Twice Cursed (43 page)

Her head hurt so much, she must have
smacked it on something. Probably Jack’s fist, the traitor, but
truth was, her memory toward the end was sketchy. The last thing
she recalled was Jack killing the redhead. It didn’t matter,
though. She was here because of Jack’s betrayal, and that fact
remained crystal clear.

She kicked at the dirt below her feet.
She needed to concentrate and find a way out of here. There was
nothing to the dilapidated building, and from the huge holes all
around, she’d bet dollars to donuts the structure was abandoned.
Blue tyvek paper covered the largest of the holes, but it was
frayed at the edges and torn in places where the wind had forced
its way through. Wood shingles dotted the ground from where they’d
fallen from the ceiling, and gusts of wind from the gaps left in
the roof stirred up dust and debris. The floor was nothing more
than frozen earth, and stale hay hung in clusters from an upper
loft that had definitely seen better days.

Half a dozen feet away, smoke curled
from a hollow oil drum, the glowing embers inside the only thing
keeping Lily from freezing to death. How considerate.

Her ears perked up at the distinct
rumble of a tractor in the distance. With people around, it might
mean a chance at rescue, though somehow she doubted it.

A warm, sweet scent rode just below
the smell of barn debris, and her mouth watered just enough for her
to swallow. She inhaled again, trying to identify the scent, and
her chin jerked up at the olfactory memory it stirred. Terry’s
grandparent’s farm and the scent of fresh milk! That was the scent,
and it meant Jack was holding her for Parr at a dairy farm. Were
there many of those in Maine? Christ, she hoped not.

Excited, she opened her mind to call
to Sean, but slammed it shut again, forgetting for a moment about
Jack’s telepathic road block. There was no way she could risk being
incapacitated again. Fruitless anger suffused her body with heat.
How did she miss the signs that Jack was working both ends? How did
Sean? Nausea rose at the back of her throat. Because they both
loved him, that’s why. She balled her fists together, ignoring the
pain in her wrists from the rope. Jack was a dead man. That is, if
she could figure out a way to reach Sean.

Resting her chin on her
chest, she concentrated on what she had to work with.
Not much with me half hogtied
. Her head came up again.
Half…

Lily gripped the rope above
the knots at her wrists and lifted her legs straight out and waist
height. The rope held. Thank God. Gritting her teeth, she swung her
legs up and over her head, and wrapped them around the braided
nylon.
Ha! Sean doesn’t call me the
flexible flyer for no reason!

The tension on the nylon was severe,
and even with her in a jackknife position, her body weight just
added to it, pulling the knots tighter. God, she could use a bowie
knife or a straight edge about now.

Voices drifted past on the opposite
side of the tyvek, and she froze. If Jack or anyone of Parr’s
acolytes caught her now—she held her breath and held still. Her
eyes darted around, but with her wrists tied she was helpless.
Unless…

Six feet away on the bottom
sill of one of the small egress windows, she spotted a small, thin
box, red and gold with one word written on the cover in old
fashioned lettering. Gillette. Lily grinned.
Seek and ye shall find!

Pushing and pulling on the rope, she
swung herself sideways, straining to reach the tiny box and
praying, first—to get close enough to catch the box between her
palms without dropping it, and second—that it had blades
inside.

Sweat broke out on her forehead and
she wiped it on the rope, grateful for the cold draft coming from
the holes in the roof. One more pass should do it. Her luck held,
and she palmed the little square box. Sticking it in her teeth, she
let her feet drop back to the floor, dragging her heels in the dirt
to slow the rope’s momentum.

Once the rope was steady, she hoisted
her legs once more and hooked them acrobat style, bringing her face
to her fingers. She took the box from between her teeth and opened
the top flap.

Two straight razors. Thank
God.

She closed the box with the spare
blade inside and slid it back between her teeth before
concentrating on the blade in her hand. Completely focused, Lily
held the razor between her thumb and two fingers, glad for the
tension on the rope, despite the pain it caused in her
wrists.

With small movements, she
cut fiber by fiber, each muffled tick a metronome counting off the
minutes. Two thirds of the way through, she froze. The weakened
rope groaned, and then
pop, pop,
pop,
fibers snapped under her weight. The
rope gave, and she dropped to the floor, landing with a
whoompf
in a cloud of
barn dust.

Her head snapped back, making the dull
ache at the back of her head scream. Her eyes watered, and she
squeezed her nose to stop from sneezing, almost blowing out her
eyeballs instead. She scrambled behind some old hay bales, and sat
back on her heels. So far, so good.

“
You can do this, Lily.
You’re almost there,” she mumbled over the box still in her teeth.
She turned the blade over in her fingers, and taking short,
measured breaths through her nose, worked the largest knot closest
to the top of her wrists. Her saliva had saturated the thin
cardboard, and it tasted of dust and lord knows what else. Her
throat spasmed and she leaned over to finally spit the wet box to
the ground, swallowing back on her gag reflex.

Concentrating on the task at hand, she
sliced methodically through the coils. They came apart and she
slumped down, exhausted, dropping the blade to the dirt and rubbing
the raw skin encircling her wrists. Closing her eyes, she let her
head drop back, a murmured, “Thank you,” on her lips.

She sat for a moment just listening,
before reaching for the limp razor box. The wet cardboard came
apart in her hand and she pocketed the spare blade, just in
case.

“
Okay girlfriend, let’s
blow this pop stand,” she murmured, as she pushed herself to
standing.

Her eyes moved from wall to wall, and
up to the loft. But nothing looked feasible, not unless she wanted
to slash her way through the tyvek. The main barn doors were the
only real way out. They stood thirty feet ahead, but for all she
knew, Jack had probably wired them for motion and sound.

Looking around, she exhaled sharply.
She didn’t come this far to wait like a sitting duck for Jack to
hand deliver her to Parr. She wiped her hands on her pants, her
eyes traveling back to the egress window where she’d found the
razors.

The opening was small, but promising.
She could definitely wriggle through, if she could find a way past
the noise of having to break the glass.

Lower lip between her
teeth, Lily maneuvered her way up the wall, wedging her feet
between two side beams, holding her breath the entire time until
she was sure they’d hold. She hooked her hands onto the bottom
sill, and tried the window. Just as she’d thought. Stuck. Her head
was pounding at this point. Tiny spots of light danced in her
peripheral vision and she frowned. Now is when her concussion
decided to kick in?
I don’t think
so.

Pushing the dull headache away, she
squinted, and cocked her elbow. The aim was to tap the old glass.
If the window frame was rotted enough, perhaps the entire pane
would just give. “Please fall,” she whispered to herself as she
tapped at the edges and corners of the glass. The wood frame
cracked, and a muffled pop at one corner sent her adrenaline
spiking. Control was the key. Her breath hitched in her throat, and
with her fingertips splayed evenly across the glass, she gave the
thin pane a gentle push. Lily cringed waiting for the sound of
shattering glass, but there was nothing but a soft thud.

Hoisting herself up, she peered over
the back end of the sill, not sure what to expect. Fresh air washed
over her face and she looked down. The glass was intact, having
fallen vertically into the winter-bare scrub growing along the side
of the barn. If this wasn’t life or death, Lily would have laughed
out loud.

She shimmied out of the empty window,
careful not to break the glass with her torso as she skimmed the
sharp, spindly twigs and crouched beside the bushes. As far as she
could see, there wasn’t a soul around. The faint glow of the sun in
the overcast sky told her it was well past midday, which meant she
had a good three hours of daylight to help her find her way out of
here.

A thick branch lay broken in half
across rows of muddy tractor marks leading out toward a far field.
Lily licked her lips, looking across both her shoulders before
darting out to grab one of the halves. It was the perfect weight
and length to do some damage, not to mention it fit perfectly into
the palm of her hand. “Just a little longer than a Japanese Short
Stick,” she chuckled to herself, twirling it up and then down in a
practiced motion.

“
Hey! Hey you! What are you
doing there?” A deep voice yelled from the corner edge of the
barn.

Lily’s head jerked toward the sound,
and she stood motionless for a moment, trying to gauge if the man
was a civilian or one of Parr’s men.

He took a step toward Lily, his eyes
bulging with fear. “Holy shit! Quinn, get Marcus or for sure we’ll
be Parr’s newest lab rats! The girl got out!”

Lily took off running, but it was too
late. Damn it. What was she thinking standing there like an idiot?
The alarm had been sounded, and it would be only minutes before
wolves would be snapping and growling behind her. A lot of good
that stick would do her now. She couldn’t out run the wolves, and
she was too outnumbered to fight, but if she could make it to the
road, she might stand a chance.

“
I’ve got her scent. She’s
headed toward the back pasture.”
One voice
growled.

“
Good, keep her moving that
way, and I’ll cut her off before she hits the milking shed and road
east. If she hit’s that, she’ll be too close to the road and out of
range.”

East. The road was east of here. She
stopped and squatted beside a broken down tractor, squinting up at
the sky to get her bearings. Finding her position, she crouched,
running as best she could through a fallow field toward what looked
to be a barren orchard. At least the trees would give her some
cover. “Thank you, boys,” she muttered to herself.

Whoever they were, it was obvious they
had phased to wolf form, but someone must have missed the memo that
she could tap into the common Were path.

Jack would be monitoring the
telepathic traffic for sure, but he couldn’t monitor everyone, the
network was just too far-reaching to block. This time, she didn’t
need to work the averages. He’d monitor only those he knew could
help her—Sean, Mitch and the other hunters—Rissa, too. Lily smiled
coldly. In his arrogance she knew he’d forget one very small, but
very important detail. He’d never think to monitor
Stephie.

Lily knew exactly how she would reach
Sean. Now all she needed was to figure out where she
was.

She hopped a low stone fence and
headed into the orchard. The spread of trees wasn’t that deep, only
ten rows, so her cover wasn’t going to last. She stayed low,
running from tree to tree, and only stopping to check her bearings.
When she reached the last row, she squatted down again to listen,
using both her ears and her mind.

It was too quiet.

Cautious, she opened her senses to
scan the area, but got nothing but static, just like she had two
months ago, when Sean had first brought her to the Compound. Looks
like Jack learned that trick as well from Volkmann’s
notes.

Underhanded bastard.

She straightened, but the sound of
leaves rustling pulled her attention and she glanced over her
shoulder. A squirrel scurried along foraging in the leaves. She
smiled at herself for being so jumpy and turned back, only to
freeze in mid-motion.

Jack.

He wore his trademark half-smile as he
leaned against one of the trees, his foot propped on a broken apple
crate. She half expected him to tease her or break into a full on
grin at her expense. He looked the same as ever, but the reality
was the Jack she loved like a brother, was gone.

Quietly stunned, Lily’s grin
faded.

“
What, not happy to see
me?” he asked, pushing himself away from the tree, but his shift in
weight sent his foot crashing through the rotted crate. He lurched
forward, swearing and landed on his hands.

The scene unfolded in slow motion, and
from the corner of her eye she noticed a stamped logo on the jagged
edge of the crate. Bradford Farms Dairy. She finally knew where she
was, but she wasn’t going to stick around to verify it.

She took off running, heading out of
the trees and down an embankment. One hundred feet ahead, she heard
the sound of cars passing on the road. If she could just reach
there before Jack caught up to her… He was shouting as he ran, and
then there was nothing but the wind and the sound of his growls. He
had phased.