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I don’t understand why she sounds so chilled out until I realize it must be her bounty hunter training. She’s assessing what’s happening around us. Thinking rather than acting blindly. I make myself take a deep breath and follow her lead.
Alecta produces a small but powerful flashlight and suddenly the bathroom appears around us. Women are fumbling their way along the sinks, trying to find the exit.
She shines the flashlight around, searching for something.
“Cassius—” I start to stay.
“Mr. Ferragamo isn’t your bodyguard right now. I am,” she says firmly. “We’re getting you outside to my car and then we’ll worry about him.”
Lorenzo hired Alecta so I know I’m in good hands, and Cassius would want me to let her do her job. “All right. How are we getting out of here?”
Her flashlight illuminates a window above the row of sinks. She jumps up and pushes it open. “Up here. Wriggle through and drop to the ground. Try and roll so you don’t hurt your ankles if you can.”
She helps me up onto the basin, and I look through the window and my heart sinks. It’s a twelve-foot drop, maybe more. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can. Deep breath and go. I’ll be right behind you.”
“I can’t do this because I’m pregnant.”
Alecta’s face falls. “Oh, Jesus, I forgot. Okay. We’ll use the fire exit. There’s one thirty feet down the stadium, and if that’s blocked, there’s another on the east side of the building.” She jumps down from the sinks and holds out her hand to me to help me down. Once I’m by her side she says, “I’m going to turn off this flashlight so we don’t attract any attention. Don’t let go of my hand, okay?”
My heart races faster. If there are enemies out there I suppose she’s doing the right thing. They’ll be looking for bodyguards with flashlights and other equipment. If we can blend in with the panicking crowd, we can make it outside.
I take a firmer grasp of her hand and nod. “Okay.”
Out in the gymnasium, there are hundreds of stumbling, panicking figures trying to use their phone lights to find their way outside. I search for the green and white exit signs that should be lit up in the dark, but either they’ve been smashed or the fuse has been ripped out.
“This doesn’t feel like an accidental power outage,” I tell Alecta.
She squeezes my hand in response, eitherI know, orIt’s okay. It doesn’t feel okay. I put my hand over my belly as if I’m comforting the baby. Really, it’s comforting me.
I stare across to where our seats were. Cassius could be just feet away from me. “Do you think we should find Cassius?”
“Mr. Scava and Acid will skin me alive if we go looking for him. Just keep moving this way and—” Alecta breaks off with a moan of pain. Her hand in mine loosens, and I feel her fall to the floor.
“Alecta!”
Several people have materialized around me in the darkness. A piece of tape is slapped over my mouth and my hands are wrenched behind my back and tied. A bag is pulled over my head and torso, and two strong people on either side of me hustle along with hands under my arms.
I kick and scream as hard as I can, but I can barely hear myself over the pandemonium that reigns in the gym. No one can see me. No one knows where I am. I whimper in my captors’ powerful grasps. If I resist them too much, they might punch me and hurt the baby. But if I don’t resist them, they’ll take me away and even worse things might happen.
My dilemma is decided for me when I’m shoved down onto what feels like the back seat of a car, and a door slams. Someone holds me down with a hand on the back of my neck and another on my back. I’ve been kidnapped twice before, once by Lorenzo, who was terrifyingly efficient at it, and once by Acid and Thane, which was messy but successful.
This kidnapping falls into the terrifyingly efficient category.
I remember Alecta at the gym when the lights went out, and I try to channel her composure. I wriggle onto my side so I’m not pressing on my belly, and the person holding me allows it and then pushes me down again.
There’s total silence in the car. No muttering. Not even a cough to tell me if the people who have captured me are men or women. After a long drive, we take a few turns in rapid succession and then the car comes to a halt.
I’m hustled out and the sound changes from outdoor night noises to muffled indoor noises. The floor beneath my feet is tiled, and then concrete, and then I’m being forced down steps. My knees nearly buckle and I try to resist, but all I get is a threatening shake and I’m compelled forward again.
Down into the cold.
Down into dampness.
The walls echo with the sounds of our footsteps, and then quickly become muted. Swallowed up by earth and stone.
The edge of a chair hits the back of my knees and I’m forced to sit. Thick ropes coil around my arms and torso. A hand reaches beneath my hood to rip off the tape covering my mouth, and then as footsteps recede, a door slams.
