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Even still, I couldn’t fight him when he pulled my jacket off, tossing it to the floor. He knelt before me, then tugged my shoes off. “Can’t be too careful,” he muttered before pulling something off the shelf beside me.
A dress?
He peered up at my face, his expression serious. “I’m going to turn my back and you need to change. Everything off, even your underwear and any jewelry.”
“I don’t want this,” I whispered to him.
He rose to his feet, then cupped my cheek. “You’re just afraid, but you’ll see that I’m right. Now, if you don’t do as I’m asking, I’ll do it for you. I don’t think you’ll like that very much, so be a good girl and do as you’re told. The longer we take here, the better the chance that someone finds us, and I can assure you that I will not lose you, no matter what it takes.” He didn’t have to flash a weapon at that—I got the meaning from his words alone.
He must have seen my agreement in my eyes, because he nodded as if assured of my cooperation, then turned his back to me. My hands shook as I stripped down, my blood thundering through my veins, my head fuzzy and difficult to sort through.
Once I’d removed everything, a wave of vulnerability hit me. Standing completely naked in the same room as Lorien felt worse than when I’d been in the cage at that auction. I quickly pulled the dress on, the fact that it fit almost sickening to me. Just how much had he studied me? The dress had a tie just below the bust that fastened in the back, and it had long sleeves and the bottom hem reached the floor. It was the softest gray cotton, and had extra fabric at the back, where the neckline was.
Lorien turned back toward me, his eyes softening as if seeing me in this was somehow special to him. He reached out, and I couldn’t stop myself from flinching away at his outstretched hand.
He sighed. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated, then grabbed a pair of shoes from the shelf and leaned down. He put my bare feet into them, then laced them quickly so they fit snugly on my feet. He rose and grasped the extra fabric of the dress, pulling it up to show it was a hood.
The last thing he did was slide behind me, then tie the dress so it fit snugly right beneath my chest. Thankfully, the bust of the dress had a built-in shelf-bra, since he’d insisted I remove all my underwear.
He grasped my hand again, then looked once more at me. “Keep the hood on and your head down. We’ll go to the private parking just down that hallway, then we’ll be home free. If we do this right, we’ll be gone and everyone will be safe. So behave just a little longer, and this will all be over.”
I found myself nodding because I knew he expected that response.
He squeezed my hand as though to reassure me, then opened the door to the hallway, peering out for a moment before heading out. He moved quickly as he had before, but this time I saw no one around. The hallway led toward a large double door, and Lorien struck it hard enough it opened despite how heavy it was.
I’d never been to this parking structure, and my glance around said why. It held cars worth a lot more than what students or normal staff could afford. This had to be for the upper-level administration or important alumni, given the sports cars and imports.
Lorien didn’t explain anything as he pulled me to the left, stopping in front of a motorcycle. Two helmets sat on the ground beside the large, black bike. He picked up the first one, then pulled off my hood before putting the helmet on me. He said nothing as he hooked the strap beneath my chin, then put his own helmet on.
He slung his leg over the bike and held his hand out to me. I stared at that offered hand, wanting to argue, to pull away, to bolt. The other times he’d grabbed me, pulling me along, but this time? This time I had to move first, to give in, and my body refused.
“Don’t do it, Kenz.” His voice didn’t come out muffled, and instead felt as though he whispered into my ear.Right, there’s a mic set up connecting the helmets.His voice got me to obey, though, the memory of his gun on his hip getting me to move.
I still had no idea if Hayden had realized I was gone or not yet. Was he freaking out right now? Was he searching for me? As much as I wanted him to find me, the idea terrified me.
What if Hayden ran out through that hallway right now? What if he tried to stop Lorien and got hurt instead? What if he took a bullet all because of me?
I took Lorien’s hand and got on the bike behind him. The dress pulled tight and went up to my shins to make room to straddle the seat. Lorien grasped both my hands and wrapped them around his waist, which pressed me against his broad back. My heart thundered, but it wasn’t from excitement.
“Hold on tight,” he said through the sound system. The words barely finished escaping him before the bike roared to life and lunged forward, forcing me to cling tighter, afraid of falling off.
Tor
It was strange how the world slowed down when things really went to hell. I’d learned it during missions in the past, when I’d had to react to changes almost instantaneously, when I had to take in information then decide how to respond based on what I knew.
The moment I’d gotten the alert from Hayden and Char, when I’d realized that Kenz had disappeared, I’d slipped into that same mode. My brain sorted through the layout of the building as my hands moved over my phone, bringing up the tracker on Kenz’s glucose reader.
It showed in a room near the south side of the campus. Not moving implied she’d left the reader behind. I knew Hayden would head to that spot, but she wouldn’t be there anymore.
I closed my eyes, picturing the entire campus like an overlay in my brain. A hallway connected to that room. To the right, it headed out toward a clearing that had street access. To the left? A dead end.
No, wait.I furrowed my brows as I used my memory to recall the details when I’d searched the actual campus.
I’d often found that official layouts weren’t always correct. Businesses liked to keep certain things to themselves—usually anything that housed things private or valuable. There was no good reason to let potential thieves know where they could find the things worth stealing, after all.
To the left, down that hallway, had been…
A private parking garage.I recalled the fancy cars, the exact sort of thing they might not want to let others know about. I took off in that direction, my feet moving faster than I’d known possible. I’d chased targets plenty of times, had pushed myself to my limits to finish a job, but this put all those times to shame. I had something so much more important than just a success this time.
