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Chapter Sixteen
Tayla
“Can you believe those two?” I muttered under my breath.
Alec and I were leaned up against the wall, side by side, watching as Herod and Adreax worked to disable the fire alarm. Despite their best efforts, the alarm would not sound, and no guards had come running. Eventually, Alec had tired of being used as a step and crawled back to his place beside me to watch the rest unfold.
“I already told them it’s not going to work. All they’re doing is making more trouble for us. The guards aren’t going to care who set off the alarm. They’re going to punish all of us.”
Alec grunted his agreement, rolling his head back and forth against the wall out of boredom, but he didn’t speak.
“I mean, honestly,” I continued. “Adreax is hurt! What kind of idiot tries to fight his way out of a prison cell in that condition? Do you think he knows how stupid he is?”
Alec gave me a small smile, but he still didn’t interject.
I was still stewing over the fact that Adreax would not cooperate with the guards to get me and Alec out of here. He knew we were stuck without his help, and he used that to hold us here. As far as I was concerned, we were hostages of both the Patrol and Adreax. If anyone had suggested this was possible before I left Earth, I would have laughed in their face. How would one even go about being taken hostage by two different parties at once? And yet, somehow, I managed it. Why me?
As I watched, Adreax lost his balance and fell into the wall, barely catching himself before he fell. I jumped to my feet, lunging forward to catch him without a second thought. But when I got there, I didn’t know what to do. He was leaning on me, and I wrapped my arms around him, barely keeping him upright, but I couldn’t support him for long. He was too heavy.
After giving it some consideration, I slowly lowered him to the ground and sat with my legs crossed so his head rested in my lap. His eyes fluttered, and he coughed a few times before coming to and looking straight up at me.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he said sarcastically, and I wanted to slap him.
I was still furious with him. I hated him for getting all of us into this situation, and for refusing to help us out. I was a little disgusted with myself and looked for a way to extract myself from beneath him. With no good options, I was forced to keep sitting there with his head in my lap and his big, stupid, self-righteous smile. Ugh.
“Just to be clear, I only caught you because it was the right thing to do. Not because I actually care if you smash your face into the ground.”
“Okay. If you say so.”
“Seriously,” I asserted.
But the way he looked at me told me he didn’t believe me. And actually, now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure I believed myself. Why did I rush to save him? I should have let him fall. It would have served him right after all this.
Before I could get too hung up on what I was feeling, the alarm overhead blared. It was so loud it made me jump and bounce Adreax’s head painfully against my knee.
“Shit.”
“You’re cute when you curse.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. We were not doing that.
“Get up,” I said, putting my hands under his shoulders and pushing him into a sitting position. “You started this, so you better be ready when they get here.”
I scuttled back until I was against the wall opposite the door, cowering and waiting. I hoped that if I stayed out of the way, the Patrol guards would see that I had nothing to do with this scheme. Maybe they would understand, or at least be less harsh with their punishments.
I heard footsteps pounding down the hallway toward us and braced myself for whatever was about to unfold. I even took a moment to close my eyes and pray that any god anywhere might hear my plea. When I peeked between my fingers, hoping to see Adreax in some kind of fighting stance, he remained splayed out on the ground, just as helpless as before.
“Get up, Adreax! They’re almost here.”
He didn’t move.
I scrambled to my knees, frantic to get him up. Frantic to get away from him. Frantic to do anything that would save us all.
The door burst open, and the guards were shouting as they rushed in, guns raised. They knew the alarm wasn’t real, and they knew who’d set it off. The first guard was through the door in a split second, and he stepped right over Adreax’s legs and came for me.
I screamed, clutching Alec’s arm and sobbing. This could not be the way I died. Not today. I kicked and flailed, trying to make myself harder to catch. The guard caught one of my legs midair and tucked it under his arm, holding me almost upside down. I kept kicking my free leg, thinking I could free myself if I got his wrist just right.
What I did not expect was Herod’s roar as he launched himself at the guard holding me, throwing his weight into both of us and slamming me into the wall, sandwiched under their weight. I fell into Alec’s lap as I went down, and tried desperately to tuck myself into a protective ball.
