"Okay," I mumbled. "But…just give me a week, okay?"
"Okay," he agreed after a few seconds. "You've got a week. Next Thursday, it's you and me alone in your bedroom."
"Deal," I answered faintly. And you know that sinking feeling that people are always talking about? Well, that's the feeling I had in the pit my stomach.
But the condition of my stomach didn't bother Morris in the least. He looked pleased as hell. "So, where are we going?"
"Boulder!" I moaned, fully frantic at that point. "Let's go."
"Whereabouts in Boulder?"
"I don't know," I almost shouted. "Give me your phone and I'll look it up. Just head north for now."
And finally, we were on our way.
On the drive north, Morris tried to make typical Morris-type conversation (meaning he mostly talked about himself) but I was too distracted to pay much attention. I was busy worrying about Force, and wondering why the Olanders were so determined to get their hands on him, and making plans for what I was going to do when I reached Boulder. Of course, I didn't know if I'd find Force at the Olander facility in Boulder but the address was all I had, and I had to start somewhere.
"No, don't park," I barked as Morris pulled into the lab's parking lot. "Circle through and drive back out onto the street."
Morris gave me a questioning look.
"Just do it," I shot back at him then turned my focus on the long, low building with its gray concrete façade, steel columns and glass doors. Behind the wide set of doors, I could see a security guard standing at a wooden podium. The lot was full of cars and I didn't think too many of the company employees could be aware of Force's kidnapping. So if he was in the building, he'd probably been hustled through a less public entrance. I needed to check out the rest of the doors. And if I was going in, I needed to know how I was going to get out.
"Best path of retreat," I murmured, remembering Force's maxim.
"What?" Morris questioned.
"Nothing you'd understand," I sighed as he exited the lot. And a few hundred feet down the road, I told him to stop.
"Here?" he questioned.
I opened the door and slid from the seat.
"You need help?" he offered, not exactly over-the-top with enthusiasm. But then, he was Morris. And a guy like Morris always has somewhere better to be.
"What would it cost me?" I asked.
"A second ride," he answered with a slow grin.
I guess I should have known. I guess I should have been honored! Not many girls get a second ride with Morris Samuels. "I'll go it alone," I muttered and slammed the truck door, heading quickly across the vacant lots toward the rear of the lab while Morris's truck accelerated away.
A tall hedge seemed to mark out the south side of the lab's property line. It ran down to a creek that I couldn't see but knew was there because of the willowy green brush growing along its banks. I skirted the hedge, peering through the leaves to check out the building. There was only one door on this side—a basement door at the bottom of a stairwell. But a wide strip of asphalt led to it, making it accessible by car. So Force could have been transferred from the limo to the building quickly, without anyone noticing.
When I reached the end of the hedge, I pulled my hoodie over my head with my hands in my pockets and strolled next to the river like I was out for a walk. (There were some tall windows on the back of the building and if anyone noticed me I wanted to look like an innocent hiker.) There were two more doors on the back wall of the building and a door on the other side but none of them could be reached by automobile. So, I doubled back and tried the door at the bottom of the stairwell but (as I expected) it was locked.
So the door on the south side of the building was my target once I was inside. Oh, yes. I was going inside that building. And nobody was going to stop me. I didn't care how big the security dude was.
Turned out he was big. Really big. I tried to walk past him like I belonged there (always the best strategy), but he zipped out from behind that podium faster than you'd think a man of his size could move.
His large bulk blocked my way and I had to crane my neck back to see his face. On the way up there, my eyes checked out his hands and made sure he wasn't missing any fingers or wearing any bandages. He wasn't. So there was no reason to think there was anything sinister about the guy. Just a normal everyday (largish) guy doing a normal everyday job as a security guard.
"Can I help you, miss?" he asked in a polite but threatening growl.
I pointed down the hall. "I'm just looking for a bathroom I can use in a hurry."
"I'm sorry, miss. But this is a secure facility. You'll have to find somewhere else."
"There's nothing around for miles," I argued, hopping around for effect.
"I'm sorry," he insisted and reached out to usher me back through the doors.
I took a step backward and glared up at him. "If you don't let me go down the hall to that bathroom, it's gonna happen right here," I told him.
Chapter Ten
I won't tell you how often I've used that little trick in the past. But I can assure you it works every time. And the guard didn't spend too much time thinking about it before he pointed down the corridor. "Last door on your left."
I smiled as soon as he was safely behind me.
Okay, so I was in the building. Now (if I was lucky) I might be able locate the black and red security touchpad I'd seen when I flashed on Olivia in the restaurant. That's where she kept her valuables. And I was pretty sure that's where I'd find Force…if he was there in the building. I just didn't know if the touchpad was here at her lab…or somewhere else. Like maybe at her home…in which case I'd have to find out where she lived…with the rest of her kind.
But first things first. I needed to make a quick search of the building before that guard started looking for me. But as I hurried down the hall toward the restrooms, I could see there were no security touchpads outside the office doors in the hall. That wasn't too surprising. The floors were carpeted. The walls were paneled with wood. This wasn't where I'd find the box I was looking for.
I hurried down the long corridor and burst into the ladies' room, resting briefly against the closed door while trying to come up with the next step in my plan. One of the stalls was occupied and whoever was in there had left her clipboard on the counter between the two sinks. I grabbed it up and stepped back out into the hallway.
Acting more confident than I felt, I focused on the clipboard like whatever I was doing was important as I passed a few people and headed for the door marked "stairs", where I figured I could hide out for a few seconds. But I didn't have time to waste. The guard at the door would start wondering about me after maybe fifteen minutes. Somehow I had to find Force and bust him out before that happened. (Assuming he was actually there in the building and not somewhere else.)
I shrugged as I started down the stairs. The building only had one floor above ground. The main level was the public face of Olander. But it was supposed to be a lab facility, right? And I knew there was a basement so I figured they did the scientific stuff down there.
At the bottom of the stairs, I took a deep breath and stepped through a door into a huge room filled with lab equipment including a lot of glass containers and stainless steel tubing. Lucky for me, there weren't many people around. So I found a white coat hanging on the wall a few feet away, pulled it on and started walking toward the south side of the room (in the direction of that door I wanted to reach) while avoiding the few people who were working. I didn't know what I was looking for besides that red and black touchpad but I thought I was on the right track when I saw a white door at the rear of the room with a large yellow "restricted" sign hanging over it. I headed in that direction.
And when I reached the back of the room, guess what I found? Uh-huh, mounted on the wall right beside the door was the touchpad I'd seen in Olivia's memories. Holding my breath, I punched in the four numbers I'd memorized and heard a deep click from the door mechanism. Glancing
back over my shoulder to make sure nobody had spotted me, I slipped through the door into a short hallway.
So at that point, I knew I was running out of time. But I was facing a new problem. Because there were three doors on either side of the hallway (six, altogether) in addition to the exit door on the far wall. And each of the six doors had a touchpad mounted next to it. I just hoped my security code would work on all of them because I might have to open all six before I found what I was looking for. None of doors had any windows (not even small ones) that would tell me anything about what was inside, so I started with the door nearest to me. When I found that one empty, I tried the one on the other side of the hall.
On the third door, I got lucky.
I leaned on the metal door's heavy weight and it swung slowly open to reveal a narrow cell harshly lit by overhead fluorescent tubing. Against the wall sat a black examination table like the kind you find in a doctor's office…except for the wide leather restraints meant to strap patients (read victims) down. But evidently, Force hadn't been a very cooperative victim, because all of the restraints had been ripped open. I wasn't sure how he'd managed that because the thick bands looked pretty sturdy, but maybe he'd had a chance to use his knife before they took it away from him.
Yeah, his knife was gone and his sword too.
Force was asleep, but he wasn't on the table. He was sitting on the concrete floor directly across from the door, his back slumped against the wall, his head tilted uncomfortably to one side, his large fingers wrapped around a gallon jug of water.
"Force," I hissed in a loud whisper. "Force."
When he didn't wake up, I tossed the clipboard on the table and shrugged out of the lab coat, wadding it into a ball and using it to keep the door from closing in case it was the kind that closed on its own.
"Force," I growled when I reached him and gave his shoulder a rough shake. "Wake up."
His lashes flickered before his eyes slowly opened. It took a while for them to focus on my face. I didn't know what had happened to him but his eyes had lost their metallic glint. They were dull, as if most of the color had been drained from them. Alarmed, I tried to imagine what the Olanders could have done to him that would take all the life from his eyes. But a quick check of his muscular frame told me he wasn't injured except for a swollen lip and a few scrapes on his jaw. There wasn't even any blood on the front of his T where he'd taken that dart in the chest. Just a small hole in the white fabric.
"What are you doing here?" he whispered hoarsely.
"Busting you out," I told him, wrapping my fingers around his rock-hard biceps and tugging upward. "C'mon."
"But it's…dangerous," he muttered.
"That's why I'm here," I sniped back at him. "To save you from something dangerous."
Slowly, he levered himself upward, his back sliding up the wall behind him.
I started to worry again. "What's the matter? Are you drugged or something?"
He shook his head. "I don't think so."
Still gripping his arm, I said, "Well, if it's okay with you, we need to hurry."
He nodded but he still didn't seem to be entirely with me, if you know what I mean.
That's when I noticed how pale he was. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he answered, pushing his shoulders back against the wall. "I'm just a little tired. Nothing that a week and a few gallons of water won't fix."
"What did they do to you?" I growled, getting angry just thinking of about it. He'd only been there a few hours. Well, maybe three or four but not any more than that. What could they have possibly done to him that would make him so weak?
He held my gaze for a long moment. "I'm just a little…drained. Let's go."
He took one step and started weaving like he'd been drinking so I grabbed his arm to steer him, which wasn't easy. I mean the guy's build like a Mack truck and almost as heavy. And every time he leaned in my direction, I thought we were both going down.
Out in the hall, he stopped and leaned against the wall. "My weapons," he panted like he was already exhausted. He pointed at one of the doors in the corridor. "They're in that room."
"No time," I insisted, and pushed him along. "We'll try to get them later."
"I need them."
"Don't be ridiculous," I argued. "In your condition, you won't be able to carry them, let alone use them. We'll get them another time."
"How?" he demanded as we stumbled toward the exit door. "How are we going to get them later?"
"I don't know," I answered. "But it's just gonna have to wait."
"I'm not leaving here without my sword," he maintained but even the argument seemed to tire him out.
"We'll come back," I promised while I pushed him toward the exit and worried about someone busting in through the lab door and catching us. "I have the code that opens all the doors. It's 1359. We'll sneak back here some time and get your sword." 'Course I didn't tell him that by the time we got back there, they'd have almost certainly changed the code. At that point, I was just focused on getting him out of there.
At the far end of the hallway, I propped him against the wall beside the exit door then opened it and slipped outside far enough to climb a few steps and scope things out. There was no one around. Just as importantly, there didn't seem to be any alarms going off or any other disturbances that suggested anyone was looking for us. Yet.
"All clear," I whispered once I was back inside. Somehow, I coaxed him up the stairs and maneuvered him toward the hedge, which was a lot like pushing a heavy shopping cart with two possessed wheels. You know exactly what I mean, right? And it seemed like forever, but somehow we reached the hedge undetected and ducked behind it. Then after a short rest for Force, we started downhill, using the hedge for cover.
"C'mon," I urged Force when he stopped for the third time in like sixty seconds.
"Can't," he gasped, leaning over and bracing his hands on his thighs. "Can't go any faster."
Appalled, I looked at him. "You have to. They'll catch you again."
He straightened and pulled an unsteady hand over his face then nodded toward the end of the hedge. "I can hear water."
"I know you're thirsty," I hissed as loudly as I dared. "But right now we have to focus on getting away."
"Water," he insisted.
So I wedged my shoulder into his armpit and helped him down the length of the hedge to the creek, which was up to its banks. It had been a banner winter for snow in the mountains and a banner spring for rain on the flatlands. A few more buckets of water and that little creek was gonna qualify as a river.
Force slumped down in the thick brush that crowded the banks and cupped his hands for a drink while I fidgeted nervously, looking over my shoulder and expecting sirens or shouting or some other indication that Force's absence had been discovered.
"I'll…stay here," he said after several gulps of water.
"What!" I exclaimed, my gaze whipping around to lock on his eyes. "No! You can't stay here. They'll find you!"
Seemingly exhausted, he shook his head. "They won't find me. They won't be able to track me."
"Track you? What do you mean? What are you talking about?"
Without answering and without removing his eyes from mine, he reached up and pulled me down beside him, one of his big hands reaching for my face.
This time I didn't flinch. And suddenly, it was like the world went still. Even though there was a stream about twelve inches away, making as much noise as a spilling-its-banks Colorado river can make, and even though we might be discovered at any moment, it was like all of those details faded into the background. And there was only the warmth of his big hand cupping my chin, his fingers sliding into my hair, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth.
"You have a pretty mouth," he murmured, and his steel gaze locked on my lips.
"We don't have time for this," I started, wondering what the hell was going on because he'd never acted like that before and thinking he wasn't himself, thinking he was still act
ing like he'd had one too many of something. Either that or maybe his brain had been deprived of oxygen. But before I could finish the thought, his warm lips were touching mine. Not hard, not passionately. Just barely touching, reeling me in, pulling me into the magic of his mouth, making me lean toward him, my lips on an epic quest for more.
And while this was happening, my brain was screaming, "We really don't have time for this!"
But the rest of me was melting into romantic goo and replying, "Yes, thank you for the update. I'll be with you in a minute."
I'd been kissed before, plenty of times. And I gotta say my whole take on the kissing thing wasn't positive. In general, I thought it was gross—an invasion of my personal space, slimy and wet. Like being smothered in a bucket of worms. But that was before I kissed Force. Because I'd never had a kiss like that. I'd never reacted that way before. It was like Force had reached deep inside me and gotten hold of something that I didn't even know existed, and yanked it to life. And whatever it was, it didn't kindle. It didn't smolder. It exploded. There was a fracking inferno going on inside me.
With my heart beating in my throat, I leaned into him, hungry for more…and toppled him back into the thick growth of springy brush.
Laughing softly, he quickly rolled me beneath him.
"Thought you were tired," I gasped with a laugh of my own, my eyes stuck on that deliciously brutal mouth that did wonderful things to my insides.
"Nobody's that tired," he murmured, a little life returning to his eyes and making me feel ridiculously proud that I'd put it there. "I wish we had more time," he said.
Uh, yeah. An hour or two would be nice to start with.
"So many things to tell you."
"Like what?" I asked softly, reaching up to sink my fingers into his thick gold hair.
"Things about myself. How I feel about you. How I've changed since I met you. But there isn't time," he murmured, his expression turning melancholy. He touched his lips to mine again for an addictive moment then he rolled away onto his knees. "I'll stay here," he said, pulling me into a crouch beside him. "But you need to leave. Find my family. Get help."
Force Page 11
