Page 96 of Bared

“You’re right,” he said beneath his breath. With the same hard focus, he tightened his grip against hers. “Let’s get the fuck out of h—”

More shouts now. So much closer.

Shit.

Then the damn flashlight beams—also perilously close.

Shit!

“Brickham!” Jayd’s cry was nearly a wail. “They are—”

“I know.” And he did, without the translation he’d cut her short on.

They were caught in too many crosshairs again. But he was determined to get her out. Him too, if providence smiled—but that remained to be determined.

Right now, he had to shake off his postattack brain fog, shove down his lingering erection, and ignore the fact that he knew nothing about the logistical details of this place or what equipment they were being tracked with.

Yeah. Only all that.

Piece of goddamned cake.

The cake he fought not to choke on, before gritting out the only words that really made sense at the moment.

“Fuck me now.”

In spite of Brickham inviting every catastrophe to rain on them between the crypt and the wall, the only precipitation they received was the real kind, in the form of a humid mist that dragged along ominous thunder. The wet was far from cold, but Jayd still shivered as Brickham crouched down and formed a foothold out of his massive hands. She could practically predict what he would instruct to her next.

“Step in.”

Yes. Exactly that.

“Use your weaker leg,” he went on. “You may need your stronger one to get another toehold. But mostly, try to use the ivy as ropes and hoist using your lats and delts. Got it?”

Barely.

But she kept that to herself, keeping her answer to a swift nod. As horribly inept as she felt about scaling this wall using muscles that sounded more like sorority house letters, she was ten times more terrified about staying in the cemetery. Outside the walls, they would have more options.

Starting her quest was not as daunting as she thought. The ivy was slick from the mist, but not impossible to grasp. As Brickham suggested, she gained leverage by also toeing the wall whenever she could. Before she knew it, she was halfway up.

“Creator be praised!”

She spewed sweat along with the rasp, but reveled in her salty taste of victory as her sightline grew to include a small street with offices, apartments, and even a little café. A cat on an apartment balcony gave her a lazy scrutiny. Creator’s toes, she was even overjoyed to see graffiti on a wall.

“Oof! Boktah salpu!”

Brickham had left out the part about the descent—the drop—being the hardest part of all this. As she stood and gingerly rubbed her bruised backside, the knave himself dropped gracefully to her side, probably earning points from the damn cat in the process. Jayd did not surrender her glower, along with the darkly sarcastic commentary he was about to get an earful of.

Commentary she never got to give.

Words tended to die when a girl’s tonsils were illuminated by a king-size flashlight beam.

She was learning that the really hard way.

“Goddammit,” Brickham gritted.

Jayd spat the Arcadian version of it beneath her breath before seizing Brickham’s hand. She clung as if their palms were slathered in ultrastrength glue, even as she swung around and faced their hunters.

“Go ahead,” she spoke out, shocked by the strength in her defiance considering her limbs had turned to seaweed. “What are you waiting for?” she continued, hiking up her chin. “Do it, then. Arrest him. But you shall have to do the same to me!”