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Of course Diesel would use the one friend I had here against me.
She was never going to want to see me again after this. She’d run for the fucking hills without looking back. Would she blame me? Hate me?
My stomach soured, and I groaned as the choppy pavement switched to clean smooth blacktop with a hard bump in the road.
If Diesel hurt her…
All bets were off.
I’d promised totryto not kill any Saints during the trials, but I’d have his fucking head if she died. And the heads of any others involved.
The minutes slashed away as I drove, barreling down side roads until I got to the edge of town, to the border of no man’s land. They kept falling until ten were already gone. Then fifteen. Hedging on twenty even as I pushed the Rover to the breaking point of how fast she could go, nearly losing control more than once as the uneven pavement leading down to the old industrial area tried to slow me with potholes and scattered debris.
The tires screeched, and the throat clogging stench of burning rubber filled my nose as the Rover slid to a standstill, knocking against a cement barrier. The glass of the passenger window shattered, raining down over the seat and my lap as I shoved the door open and raced out into the night, making a beeline for the warehouse.
My peripheral sight expanded all around, tracking movement as I slipped a blade between my first two fingers, holding it loosely at my side.
I lowered myself to a crouch, skirting the edge of the warehouse, listening carefully as I neared the open bay doors at the front.
A soft whimper inside twisted my insides, and I grimaced, lifting the blade to throw as I stepped out of the shadows and into the gaping doorway of the abandoned warehouse, my mouth falling open.
Becca thrashed when she saw me, the tape covering her mouth muffling a fearful shout as her eyes widened.
A mechanical whir sounded from outside and a spotlight flared to life, blinding Becca, painting her in a halo of white.
She stood atop a rickety old pallet pack over twenty feet up at the other end of the warehouse. The metal chains around her neck were attached to a rusted metal pulley hanging from the rafters above. The other end of the chain reached down toward the ground where I assumed it was tied off, but I couldn’t see where for all the walls and debris blocking my view across the space.
It didn’t look the same as it had that night all those weeks ago.
There were stacks of tires and old pallets and crumbling partition walls like before, but they were moved. The low piles of dirt and loose stone on the cement floor in lines across the room gave it away.
It was a course, I realized.
Diesel had put together an obstacle course, and I needed to get through it to the other side in time to save Becca.
Shifting movement inside the maze gave away at least one Saint’s position inside. Looking up, I saw Becca eagerly staring down into the maze and back at me, giving me his position somewhere close by on the left.
A chirp had me jerking my gaze upward, to the red numbers on the timer near Becca’s head ticking down.
I had a little under ten minutes to get through it, but this time, I wasn’t going to hold back.
A blinking red light drew my eye, and I found myself staring into the lens of a surveillance camera placed high in the far left corner of the warehouse.
Becca moaned and growled against the tape covering her mouth, and then sharply, she breathed in deep as the tape came loose, pried off with her tongue. One side fell from her lips, and she sobbed.
“It’s okay, Becks,” I told her. “I’m going to get you out of—”
“I’m sorry,” she cried, the tears dropping from her cheeks catching the spotlight like falling stars. “I’m so, so sorry, Aves.”
What?
What could she possibly have to be sorry for? This was my fault. If I hadn’t made friends with her—if I hadn’t brought her into this—she wouldn’t be here right now.
She was here because I cared about her and Diesel wanted to use that against me. To see how far I was willing to go for someone whose life mattered to me.
He was about to fucking find out.
“Just hold on, Becks!” I called, keeping low as I darted forward, ready with a blade to throw at the Saint waiting just inside the row of tires to my left. A sharp snare snapped around my ankle, slicing into skin as the crude trap dragged me upward. My head smashing against the concrete as I was hoisted high into the air upside down. My fucked-up knee protesting the pull of the thin rope.
