She sobbed in a shuddering breath, climbing to her knees in a shaky stumble. “No.”
Michael tilted his head at her reply. Ryan scoffed and pulled me closer to him. It was nothing but a reminder that I was stuck. He had me. But… I blinked, stunned alert at the bump of something hard at the waistband of my jeans. The knife. Michael’s knife, actually. We’d kept it all along. Cassidy has insisted I would be more apt to use it.
“No what?” Michael demanded of Cassidy.
“Lower your weapon,” the guard stammered. He held a gun in one hand and a taser in the other. Both tools shook. Even if he had the balls to pull the trigger on either, he’d miss with that tremoring movement.
“No.” Cassidy repeated it without an explanation. She glanced my way. I couldn’t tell what her terrified expression was supposed to clue me into, but I recognized a glint of determination. All right. I was ready. I would try to be for whatever came.
This was it. Two trained killers with guns. One shoddy excuse of a security doofus. I was all ears for a way out.
“No, you won’t cooperate?” Michael said. He looked at Ryan for an instant. I barely felt the man nod.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Ryan’s grin was too diabolical.
She couldn’t give in, but what other choice did we have?
“No. I won’t fucking cooperate,” she said.
“Fine.” Michael lowered the gun and removed another syringe. “Go ahead, Caine.”
Go ahead…and what? I tensed for more violence.
I tucked my arm around my back and gripped the knife. Ryan didn’t notice. I was right there next to him but he was distracted. Too busy removing the gun from my face and firing at the guard.
Cassidy let a strangled scream out as the man fell to the floor. Blood and matter had splattered on her arm and chest.
I wouldn’t have another chance. I whipped my arm around in an arc and slammed the knife into Ryan’s neck. All the way to the hilt. It stuck up above his collarbone and blood spread onto his white shirt.
“You f—”
He didn’t finish his yell. I followed the momentum of my hit and tackled him to the check-in counter. Another pfft of a gunshot went loose and fire erupted on my thigh.
Michael? If he was shooting at me, he wasn’t watching Cassidy.
“Run!” God, I hoped she was already long gone.
Two more gunshots went off, too close together. These weren’t muted pops but loud bangs. Over the crashing thunder of blood in my ears, I heard voices shouting, a scream. Others in the library had to be coming.
“Come on!”
Cassidy? That was her yelling at me. It had to be.
Straining from the wound I’d gotten, I pushed up from the check-in counter, releasing the handle to the knife. Ryan groaned and slinked to the floor, his hatred and fury hardly concealed through the slits he stared through. “You piece of—”
“Come on!”
Red flashed at my side as I stood. Cassidy’s hair. She’d run over to me. Her face was tear-streaked, her eyes wide. More crimson glimmered from the lights, the blood on her arm. In her hand, the one she didn’t pull me away from the counter with, held a gun. No suppressor. She’d taken it from the dead guard?
“You can’t stop me,” Michael warned from behind. He staggered to stand, blood blossoming from a spot on his shoulder and also from his stomach—no, lower. His groin.
“Move!” Cassidy propelled me to follow her toward the opening doors of the elevator. Tripping over Ryan as he lunged out to grab my leg, I limped with her.
As we shoved into the opened elevator door, I looked back to see Michael pushing up against the counter. One elbow supported him and then his hand jerked back as he fired multiple rounds.
Chapter Twelve
Cassidy
Heaving breaths chopped the quiet of the elevator as the doors slid shut. Whirs began, marking our descent, and I crashed into Luke. We’d dived into the elevator car just as Michael had fired the gun. I stared up at the metal wall, two bullets lodged into the surface and concaving the plate.
My brain was so scrambled, I could hardly think. I couldn’t. There was no way to even figure out and rationalize how the hell we were both alive.
“I… I shot him.”
Luke winced his eyes shut and leaned against the metal wall. “Thank God for beginner’s luck.”
A harsh laugh tickled at my throat and I snorted a cough instead. This was no time for comedy. No time for distractions. But the hysteria fit nicely with the panic still driving me forward. Yep. Me. I shot a man. Not only that, I’d hit my target twice. Guilt would probably mess with me later, but right now…yeah, I was grateful for my lucky shots.
“Are you okay?” I reached for him as he lowered down along the wall, reaching for his leg. Dark red stained his jeans. No. He was definitely far from okay.
“For now.”
I wasn’t surprised by his confident answer. But his winces told the truth. Maybe he wanted to be strong for me. Regardless, I stretched over to try to support him in checking for the damage. As soon as I lowered my head, dizziness commandeered the rush of adrenaline. I swayed, blinking at the carousel effect.
“Cassie?” he asked.
I focused on the wrinkles lining his face as he gave me a critical once-over.
“You’re hit.”
Hit? Yeah. Michael had hit me. And kicked. And tried to choke me to submission again. But he’d shot at me too? Right. He’d pulled himself up just before we launched into the elevator. So that was what this burning agony was.
“Damn, do I miss having a skillet handy.” While I wasted the breath on cheesy sarcasm, I took stock of my body. Mainly, my arm. Shoulder? No, lower. I slanted, testing the rawness of my neck from that asshole’s rough hands on me. Blood streamed from my upper arm, a nasty, angry gash of red. At least it looked linear. And not into me much. At least there wasn’t a hole on the back of my limb.
I was as much of an expert on gunshot wounds as I was on using the weapon. Maybe I had double the beginner’s luck of both using the thing and collecting its effect.
“Nothing a Band-Aid can’t fix.” I hoped. I couldn’t say the same for Luke. He’d gotten a bullet in the leg. Recovery would have to wait though because the elevator gave a soft whoop of air moving beneath us. We’d landed in the basement and the doors began to slide open.
Fluorescent lights shone orangish glows over the sub-floor of the library. A chain-link ceiling-to-floor fence secured the entire level. Behind it, rows of shelves stood in something of a maze, like a work in progress of too many academic materials. Sawhorses stood near the front and yellow-handled power tools lay abandoned from the workers the day before. In front of the chain-link fence was a long, low L-shaped desk. A single person sat behind it, glancing up at us, her glasses offering a reflection of bluish light from the computer in front of her.
“Can I help you?” It wasn’t the ditzy girl from yesterday but an older woman. Her tone wasn’t welcoming. She tipped her head lower to sternly stare at us from over her glasses. “Who allowed you access down here?”
Luke eased his arm around my shoulders. It could have looked like we were just a cozy, lovey-dovey couple, but it was only for help. I followed his lead and wrapped my arm around his wide, hard body, aiding him to walk. In his hand, he gripped his jacket, the fabric covering the blood leaving my arm and the splatters—
Jesus Christ. That poor kid. Shot. Right in the forehead. I swallowed hard, resisting the tears and the raw need to scream at the top of my lungs. I’d never get rid of the horror of seeing that murder happen up-close. I hadn’t even had a second to process it yet.
“Miss? Who gave you access?”
I jerked at her snippy tone.
Luke cleared his throat, stepping forward and therefore jolting me into action, forcing me to approach with him, lest I lose the cover of his jacket on my wound. “We came here yesterday to retrieve some documents. They explained that we could be permitted access this mor
ning and only for a short time.”
She pursed her lips, studying him—us—carefully as we came closer. “Who told you this?”
I clenched my teeth so tightly my jaw hurt. For fuck’s sake. Couldn’t she just give us a break? Why’d she need to glare at us with so much judgment? It took so much hell just to get here, and we’d still need to leave afterward. I was in no mood for an uppity bitch.
“The clerk stationed upstairs,” Luke said.
Another prim purse of her lips. But this time, she jiggled the mouse on the counter and said, as though it was such a grievance and hardship, “I need your name and ID. As well as the key for your archive box.”
We’d reach the counter. Luke rested an elbow on it, likely trying to hide a full wince as he put more weight on his leg.
“Of course.” I slung the backpack to the counter. I didn’t intend to fling it up there, but my coordination was a little off. Dizziness fuzzed at my mind and I knew I needed to at least stop the blood loss. First things first. I licked my lips, tasting the blood on the corner from when Michael punched me. “I have my…driver’s license.” Whoa. I needed to breathe better than this.
In and out. In and out. Don’t think. Don’t think about it. I couldn’t faint from the blood and guts now. I pulled my wallet out from the backpack. It was a clumsy move, since I couldn’t use my left arm. Other junk fell out of the bag’s opening, spreading out in a slight mess on her immaculately clean and bare countertop. “Sorry.” I handed over my ID.
She raised one brow like a regal PITA.
My anxiety swelled with her holding and reading my driver’s license. Providing my name and info went against the need to stay off the grid. What was she typing it into on there? Her fingers clacked on the keyboard and I couldn’t stand still. I leaned forward, resting my injured arm against the counter and dug in the bag for my key. If I could just…get a break. A chance to sit and catch my breath. Don’t think. Just…don’t. Move. Focus and get out of here.
“Here’s the key.” I slid it over the countertop toward her. Drying blood swirled along my fingers and wrist. When I saw her stare stuck on the mess coating my pale skin, I pulled my hand back and left it out of her line of sight, below the edge of the counter.
No need to arouse her suspicions any more than it was.
Another long-ass moment passed of her viewing something on her screen. The verdict came next. From the look of her frowning and shaking her head, it couldn’t be good.
“You’re not even in the database. Are you a grad student? Or…”
“No. This key—I’m here to retrieve documents for Scott Farger.” I quickly reached into the bag to get Rosa’s letter, explaining this direction.
She tapped some more on her keyboard and shook her head again. “Professor Farger is deceased. Unless you have a notarized will document, only the next of kin can be permitted to retrieve his materials from archives.”
Luke sucked in a deep breath. Not a sigh, but I could hear the are you fucking kidding me? in it.
She glanced between us, landing an indifferent smirk on me. “Sorry.”
Yeah. The hell you are.
I gave in. To gravity, at least. I dropped my head to my backpack, not even flinching when I knocked my forehead on something hard in there. But, ow. What the hell was— Oh. The gun. I’d stuck the dead guard’s gun in there in the elevator. Right. When I saw Ryan pressing his weapon to Luke’s face, instinct took over. Some untapped survival mode that demanded I take the guard’s gun to level the playing field. I’d only had that brief moment to snatch it while Michael faced off that younger guard.
And what was a little more pain, anyway? A bump on my head was nothing. It didn’t matter how much shit I’d gone through to just deliver Rosa her goddamn research data. I’d never win. I’d only hit one dead-end after another. I’d always lose.
“But her adoptive mother was married to him. Rosa”—I pivoted my head an inch to see Luke tapping a finger to the letter I’d set out—“She was married to Scott.”
“Is Rosa here?” the snappy woman retorted.
Luke’s jaw ticked. “No, but—”
The woman harrumphed. “If Rosa was here, then she would likely be prepared to access Professor Farger’s files. But she is not here.”
“Look.” Luke set both of his large hands on the counter and towered over it. I raised my head, sliding the backpack further apart and sending more junk to slip out. “We came here specifically to get into Mr. Farger’s archive material.”
“That’s your problem. Not mine.”
“Not your problem?” I smacked my hand on the counter. “It could be!”
Because if Luke and I had just barely escaped death’s door, getting away from Michael and Ryan upstairs, there was no guarantee someone else from Project Xol would try even harder to get whatever dynamite data was in Scott’s storage.
She stiffened, her stare frosting a bit more. “Are you threatening me, Ms. Shaw?” Without waiting for an answer, she picked up her phone. “I’m calling security.”
Security? They were dead one floor up. I reached out to stop her hand from picking up that landline receiver. Luke gripped my arm, perhaps seeing how foolish it would be to manhandle this icy woman.
“Cassidy. Take it easy.” His murmur was firm but soft. Regardless, I was too frazzled to obey. I yanked my arm from him and spun around. Resting my back to the woman who took her sentry role way too seriously, I closed my eyes. Comforted by the blackness behind my lids, I tried to tune out the pounding headache. I took a deep breath, searching damned hard for some calm that Luke advised. I needed to think. To get past this woman—
She suddenly huffed. “Or, you could have simply explained that you’re his daughter.” She made a noise of irritation, as though I was the idiot here.
Daughter? Was this witch still talking to me, and in a tone like that? Whose daughter?
I turned back around, perhaps too quickly since the room blurred at the edges of my vision. I blinked, trying to connect the dots.
Between her fingers, she held up a paper. A form? No. I narrowed my eyes. A birth certificate. I ripped it out of her grasp. Mine? It was my birth certificate. How…?
That folder. Rosa had labeled it as holding her birth certificate. I’d forgotten it was even in Rosa’s security-deposit box in New York. It’d been tossing around with all the other things we’d deemed necessary to carry with us. Mine must have been stashed in it with hers. Corners were ripped and wrinkled. I set it down and smoothed it out, skimming furiously. Father: Scott Farger.
If I had known it was in there, I probably wouldn’t have even checked it out when I’d retrieved it, so sure I was in the story of my birth. My parents hadn’t wanted me. Rosa explained they were young druggies, ill-suited for taking care of another human being. The names on the form wouldn’t have mattered to me. They never had—because my biological parents had deemed I didn’t matter.
“So as next of kin…here you go.”
Scott Farger. He was once Rosa’s husband. My biological father. The guy who gave me half of my genes.
My…father.
I stared at the birth certificate, hardly registering that Luke gave simple acknowledgments to whatever this librarian archive watchdog was saying. Numbers of rows. Aisles. I halfheartedly realized she might be giving us directions.
I licked my lips, my heart beating too fast at the shocker of news. On top of what happened upstairs…now this.
Scott Farger was my father. He was no juvenile druggie. He was a famous and intelligent scientist. A man who easily could have parented or claimed me as his own.
I couldn’t fathom why Rosa could hide this from me. Why she’d lie to me about this. How dare she!
I zoned out, still staring down at the paper. Luke took the birth certificate and the rest of the scattered junk. He shoved it all into the backpack and hefted the bag. I couldn’t snap out of it, watching him move while I was stuck in this shell. Maybe it was the combination of shoot
ing a person, being a witness to murders, fearing the end of my life and Luke’s as well. All of that insanity had fried my reactions to reality.
Learning my father’s identity was just the icing on the messed-up chaos of the last hour.
“Cassidy.” Luke gripped my elbow. “Please, let’s go.”
Dings chirped from the wall. I snapped from the paralyzing chill of news. The noise alerted me in the desensitizing tomblike quiet down here. The elevator. Someone was coming down. Of course someone was. The death toll and bloodshed upstairs had to have called attention.
Luke limped as he pulled me back, toward the chain-link fence.
“Are you okay?” the librarian asked, her tone accusatory rather than sympathetic.
My heart lurched and the burning energy of adrenaline fueled me to move. I staggered backward with Luke, away from the elevator doors. We had no cover. The check-in desk wrapped around and away from us toward the chain-link barrier of the archives. If we could jump, it might have helped to throw ourselves over it.
Yet, down here, we were trapped. There was no way around that fact.
Panting at the fear, I swallowed past the lump in my throat. Nausea wreaked havoc on my gut and a sluggish dizzy spell had me losing my balance as we retreated.
Do not faint. Not now!
The doors slid open.
Bloody and scowling, Michael stepped out.
To be continued in…FIND.
Acknowledgments
For editing, I thank C.J. Pinard at www.cjpinard.com. For the cover design and photography, I thank Kellie Dennis at Book Cover By Design at www.bookcoverbydesign.co.uk. For proofreading, I thank PSW.
For all the never-ending encouragement, suggestions, and cheerleading, I thank my great team of betas: Allyson, Crystal, and Dawn. I treasure your input and am so glad to have you in my corner!
About the Author
Amabel Daniels lives in Northwest Ohio with her patient husband, three adventurous girls, and a collection of too many cats and dogs. Although she holds a Master’s degree in Ecology, her true love is finding a good book. When she isn’t spending time outdoors, or wondering how to negotiate with her mightily independent daughters, she’s busy brewing up her next novel, usually as she lets her mind run off with the addictive words of “what if…”
Lost: Project Xol Page 11
