by Dena Christy
“What’s going on?” Collette spoke behind her, and Evie turned her head as she pulled the hair sticks out of her hair. Her hair fell out of it’s bun and flowed down her back.
“We have a way out of here?” Evie gave her friend a reassuring smile as she twisted the shaft of first one hair stick and then the other. The tops fell away, revealing her lock picks.
“What are those?” Miranda asked as she squinted her eyes to see what Evie held in her hand.
“Lock picks and they are our ticket out of here.” Evie turned back around, and Rebecca moved aside so she had access to the lock.
Evie inserted the tension wrench portion of her set in the bottom of the lock and applied a little pressure so she could determine which direction the lock turned in order to unlock. Once she knew that, she inserted the pick and pushed up on the individual pins, and some were more difficult than others. She focused on this one task, this one thing that only she could do. The others were depending on her and she couldn’t let them down.
She let out a breath of relief when the last of the pins gave way, and with a twist of her tension wrench the door unlocked. She eased it open and cringing as it screamed on squeaky hinges.
She pulled the wrench and the pick out of the lock and put them back together so they looked like hair sticks again. Hopefully the men, when they found them, were behind a similar lock and they could free them. She straightened up and turned to the others.
“We must be alert and proceed with caution. Just because our door isn’t guarded, doesn’t mean that the cell the men are in isn’t.” Evie spoke in a low voice, in the event that there were soldiers close by that they couldn’t see. They’d crossed the hurdle of the locked door, but she would not celebrate that small victory until they’d been reunited with the men.
They gathered around the unlocked door and opened it a little further. The sound the rusty hinges made was horrendous, and they all paused, standing still. Evie strained to hear, but there was no sound of running boots, no shouts of alarm. Was it going to be this easy?
As a unit they walked cautiously out of the cell, pausing in the hall like a bunch of frightened rabbits. Evie had no idea where they should go now, and it seemed futile. There were two potential directions that they could head in and she had no idea which one to pick.
“Where do we go?” Miranda appeared to be operating on the same wavelength as she was. Evie had no idea what to tell her.
“Let’s go this way and see what we find.” Rebecca took the lead and steered them toward the right. They cautiously moved forward. Evie couldn’t speak for the others, but her senses were on high alert. They slowed as they approached the end of the corridor where it veered to the left. The hairs raised up on the back of her neck when she heard what she thought was the scuffle of a boot on the floor.
She froze and held her arms out so the others would stop behind her. She held still, praying that she was wrong, and that there was nothing around the bend. Her pulse was in her ears as she stared straight ahead. A shadow grew quickly into the form of a soldier who stopped in shock as he looked at them. Evie’s eyes darted to his name tag. Sinclair. There were four of them and only one of him. They had no choice but to subdue him.
Evie took a step forward, determined to do just that.
Cynric rubbed the back of his neck and looked over where Synn was finally stirring from his place on the floor. Ryce was pacing back and forth like a caged animal, and Cynric longed to tell him to sit down. Watching him pace was making him dizzy, but he kept his mouth shut. They were all helpless in here, and while the tension coiling inside him was almost unbearable, it was nothing compared to what must be going through Ryce. His bond with Collette meant that he would feel their separation like a pain in his gut.
Synn gave a muffled groan as he rolled over onto his back. Cynric got up and went over to him. Synn opened his eyes and blinked several times before the dazed look cleared from his face.
“What the hell happened?” Synn struggled to sit up, and Cynric reached out to take hold of his arms and help him. His friend swayed for a moment as his hand went up to the back of his head. “I feel like I’ve been hit by an asteroid.”
“You were hit with the butt of a rifle.” Cynric moved Synn's hands away and felt the back of his head. There was a large lump on the back of his friend’s head, but at least it didn’t feel like the skin was broken.
“The women?” Synn looked up at him, and Cynric could read the worry evident in his eyes. He would give anything to assure his friend that his woman was safe, but he wouldn’t lie to him. First Synn would know it for the lie it was, and second he would not insult either of them by giving false platitudes.
“I don’t know. We were brought here in different vehicles, and I didn’t see them when we were brought in here.” Cynric backed away and Synn attempted to stand. He swayed on his feet, and Cynric took him by the arm and led him over to the lone cot at the edge of the room. Depending on how long the military was going to let them rot in here, they would have to sleep in shifts.
“We got to get out of here, man.” Ryce paced over to the door and kicked it, raising his foot up and slamming the bottom of his boot against it. It was made of solid metal, and his kick didn’t leave so much as a scuff mark.
Cynric sighed as he walked back to the wall he’d been sitting against, and sat back down, leaning against it. He closed his eyes as the weight of all that had happened crashed down on him. It was his responsibility to keep his men and the women safe, and he’d failed them. Their enemies had caught up with them, and it was only a matter of time before they were tortured and killed. The slam of Ryce's foot hitting the door again reverberated through the room, and Cynric sighed.
“You might as well give that up. The door isn’t going anywhere, and the only damage you are doing is to your leg.” He didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t want his men to see the hopelessness of their situation in them. They would figure out that there was nothing to be done but wait to see what the military had in store for them soon enough.
“We have to do something. We have to find them.” The pain of being apart from Collette was evident in Ryce’s voice, and Cynric would have given anything to have been able to offer a solution to him. But what could they do?
“I want to get to Miranda as much as you want to get to Collette, but Cynric is right. Breaking your leg on the door will help no one. Cynric, what do you suggest? Do you have any ideas?” There was a thread of hope in Synn’s voice, one that told him that he was looking to him for leadership and guidance. It was natural since he was their commander.
Cynric blew out a breath and slowly opened his eyes. Some commander he was. He couldn’t even keep them out of the military’s clutches. He was useless, and if they were relying on him to get them out, they would wait a long time. The last time he’d been in a military prison it had been them who’d saved him. He couldn’t answer Synn, he could only shake his head. He didn’t want to lie to his men, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit just how far he’d let them down.
“So you’re just going to give up?” Ryce strode over from his place by the door to tower over him. Anger darkened his face, and Cynric looked up at him. He couldn’t blame him for being angry since he’d be angry too if he was seeing for the first time just how useless his commander was. “There is too much at stake for you to just roll over now.”
“He’s right Cynric. We have to think of the women. And there is something else.” Synn took a deep breath and looked at him with a deadly serious expression on his face. “Miranda is pregnant. I don’t know if she knows yet. If she does she has said nothing to me. She hasn’t noticed this.”
Synn shoved his shirt aside, and inside the mark that branded Miranda as his was a tiny hand print. That hand print belonged to his son, and Cynric swore under his breath as Synn covered the mark again. So not only was he now responsible for the lives of his men and the women, he was responsible for the life that was growing inside Miranda? The wei
ght of it crushed down on him, and he couldn’t take any more.
“Don’t you get it? I’m useless. For fuck’s sake, the last time I was in prison you two had to rescue me.” Cynric’s angry words bounced against the walls, and he scrubbed his hand over his face. What did they want him to say? What did they want him to do?
“How easy do you think Clancy will be on Evie? Miranda told me what she was to him. Do you think he’s the type to let her off without exacting some revenge on her?”
Did Synn not realize that he knew all that? That he knew enough about Clancy when he’d had contact with him that he wouldn’t know what the man could do to Evie? How did he think this was helping? Cynric shook his head as he tried to block out the image that Synn’s words painted in his head.
“This can’t be the end. I won’t let this be the end.” Ryce went back to the door and kicked it again. Cynric didn’t bother to tell him to stop. What was the point? They were as helpless as he’d been the last time he’d been in a military cell, with an electric torture device strapped to his back.
Cynric straightened his spine. The military hadn’t yet put the electronic pads on their back, and it could not have been an oversight. They would want to have them under control, and they had to know that the only way to do that was to put the pads on their back.
“Ryce, stop kicking the hell out of the door.” Cynric barked out the order as he stood and Ryce obeyed instantly, lowering his foot quickly to the ground. “They didn’t put the shock pads on our backs.”
“Should we be grateful for small favors?” Synn’s voice was laced with heavy sarcasm, and it was apparent that he didn’t yet grasp the implications of what Cynric had just said. He waited for a moment, but Synn just looked at him blankly.
“They didn’t put the pads on our back, which means they don’t have a way to control us. Now that the women are not around, they have little to compel us to do what they want. Do you think they will let a situation like that slide?” Cynric looked steadily at Synn and he saw the moment that he came to the same conclusion that he had.
“No they won’t. They’ll want to be able to control us. Which means sooner or later they will send someone in here to put the pads on us.”
“Exactly. We must be ready, because I’m sure they realize that we aren’t going to let them strap the things on us. They will have something on them that will disable us. We’ll have only one shot at this, so as soon as we hear anything, we must pounce on the first man that comes through the door.” Cynric could see the flaws in the plan, namely what they were going to do if no one came to this cell. It could be that the military would be happy to let them rot in here, but he doubted it. They’d been taken alive, which meant the military had some plan for them. One that involve torture and possible vivisection, but Cynric would not let it come to that. The military would want to control them with the electric pads, and that was their chance to get out of here and find the women.
The time in the cell passed with torturous slowness, and in the silence that surrounded them Cynric feared that he was wrong. Perhaps they had no other plans for them than to starve them to death in this dank forgotten cell. He raked his hand through his hair when he heard the scrape of a key in the lock. Adrenaline shot through his body, and he rushed over to the wall next to the door. He pressed himself flat against it, ready to pounce on the first person who came through. Synn and Ryce took up their positions a few paces away from the door, their bodies held in a fighting stance, and the tension coiled in their muscles was evident.
The key scraped inside the door as the unknown person on the other side turned it, and the door slowly opened. A man in a military uniform walked in and Cynric seized upon the man’s unguarded inattention. He grabbed him, wrapping his arm around the man’s neck like a coiling snake, and he pulled him back against his chest. The soldier protested, his voice coming out in an unintelligible rasp as Cynric tightened his forearm around his neck, pressing it against the man’s windpipe.
“Oh God, please don’t hurt him.” Rebecca came racing into the cell, followed by Evie, Collette and Miranda.
What was going on? Rebecca dug her fingers into the meat of his forearm and yanked on it. Cynric relaxed his hold, and she could pry his arm off the soldier’s throat. Cynric took a step back and looked over at Evie.
“What is going on?”
“This is Lieutenant Sinclair, and he is Rebecca’s brother. There isn’t enough time to get into it since we are trying to stage a prison break.” A grin broke out on Evie’s face, and she rushed over to him and put her arms around his waist. He pulled her to him as relief that she was safe and alive flooded through him. They weren’t out of the woods yet, but at least they were together.
Chapter Fifteen
Evie savored the feel of Cynric’s hard body against her. She’d thought she wouldn’t see him again. Relief poured through her that the military hadn’t killed them outright. She pulled back from him and took a step away. Lieutenant Sinclair rubbed his neck as he cleared his throat. He would have a nasty bruise on his throat from Cynric’s choke hold. They should have warned the men that they were coming in, but they hadn’t wanted to broadcast their presence in the hall. Rebecca was standing in front of Sinclair, and the love and concern on her face was evident. That had been a shocker, Rebecca’s revelation that he was her brother when he’d come upon them in the hall. Apparently he’d been on his way to get them out when they’d run into him in the corridor. It explained what Rebecca did when she disappeared for a few days at a time.
“So what’s the plan?” Synn had his arm wrapped around Miranda’s waist as he addressed the group.
“We will get you out of this cell and with any luck, off the planet. Your ship is here and I’m going to take you to it. Our engineers have been working on it, making repairs so they can get it in the air. A communication was sent out yesterday that they’ve made the repairs and preliminary tests indicate that the ship is flight worthy.”
“What are we waiting for?” A look of elation came over Synn’s face as he squeezed Miranda.
“I’m sure we will need to proceed with caution. Is that correct Lieutenant?” Cynric looked at Sinclair, who nodded his head.
“Your ship is housed on the other side of the complex. Despite the appearance of the cells here, this is a working military base, so we must use caution when we leave here.”
Dread unfurled in Evie’s stomach, erasing the elation that had been there only a few seconds before. She had thought no further ahead than getting to Cynric. They couldn’t hide in this cell forever, and the only way for him, his men and her friends to be safe was to get off the planet. To do that they had to get to their ship and had to navigate through a military base crawling with soldiers.
“How do you suggest we proceed?” Cynric must have sensed her anxiety because he took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. She left it there, drawing comfort from it. She knew she should pull away and put some distance between them. The fantasy of living a life with him that she’d indulged in over the past couple of days had come to an end. They hadn’t discussed a future together, and now the future had arrived. If they got to the ship successfully, they would be out of time. He would go back to his planet, and while she knew that was the best thing for him, she didn’t know how she was going to go on without him.
“This part of the compound isn’t guarded. Clancy didn’t want to risk anyone going near you with your abilities, in the unlikely event that you could get out of your cells. We should have no problem getting out of this building at least, but outside will be another matter. We must be cautious and stick to the fringes of the compound until we get to the building housing your ship. The ship is being guarded by two soldiers, and perhaps I will be able to lure them away long enough for you to get in.”
“And if you can’t?” Cynric put his arm around Evie as if he didn’t want to let her go. She put her arm around his waist and stayed close to him. There would be time to put a distance between them
later, for now she wanted him next to her for what could be their last remaining moments together. She looked over at Sinclair, who hadn’t answered Cynric’s question. The muscle along his jaw flexed, and Rebecca put her hand on his arm.
“We’ll have to kill them.” He didn’t look happy with the notion, and Evie wasn’t surprised.
“Are you sure you will be able to when the time comes?” This question came from Synn, and there was a gentleness to it, almost as if he understood what was causing Sinclair’s hesitation.
“I won’t like it, but I’ll do what I have to. I’m doing this because I love my sister, not because I hate the men working here. They are good men, and while I don’t want to kill them if it can be avoided, I’ll do it if I have to if it means keeping Rebecca safe. Since Rebecca’s safety hinges on none of us getting caught, I will help you as well.” Sinclair moved his head and pressed his lips against the top of Rebecca’s head.
All this talk of love, however brotherly, gave Evie a funny feeling in her stomach and she resisted the urge to look up at Cynric. He hadn’t told her he loved her, and while sometimes it felt like he did, unless he said the words she would never know for certain.
She shook off the melancholy that wanted to settle inside her. Now was not the time to indulge in her own drama. They needed to get out of this building and get to the ship. Her life would unfold however it was meant to, but she wouldn’t have a life at all if they didn’t get safely to the ship.
“Let’s go.” Cynric’s voice held a thread of command as he removed his arm from Evie’s waist and stepped toward the door. She knew it was silly, but she felt the loss of his physical closeness. She tamped the feeling down. Focus on what you’re doing.
