“You can find your way out, I promise. Just follow the trail of breadcrumbs I left in my wake,” Reece said bitingly. “And bybreadcrumbs, I meanbodies.”
The cuffs on Grayson’s ankles popped free. “I’m coming with you,” Grayson said again. “Wherever you go now. We’re staying together.”
Reece stood for a moment with his back to Grayson, hands balled into fists. “Son of a bitch,” he finally muttered. He then turned around. “Okay. Together. ButI’mhandling things.”
Grayson slid off the table and onto his feet. “I can handle myself—” He swayed, blinking hard against the black dots threatening his vision, aware of the goose bumps all over his skin. “Never mind. That’s a damn lie. This is your show. Just find me some clothes.”
From an underground level, they stumbled up the stairs together. Reece should have fucking glowed, the way his empathy was crackling like lightning along his skin.
He could feel fear and fury throughout the facility like dots on a radar. “Ten people on this floor, maybe twenty more still up top.”
Grayson was obviously still woozy, clinging to the railing for support as his bare feet climbed stair after stair. It was enough to make Reece want to head back down and make Nichols suffer more.
But getting Grayson warm, and the absolute hell out of here, was more important. “He needs clothes,” Reece snapped at one of the thralls. “And we need an exit.”
“Barracks,” one of the men in fatigues said eagerly. He was one of the first pair Reece had thralled, after he’d driven the truck through the fence and two men had come running to investigate. “Follow me and Croft.”
They pushed open the door at the landing.
“Freeze—” a voice started.
One of the thralls in a lab coat threw himself ahead of Reece, snarling like a rabid dog. He smacked into the security guard in the hall, and the two of them went crashing to the ground.
“This way!” Croft led them away from the fight, down a hall and through another door into a large room lined with bunk beds every few feet on either side.
“Finally, some heat,” Grayson muttered.
Two of the thralls in fatigues scurried off to a cabinet on the wall. Reece followed Croft down to the end of the room, to a small foyer with a door. “This is how you can get out,” Croft said.
“What’s the security situation?” Reece asked another man in fatigues.
“They’ll have unleashed the dogs by now.” The man cracked the door, and the wind howled past. “But if you cut straight across this field, you can get back to your truck. Snow’s still coming down, though; we got ATVs and snowmobiles, but they’re on the other side of the lab—”
A swirl of snowflakes came in through the open door. “No time to get them,” Reece said. “Every alarm here is going off. Someone is going to be responding to this mess. We’ll get the truck.”
“Can you drive in this?” Grayson asked, catching up. Therewas still a slight slur in his hoarse voice as he tugged a long-sleeved thermal over his head, at least a size too small and not quite reaching the top of the camouflage pants he was now wearing, like a crop top.
Reece waved the question away. “All of you,” he snapped, raising his voice.
His thralls came running over eagerly.
“We’re escaping, and I need you to buy us time, understand?” Reece said to them. “Fuck this place up. And then burn it down.”
The thralls cheered. “Weapons locker is this way!” one of them shouted.
“Damn, Reece,” he heard Grayson mutter as the thralls scattered.
It took only a moment for Grayson to pull on the army boots and coat. And then they were plunging out into the snowstorm, the wind making Reece’s eyes water as ice-cold droplets stung his face.
“You didn’t answer my question about whether you can drive in this,” Grayson shouted over the wind.
“Because nobody should drive in this weather,” Reece shouted back.
Behind them, the alarms were still blaring. A few steps forward and the flat area in front of the lab became an abrupt incline that disappeared into darkness, forcing them to temper their speed to the steep ground as they fought their way through the snow.
“I think I smell smoke,” Grayson said as they stumbled downhill. “And I definitely hear dogs.”
“And I can’t fucking thrall dogs.” Reece spotted an opening between the dark outlines of two trees. “Let’s try this path.”
