Sloane (11 page)

“Probably.” He sat down on the bed. “Man, this motel
is disgusting. Have you actually been staying here?” He ran a hand
over the bedspread and wrinkled his nose.

I should just ignore Axel. That’s what I’d do. Ignore
him. He wouldn’t leave. He insisted on being around, after all.

Of course, if I was honest with myself, the truth was
that I wasn’t trying particularly hard to get rid of him. It was
easier with someone else to help me out. And it helped that I
didn’t actually give a crap about Axel, because then I didn’t have
to worry about his safety.

And, I really didn’t. Give a crap about him. At
all.

I went back to Armstrong. I slapped his other cheek.
“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey, Armstrong.”

He flinched away from my hand.

“You’re awake,” I said.

He opened his eyes.

I folded my arms over my chest. “Where’s your secret
lab? How do I get in?”

His mouth twisted into something like a smile, but he
didn’t say anything.

Fine. I slapped him again.

His cheek turned red, but he just laughed. “You hit
like a girl, Sloane.”

“How do you know who I am?”

Axel came over. “You want me to hit him?”

I glared at him. “Axel, just stay back and try not to
hurt yourself, okay?”

“Well, what are we doing with him, anyway?” Axel
asked.

“We need him to tell us about the lab,” I said.

“He’s not telling us,” said Axel. “So, we should hurt
him, right?”

Armstrong glared at him. “What do you have to do with
all of this?”

“Just along for the ride,” said Axel. “Nothing
personal, Jimmy. Although I will say that the girls at my club
complain about you, because they say you’re a cheapskate. You
haggled the price of a lap dance with Chandra last month.
Haggled.
That’s so tacky.”

Armstrong grimaced.

“Can I hit him?” said Axel.

I rubbed my forehead. “Do whatever you want.”

Axel grinned. He bounded over, rolling up the sleeves
of his suit.

“You know,” said Armstrong. “You’re wasting your
time. You won’t be able to get anything out of me, not before they
show up.”

I put my hand on Axel’s chest, holding him back.
“Before who shows up?”

Armstrong laughed. “You don’t think I have
protection? I’ve got protection. And you forgot one thing when you
were tying me up. My cell phone.”

My heart sank. He was right. I’d been so worried
about the body, that I hadn’t even thought about it. I straddled
Armstrong, furiously padding him down until I found it.

He was laughing the whole time.

It was in his back pocket. Easily reachable, even
with his hands tied behind his back.

I looked at the last sent text messages. There was
one that simply said, “Code Red.” It had been sent ten minutes ago.
“Fuck,” I said.

“They’re tracing that phone,” said Armstrong.

I ripped off the back of it, tugging out the battery
and the SIM card.

Armstrong just laughed. “You think that’s going to
matter now? They know where you are.”

Axel made a face at me. “Is this bad?”

“Yes, it’s fucking bad,” I said.

Axel punched Armstrong.

Armstrong howled.

“Ow!” Axel backed up, shaking out his wrist.
“Jesus.”

“Hitting them in the face always hurts worse,” I told
him. “Too many bones.”

He cradled his hand. “God damn it, that really—”

“Axel, if they’re coming here, we need to be
prepared. All his guards might have the serum. I don’t know. You
should go, but if you’re not going to go, then open that suitcase
over there and get out the Beretta and start loading it.”

I pulled my own gun out of its holster.

Axel chewed on his lip, seeming to consider. Then he
dove across the room and began rooting through the suitcase.

“There should be a magazine for the Glock in there
too,” I said. “Can you hand me that?”

He came up with it and tossed it across the room to
me.

There was a tapping at the door. “Housekeeping,” said
a male voice.

Housekeeping, my ass.

I fumbled to load my gun. Axel was bent over the
suitcase, working at the Beretta.

“Help!” yelled Armstrong.

Something rattled the handle of the door.

I raised my gun.

And then bullets ripped through the wood, punching
holes into the door, whizzing past us in the air.

“Down!” I screamed at Axel, hitting the floor behind
the bed.

More bullets sailed over my head, lodging in the wall
above me.

From the bathroom, Jeff let out a squeal.

“Watch it!” yelled Armstrong.

I raised up from the bed to take things in for a
second. Axel was on the floor next to the door. Armstrong was
struggling against his bonds.

They blew the handle off the door, and it swung
open.

I squeezed off two shots right away, before I even
saw who was coming through.

But I was good, and I had good instincts, and my
shots were true. They pounded right into the chest of the man on
the other side of the door.

He gasped, clutched the door frame, and then went
down.

Someone behind him returned fire at me.

I slammed down into the floor again, and the bullets
narrowly missed me.

I heard more shots. Lots of them. They were all so
loud and so close, and I didn’t know where they were coming from.
Was Axel shooting? Was it the other guys?

My chest was starting to feel tight, and I was
starting to feel disconnected.

It was too much noise, too many people, and it was
starting to get to me.

They were coming for us. And they had knives too.
Knives and needles and scalpels and… so many sharp things.

No. I couldn’t think about that. That wasn’t
happening now. That was over. Silas and I won. We’d gotten them
all, and they hadn’t hurt us, and—

But it was no good. I could already feel it. I was
starting to freeze up.

I tried to yell, to tell Axel—something, I don’t know
what, just to let him know.

But my throat felt closed, and I couldn’t force air
through my lungs.

I told myself to move, to go up over the bed and
shoot again, put as many bullets as I could in the men who were
coming for me. I told myself I had to do it, that they’d kill me
otherwise.

But my body wouldn’t move.

I had a vise grip on my gun, my head tense, facing
forward, my body spread out on the floor, my stomach against the
motel-issue carpet.

And I was frozen.

God damn it.

Silas was right about me. I couldn’t handle this. And
now no one was going to save him. He was going to rot away there,
and I wasn’t going to be able to do anything for him. All the
things that he’d done for me, I’d never be able to repay them.
Because I was worthless and weak. I was pathetic. I needed
protection. I couldn’t be a protector.

The sound of the gunfire echoed around me,
punctuating all my thoughts like a thousand periods. No question
about it. I was worthless.

And then a shadow fell across the bed.

Someone was close.

Move, Sloane
, I urged myself.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I couldn’t even look up to see my attacker.
All I could see were his black shoes in front of my face. Because I
couldn’t even crane my neck or roll over or bring up my gun.

There was another gunshot. Closer. Louder.

And then the pain burst into me, agonizing. I could
move then. I writhed, trying to twist into position to shoot
him.

But it hurt so bad.

And it was getting worse, so much
worse
…

And everything went black.

LEIGH

They never brought Knox back.

Of course, we couldn’t be sure how much time was
passing. They were no windows to see the passage of the sun, and
they’d taken everything from us that could tell the time. They
never turned the lights off, so we were never sure if it was
night.

They brought food again. Twice.

But never Knox.

Silas had spent hours swearing a lot and trying to
pry the door open, but he hadn’t had any luck. Then he’d
disappeared into one of the bathroom stalls for hours, and he
wouldn’t say what he was doing. He just kept yelling swears every
so often.

I wondered if what was happening to Knox was
happening to him, just from being in here. Maybe it was the
isolation that had driven Knox batty. Or maybe they were pumping
something in through the air.

But if so, I didn’t think it was doing much to
Griffin and me. Of course, we weren’t spending much time talking to
each other either. Griffin spent most of his time sprawled out on
one of the cot mattresses. I sat next to him. Sometimes we held
each other. Mostly, we didn’t.

Then came the pounding on the door. “Face the wall
and put your hands against it.”

Wearily, we all did what we were told.

I half expected Silas to try something, but he
didn’t. He came out of the bathroom stall and put his hands against
the wall too.

We all stood there and waited.

They came in, six of them. One of them had handcuffs,
and they put them on Griffin.

I broke away from the wall. “What are you doing?”

One of them showed me his gun. He didn’t say
anything.

They started to drag Griffin away.

“No,” I said. “No, you can’t take him.” And I
launched myself onto the men who were holding him.

The gun went off.

Pain.

Dark
.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Axel.
He was bent over me, and his face loomed huge in my vision.

I blinked. My head was in Axel’s lap.

“Fuck.” He touched my cheek. “I thought you were
dead.”

Where was I? What had happened? Oh, right, the motel
room. The men with guns. “I’m fine. I’m hard to kill.”

“You scared me to death,” he said. And then he kissed
me.

His lips pressed into mine, soft but insistent. A
dark and enticing sensation trickled through my body, and I felt
desire begin to stir behind my belly button. Warmth was growing
between my legs.

His hand slid behind my head to cup it. He tangled
his fingers in my hair, holding me in place as he nudged his tongue
into my mouth. Sweetness exploded. I was swept away by it.

For a second.

And then I realized this was weird. I didn’t want
Axel to kiss me. I shoved him off. “What the hell?”

He furrowed his brow.

I scrambled to my feet. I was shaking. “Why… why did
you do that?”

“I was happy that you were alive.” His eyes were
wide. He looked a little surprised too. He got to his feet and
began to rearrange the lapels of his suit jacket.

I ran my hand through my hair, surveying the room.
All of the men who’d broken in lay motionless on the ground. The
rest of the place was a wreck. The TV screen had been shattered. So
had the vase that used to hold silk flowers. There were bullet
holes in the walls.

“What happened?”

“Well, I kind of shot them,” said Axel. “Actually,
it’s a little bit weird, because they sort of seem to keep coming
back to life.”

I turned to him sharply. “What?”

“Yeah, there’s one.” Axel whipped up the Beretta. One
of the men in the corner was struggling to raise his head. His face
was streaked with blood.

Axel pulled the trigger.

The man’s head snapped back, and he crumpled to the
floor.

“It’s kind of like they’re zombies,” said Axel. “But,
um, Armstrong seems to be like actually dead.”

I went over to Armstrong, whose head was hanging into
his chest. His neck was bloody. I nudged his shoulder, and he
toppled over, face down. “Yeah,” I said. “His spine. A bullet went
clean through it. Severing the spine is the only way to kill people
with the serum.” I looked back at the dead men. “They must all have
the serum.”

Another one was twitching.

Axel walked over to him, put the gun against his
head, and pulled the trigger.

I took a deep breath. “We can’t stay here.”

“Yeah,” said Axel, “it’s really a hole-in-the-wall
hotel.”

“Because of the bodies and the bullet holes.”

“And that.” He fumbled with his tie, and then he just
untied it and yanked it off. “Also, I don’t know what we’re going
to do about that dress.”

I looked down at it. It had been a little bloody
before, but now it was ruined. I made a face. “I’ll pay for
it.”

“It’s one of a kind,” said Axel. “I don’t think…” He
considered. “No, you better let me take care of it. I know
Phillipa, and I’ll talk to her. I can convince her that the dress
wasn’t one of her best designs and that it’s better if she lets it
go.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Seriously?”

“I got skills.” He gave me a lopsided smile.

I honed in on his lips, which were perfectly formed.
I thought about the way they’d felt on my lips. I gulped. “You need
to get away from me.”

“Seriously?” He scratched the back of his neck. “I’m
pretty sure I just saved your ass here.”

“Before they wake up again.” I went over to my
suitcase and started to zip it up. “You get the fuck out of
here.”

“What about you?”

I stalked across the room to the bathroom. When I
opened the door, Jeff’s lifeless body slid out onto the floor.
Shit.
Sorry, Jeff.
I retrieved my toothpaste and shampoo.
“I’ll get out of here too. But I can’t worry over you right now.
You’re in the way.”

“I’m in the way?” He glared at me. “I think these
guys would have taken you if I hadn’t been here.”

He was probably right, but he was making me nervous.
He kissed me. He
kissed
me. It had been a long time since
anyone had kissed me, and it had to be Axel freaking Whitman?