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“Someone.”
I had little to say to that. I supposed it should have been obvious. There was only one good reason to break into a prison, and we were here looking for a group of someones ourselves. On the one hand, his answer filled me with hope. If he had a plan to spring someone out of this place, perhaps he would help us free the rest of the women while he was at it. And yet, I found myself curious at the thought that he was here to save a woman, whom I could only imagine was his lover.
“What are you going to do when you find her?” I ventured.
He shot me a look. “It’s my brother,” he said flatly.
My stomach did a tiny flip-flop at that. His brother? So he wasn’t here for a woman after all. Tayla had said there were male prisoners here, but it had never occurred to me that this man could be searching for one of them. It only seemed natural that someone so striking would be here on a quest to save a beautiful woman. And then I felt the heat rising to my cheeks and realized that I had been giving entirely too much thought to this gorgeous stranger’s love life, and it was none of my business whatsoever.
“There are women here who need help, too. If you know how to open the cells, that would be-”
“Can’t.”
“What? Of course you can! You’re already here!”
We approached another door, and he peered inside. “There you are,” he said to himself.
He swiped a keycard over the lock, and it swished open at his command.
I gasped. “See? If you have the key, you could free all the women in no time,” I continued, stumbling over my words with excitement.
He gave me a warning look. “I told you I can’t. I have what I came for, and now I’ll be leaving. But here, you can have this.”
Before I could protest, he thrust the keycard at me, and then ducked around the door and disappeared into the cell. I stood still for a moment, aghast at his simple dismissal and staring at the card. But it wasn’t the keycard that had my mind buzzing like it was full of angry bees. It was the roughness of his hand brushing against my skin as he went. It was a strange and unsettling desire to know what those hands would feel like… somewhere else. Shaking myself back to reality, I let out a hiss of breath. What kind of person refused to help a bunch of women in distress? It didn’t matter, I reminded myself. We hadn’t come here counting on someone else to do the job for us. We were more than capable of handling this on our own. All I had to do was find Soleil and together we could free everyone.
Turning around, I headed back toward the stairs and started climbing. I hoped Soleil would wait for me at the top and I wouldn’t have to spend another second thinking about the selfish man and his brother. I should’ve known better than to expect a perfect stranger to want to help me under such unusual circumstances.
I reached the top landing at last, out of breath all over again and more irritated than anything. I pressed my ear to the door first, listening for any sign of fighting on the other side before I waltzed through, but all was quiet. Frowning, I turned the knob and opened the door a crack to peek through. The hallway stood empty. Either Soleil had already been here and cleared the command tower, or…
I crept down the hall, moving as quietly as I could manage despite my ragged breathing, toward the end where there stood three doors in a cluster. Pausing, I checked my weapon just in case, then I pushed the middle door open and my heart skipped a beat.
Inside, four helmeted faces stared straight back at me. There was a lull where time seemed to stand still before they shouted and the first one leapt at me. Without bothering to take aim, I fired my weapon, yelping as the shot went off. And then I was running, turning and slamming the door behind me as I sprinted for the stairs. Wherever Soleil was, she hadn’t been here, and even on my best day I was not good enough to square off with four soldiers at once.
Frantic, I threw my shoulder into the door and ran down the stairs as fast as I could manage. When I heard the soldiers’ boots on the landing behind me, I threw myself off the steps, leaping down to the next landing and rounding the corner so they wouldn’t have a clear shot at me.
My mind was racing as fast as my heart as I tried to decide what to do. I had to get all the way to the ground floor and find my way out of the building. But if the others were still down there, I might lead the Patrol straight to them, which was the exact opposite of what I was supposed to be doing. I briefly considered running deeper into the building, stopping on the floor where I’d broken away from the men. Surely if I was running straight toward them with my pursuers, they would find it in their hearts to save me one more time. But there was no guarantee that they were still where I’d left them, and once I was on that tier, I would be stuck. I had to go all the way to the bottom. It was the only way.
4
MALIK
“Who were you talking to?”Torgus asked by way of greeting.
“No one.”
“Didn’t sound like no one,” he remarked, planting his hands on his knees and pushing up to stand.
I waited impatiently as he stretched and yawned, expecting an answer that I didn’t have.
“Come on. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Hmph. Don’t rush me. I’ve been cramped up in this cell for months waiting on you. I’m afraid I’m not in much of a condition to be running out of here just yet.”
Ignoring his ungrateful commentary, I pulled my sidearm from its holster and dropped it into his hand.
“If you’re not going to keep up, you can hold them off while I have a look around.”
“I thought we were getting out of here?”
