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“Bran...” I started to say.
He grunted, grabbed my wrist and yanked me until I fell into him. His fingers snarled into my hair, grabbing the back of my head while his other hand went around my waist.
His lips crushed against mine, cutting off any words.
Instinct took over at first. When his lips parted, my eyes closed. I was still out of breath and he broke the kiss enough that I could suck down air, and then he met my lips again harder than before, not giving me enough time to think or breathe.
His hands moved over me constantly. At first he cupped my head, massaging it through the tangle of my hair, tracing his thumbs across my cheeks. His fingertips slid down toward my neck, tracing, sending warm waves through me even as I shivered from his touch.
At first his lips were strong, deliberate. Like he had done it to shut me up initially. When I responded, he relaxed. His head tilted and he deepened the kiss. His body closed the space between us. His chest and stomach pressed up against mine.
In a crazy way, I needed to feel him, connect with him. What happened to you? Are you really here? We were kidnapped! How crazy was that?
No one seemed to understand that there had been a moment when everything was normal and suddenly I was dragged into a nightmare and without a way to get out.
Brandon understood. He told me with his kiss. He’d been there. He was here now. They might even still be following us, but we still had this, each other. We had a moment where we were alone and alive, knowing the other was okay and breathing.
It felt good and damn if we were going to give up now.
When he eased his kisses some and I’d caught my breath enough, the questions began swirling in my head. I didn’t want to stop kissing, but I still needed to know. “Bran—”
He smashed his lips against me and kissed me until I almost forgot the question. He finally stilled and then released me. “Shh,” he whispered against my lips, staying close and covering my cheeks with his palms. “Sorry. I couldn’t help it. Don’t say anything.”
“But…you?” I couldn’t believe he was here. I touched him, like somehow touching him would erase all the fears I’d had about losing him. “When? How?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean, where’s...the kidnappers...?”
“They’re outside. They’re waiting on me. I told them I could come in and get you.”
“Why? How could you? They let you go to get me?”
“They’re in trouble,” he said. “We all are. They aren’t murderers. They’re just desperate. I said I wouldn’t move an inch to help them.”
“I know,” I said. “I met the other team. One of them anyway...”
“God, you...” he whispered against me. He kissed me hard, closed mouth, his jaw clenched. His fingers twisted into my scalp, grabbing gently at my hair. “I never thought I’d see you again for a while there.”
Through all the panic in trying to find him, I couldn’t imagine what he’d gone through, willing to sacrifice himself just to stop bad guys from chasing after me. “Why didn’t you jump with me?”
“I needed to save Corey,” he said. “And you. They would have hunted us down quickly if they didn’t have who they thought they wanted. Better to be a decoy for a while.”
“Do they still think you’re Corey?”
He nodded. “They found something he’s been working on that had the same DepthCrawler ID. He should have known better than to leave a signature they could trace back to him.” He kissed me again and then stopped and backed up a few feet. I could see, even in the low light, that he wore a tank shirt and dark slacks. The shirt was tight, showing off his chest and his defined muscles. Even his Adonis belt appeared deeper. The effect in the dim room was striking.
“It wasn’t Corey’s fault,” I said. “He told the guy no before.”
He pointing a finger at me. “He said he’d seen you before. The leader. Eddie. How do you know him?”
“I saw him. When I was with Corey…”
“When?” he asked. “I mean, what time? I don’t remember.”
“That day you guys first brought me to the apartment. Corey took a walk with me around the lake next to the apartment building. The German...”
“German?” he asked.
I guessed Corey hadn’t said anything about this. “Sorry. Eddie, I think. He said something to Corey in German and then Corey told him to go away. I didn’t know his name.”
“Shit,” Brandon took a few steps and then roughed his fingers through his hair. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He turned them down,” I said. “And then there was Coaltar and my brother.”
He grunted and started walking. “We need to go.”
“Wait,” I said. I picked up the phone. “Avery?”
“Still here,” he said. “In traffic but I’m getting there.”
“Who the hell is that?” Brandon asked.
“A cab’s on the way,” I said. “I needed to escape.”
Brandon scowled. “Why did you...”
“We don’t have time,” I blurted out. Now that the initial shock of him being back was over, I needed to bring him up to speed quickly. “Marc and Axel were taken by Alice.”
“Alice?” he asked.
“She’s on the other team,” I said. “She’s...she poisoned the guys.”
Brandon lifted a suspicious eyebrow.
It did sound crazy. I mean, who uses poison? “She said we had twenty-four hours to get the core or it’s going to kill Axel and Marc.”
He grabbed my arms, making me drop the phone on the floor. “What do you mean? Axel was here?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Who do you think brought me here?”
Brandon pressed his palm to his eye and shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on. I keep getting shoved into trunks. I guess Eddie didn’t want…Alice to know they had me.”
“Alice already knows. They’re using me to get to you, and for us to go get this core. Axel and Marc were here with me, trying to get your kidnappers to chase us and bring you in.”
“I heard they were following you when you got to downtown Charleston. I didn’t know who was with you. Why aren’t you all at the hospital? I thought Axel would bring everyone there.”
“We went looking for this Randall Jones.”
Brandon pursed his lips. “They told me about him. Someone killed him and stole his phone. They don’t know who. They think it is the same people who are hunting them now. Their team keeps getting killed off...” He turned and then faced the wall. “They could be lying, too,” he said. “I don’t really trust them.”
“Avery’s on the way,” I said. “He’s bringing his cab. We should go with him.”
Brandon’s head jerked back and he started barking at me, “A cab driver? I thought for some reason he was someone in the Academy. You’re saying he’s not?”
“He can help!” I cried. “We need to get away and get this core. We give them the core, we get Axel and Marc back. We can sort it out after, once everyone is safe. That was Axel’s plan. We’ll follow it, just now we’ve got to save Axel and Marc.”
“God, you’re so...crazy. You shouldn’t have...you...” He turned and rushed me, kissing my cheek before I realized what was happening, and then slid his mouth to my ear. “This is all fucked up. We need to get out of here.” He picked up the phone and talked into it. “Avery? No, this is Brandon. Never mind, listen... No, I was kidnapped, too. Hang on, just pick us up at the south service entrance. You know the one? Yeah.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he said. He hung up the phone and tugged me toward the door.
Out in the hallway, Brandon hurried, pulling me along with him. I had to jog to keep up with his longer strides. I didn’t have a chance to look back, but I sensed we were running from someone chasing us.
Once we were out in the public area, we melted in with the crowd. There was a group of school kids mixed
in with a few tourists. Brandon weaved his way through the space like he’d been in this building a lot. I supposed if Axel worked here, they got a chance to visit.
Brandon stopped in front of a doorway marked employees only. He checked around and then bolted through the door. I chased after him.
“Why are we running?” I asked. “They can’t do anything if we’re in public, right?”
“Hurry,” he said. “I thought I saw...”
There were footsteps behind us, heavy ones.
When I tried to stop and turn around to see who it was, Brandon grabbed my arm and tugged me along. He could probably run faster than I could, but he seemed to want to keep himself close to me.
