing at the long, dark corridor ahead. Glass encircled the top half of the tunnel, revealing a star-sprinkled night sky above and thick stands of trees on either side of the building.
Shooters could be standing behind any of those trees, she thought. She forced the image to the back of her mind, where she’d tucked her panic moments earlier.
They clasped hands and started running through the corridor, moving at a pace that felt entirely too slow for Annie. She could almost feel dozens of invisible eyes on them as they ran, gazing in through the fragile-looking glass bubble over their heads.
As they neared the far end of the corridor, a door opened and two dark figures glided into the corridor.
Wade stopped abruptly, pulling Annie behind him.
“Wade?”
Annie felt Wade’s body relax. “Yeah. What’s going on with the power?”
“Not sure.” Jesse Cooper moved slowly toward them, a slim, dark-haired woman pulling up the rear. Annie couldn’t make out much about her features, but there was something about her that seemed familiar.
“We just found Fiorello dead at the other end of the tunnel,” Wade warned. “Looks like a gunshot wound to the throat.”
Jesse muttered a low profanity. “Any sign of Hotchkiss or Fordham?�
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“Not so far,” Wade answered. “Can we get out of this shooting gallery and go somewhere covered?”
Jesse backed toward the door and led them into the main office building. “The backup generator never kicked in.”
“I know.” Wade kept his arm firmly around Annie’s waist, the hard heat of his body a welcome distraction from her escalating fear. “I think we have to assume there are already bad guys inside the castle walls.”
“Maybe just one,” the dark-haired woman said quietly.
“He isn’t working alone,” Jesse disagreed. He turned on a flashlight, spreading a pale glow through the narrow corridor in which they now stood.
“Who isn’t working alone?” Wade asked.
“Derek Fordham,” Jesse answered. “Evie came across some discrepancies in his expense vouchers—”
Evie, Annie thought, finally placing the familiar-looking brunette. “Evie Marsh?”
Evie looked up at her, smiling slightly. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember me. It’s been a long time, and you always spent more time with Rita.”
“We really need to talk to your father,” Annie said flatly.
“I know. I’ve tried to talk to him but he shuts me out.”
“Let’s see if we can get to the vaults,” Jesse interrupted. “It has an added layer of protection to work with.”
“But no way out,” Wade protested.
“You’re not going to need a way out,” Jesse said, already moving toward the stairwell at the end of the corridor. “I’m going to get out of here and get help. Your job is to stay here and keep Evie and Annie safe.”
Annie felt Wade’s body go tense beside her, though he said nothing aloud. She caught his hand in hers and gave it a strong squeeze.
His gaze shifted, locking with hers for a moment. She gazed up at him, infusing as much trust as she could in that one look. She was beginning to understand Wade Cooper, what he feared and what he needed. Right now, more than anything, he needed to believe in himself and his ability to keep them all safe.
“Okay,” Wade said. “We’ll stay here and hunker down.”
“I need a weapon,” Evie said.
Jesse looked doubtful. “Evie—”
“So help me, if you say I’m just an accountant one more time, I’m going to slug you.” Evie’s chin came up. “You’re the one who decided to train clerks the same way you’d train field operatives. Let me do what I’ve learned.”
“Okay.” Jesse led them forward through the darkened corridors until he reached a room fitted with a large steel door and multiple locks. He pulled out a set of keys and opened the door, which led into a small vault stocked with a wide assortment of weapons.
“You have a preference?” Jesse asked Evie.
“How about that Kel-Tec compact?”
Jesse retrieved the compact pistol and a holster for her. He unlocked a drawer nearby and pulled out a couple of boxes of ammunition as well, handing them over to Evie to load the pistol.
Annie eyed the weapons on the wall, wondering if she would be more dangerous armed than not. She knew her way around a pistol; her father had taken her target shooting many times when she was younger and made sure she knew how to take care of a weapon, from cleaning it to shooting it. But living in D.C. for the past ten years, she hadn’t spent much time around weapons. It had been a long time since she’d been target shooting.
“Do you know how to use a weapon?” Wade asked her quietly.
“Yes, but it’s been a while.”
“Would you feel safer armed?”
She looked up at him. “I feel safe with you.”
His expression softened. “But would you feel even safer with a weapon?”
“I think I’d be better off without a weapon someone could take from me,” she decided.
“That’s settled, then,” Jesse said. “I’ve got to get a move on.”
“Be careful,” Wade said as they walked with Jesse out of the armory into the corridor. “Don’t play the hero—if you can’t get out, get back here and cover your tail.”
“I’ll get out,” Jesse said with confidence. Annie didn’t know if he really believed what he was saying or if he’d gotten very good at pretending to be invulnerable. Either way, she found herself sharing his certainty that he’d find some way out of the complex.
But what happened then? If Jesse was right and the building was already under silent siege, would she, Evie and Wade become hostages in a deadly standoff?
“The vault is on the third floor,” Wade murmured, leading them back into the stairwell.
“Is there a bathroom where I can wash the blood off my hands?” she asked.
He gave her a sympathetic look and led her back into the corridor. “Second door on the right.”
She went inside the restroom and scrubbed her bloodstained hand clean, fighting a light wave of nausea. As she walked back out to where the others were waiting, she realized her legs were beginning to ache from all the walking, the burn in her muscles giving her an odd sense of déjà vu.
She’d been left standing for hours at a time early in her captivity, her hands tied to a hook overhead to keep her from sitting on the floor. Sleep had been next to impossible. Not that her captors had cared. Sleep deprivation had no doubt been part of their intent in keeping her from sitting or lying down. They’d wanted her broken. Malleable.
“Are you okay?” Wade asked as she reached them.
She nodded. “I was just remembering—they kept me on my feet for days. My leg muscles were jelly by the time they were done with me.”
“I guess they’re feeling pretty jelly-like at the moment, huh? All this running around.”
She managed a soft huff of laughter. “Yeah. Feeling the burn.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Evie said from behind them, a wry tone to her voice, “I’m feeling the burn a bit myself. “
“Just another flight to go.” Wade led them back into the stairwell and headed upward. He was barely limping at all, Annie noticed with a secret smile. Maybe the chance to play the hero again had been all he really needed to push past the slowdown in his rehab.
They emerged from the stairwell into the pitch-black main corridor of the third floor. What little illumination twilight had shed on the darkened office had now died away, starlight too weak to offer more than the faintest break in the relentless gloom.
“Should we use the flashlight, or is it safer to stay dark?” Annie asked.
“We can use the flashlight once we’re in the vault.” Wade moved forward slowly, his hand sliding with a whisper of friction against the wall as he led the way. Annie stayed close to him, her hand curled in the tail of his T-shirt, while Evie brought up the rear.
They had made it almost halfway down the hallway when Annie heard a soft gasp behind her. She tugged Wade’s shirt, halting him. “Evie?” she whispered.
There was the sound of a scuffle somewhere in the dark behind them. Wade whipped around and swung the flashlight up, the beam cutting through the darkness. The light caught Annie right in the eyes, contracting her pupils painfully and forcing her to shut her eyes against the brightness. Brilliant afterimages burned behind her eyelids as she groped closer to Wade.
“Don’t move!” Wade called out, and as she felt his arm move upward, she realized he had pulled his weapon. Instinctively, she dropped to the floor, out of his field of fire.
There were more scuffling sounds down the hallway, including soft feminine grunts of effort and a distinctly masculine growl of pain. She peered down the hall, trying to make sense of the two shadows writhing together a few feet away in one of the open doorways.
Suddenly, one of the two shadows broke away from the other. Evie, Annie saw as the younger woman raced down the hallway toward them, her short legs churning.
Wade pulled both Evie and Annie behind him. “How many?” he asked.
“Just one. Male. I think he may have been wearing a ski mask or something over his face,” Evie
answered breathlessly. “He went into the IT unit—he’s probably headed for the exit at the end of the hall.”
Wade looked at them, clearly torn between going after the masked man and sticking close to Evie and Annie. He decided to stay put. “We’ll never beat him to the exit.” He placed his hand low on Annie’s back, gently urging her down the hall ahead of him. “Evie, you watch our backside. You held onto the Kel-Tec, didn’t you?”
She showed him the compact pistol.
They inched up the hallway until they reached a large set of double doors. Wade turned the knob of the nearest door. It rattled uselessly in his hand, not budging.
“It’s locked,” he said. “It’s never locked.”
“Try the other doorknob,” Evie suggested.
He did as she suggested, with similar results. “Locked tight.”
“And you don’t have a key?” Annie asked.
“It’s never locked,” he repeated, sounding frustrated.
“Can you pick it?” Evie suggested.
Wade pulled a small multiblade knife from his pocket. “Not my area of expertise, but I’ll give it a try.”
The tension coiled in Annie’s gut tightened painfully as she watched Wade work at the lock. Despite his disclaimer, he seemed to know what he was doing. Within a couple of minutes, she heard an audible click from within the door latch, and the handle turned in Wade’s hand.
He pushed open the door carefully, leading with his Glock. Evie edged forward, the Kel-Tec in hand as well, and together, she and Wade swept the room.
Annie stayed in the rear, the skin on her back rippling as if phantom fingers played across her flesh. She darted a quick look down the hall behind her but saw nothing but a deep, black void.
“Is it clear?” she whispered.
“Sort of,” Wade answered. He reached back and pulled her with him inside the room, closing the doors behind them. Evie’s flashlight was on, painting the room with a narrow beam of light. Annie followed the beam to its end point and sucked in a quick, shocked gasp.
On the floor in front of a large steel door lay two crumpled bodies, both in uniform. Wade stepped forward, into the beam of light, and bent next to the bodies to check their pulses. He looked up at Evie and Annie, squinting against the beam of the flashlight. He shook his head. “Both dead.”