The Escape

by Teyla Branton

  A loud crash scattered my thoughts. I glanced up to see a hotel worker near the bend in the hallway, standing next to an overturned room service cart. A scream wrenched from her throat as she turned and fled.

  Ritter and Edgel fell motionless, staring for several long seconds at each other. Then Edgel leaned over, pulled the Asian over his shoulder, and sprinted down the hall.

  Ritter came toward me, his anger dying away as he knelt on the carpet. “You okay?” His eyes went to the blood on my arm.

  I nodded. “Yeah.” My wound looked worse than it was and would stop bleeding in a few moments. By morning it would be only a memory—one to add with all the others I tried not to recall. “Thanks for coming.” My eyes fell down his outfit. “But I really hope this isn’t when you confess you have some kinky fantasy about hotels.”

  A laugh rumbled in his throat. “Not hardly. Long story, but it got me to you.” He put his cheek next to mine, breathing deeply. I knew how he felt. We were alive and okay. If we’d been anywhere else, we wouldn’t be doing any talking at all.

  “We have to get Keene out of here,” I said after what seemed like less than a heartbeat.

  Nodding, Ritter felt for his pulse. “It’s holding steady, but there’s too much blood.” Red still oozed from under the scrap of black jacket, staining Keene’s white shirt with gore. If he’d been conscious a minute earlier, he wasn’t now.

  As Ritter leaned over to scoop up Keene, footsteps thundered down the hall. Three hotel employees appeared, accompanied by half a dozen armed police officers and four Secret Service agents. Ritter and I stood up to meet them.

  “What happened, Miss?” an officer asked me.

  “My friend and I were attacked.” I indicated Edgel’s two fallen men. “By those guys and two others who ran away.” Their security cameras would actually reveal that I’d thrown the first knife. But wasn’t that understandable when Edgel and his men were so obviously threatening? The bigger issue would be their reaction to how fast we moved. “Fortunately, this man saved us.” I sagged against Ritter in mock distress. “But I’ve got to get my friend to the hospital.” I gestured to where Keene lay on the carpet.

  “Looks like you both need to go.” The officer began speaking into his radio, while two of his companions came forward to look at Keene. One of them appeared to have advanced medical training. The other officers and Secret Service personnel began checking Edgel’s men.

  “We have to get Keene to Dimitri,” I whispered to Ritter. I’d been checking out avenues of escape, but neither end of the hallway looked promising, not with so many people around.

  He nodded and spoke into the hand containing a mic ring similar to Keene’s. “You got that, Cort? They’re sending an ambulance. Probably several.”

  I ordered myself to relax. We weren’t through this yet, but as long as the Emporium didn’t have agents among these officers, we might not have to fight our way out. Our people would put an alternate plan into play. I just needed to be patient and trust them, in spite of my worry for Keene.

  “This one doesn’t seem to be breathing,” said an officer squatting by the big blond Emporium agent. “Weird thing is, he still has a heartbeat.” Several of his buddies hurried over to verify his findings.

  After sending hotel security for a copy of the video feed, the first police officer, who seemed to be in charge, continued to question us. Minutes ticked by as I worried about Keene. A pair of soft slippers appeared on my bare feet and a blanket around my shoulders, but I didn’t remember who gave them to me. More blankets covered the unconscious men. Around the time someone put a bottle of water in my hand, my anxiety began to crank up, in part because I was sure the hotel manager had pegged Ritter as an imposter. Surely in a hotel this size, he couldn’t know every employee. Then again, they’d probably reordered background checks on everyone in light of the vice president’s visit.

  We heard the ambulance gurney before it rounded the corner from the direction of the exit we’d been trying to reach, and I almost exclaimed as Dimitri Sidorov came into view. The Russian was a short, broad man with a narrow nose, wide brown eyes, and a trim mustache. His brown hair was swept back from his face, and he exuded a sureness that came from living over a thousand years. I’d known him only three months, but I trusted him with my life, and not because he was also my biological father.

  Tears pricked my eyes. Keene was going to be okay—or at least had a fighting chance. A certified medical doctor, Dimitri was also our healer, and his touch could keep even a fatally wounded mortal alive.

  Pushing the back of the gurney was Jace, his short blond hair slightly spiked in the front, his eyes glinting with excitement as he assessed the officers. With Jace and Dimitri here, our chance of escaping through sheer force became a serious possibility, despite the two additional Secret Service agents who accompanied our people. Still, it would be difficult with Keene, and we really didn’t want to injure anyone not connected with the Emporium. That meant we needed to follow protocol. I gritted my teeth against my impatience.

  Dimitri went directly to Keene, placing one hand on his chest, the other checking his eyes with a light Jace shined into them. “We need to get him into surgery now,” Dimitri announced to no one in particular.

  “He does look bad,” said the officer in charge.

  Jace stored the light in his blue uniform and helped Dimitri load Keene onto the gurney. Then, with a glance at Dimitri, Jace crossed the few steps to me and Ritter. “You look ready to pass out,” he told Ritter, who appeared as healthy as ever. “Were you hit repeatedly?” When Ritter nodded, he said, “That’s what I thought. You may have internal bleeding. You’d better come with us, too. No telling how long before the other ambulances arrive.”

  The officer in charge shook his head. “We have questions for him first.”

  “You can ask them at the hospital.” Dimitri’s tone brooked no argument. His gaze drifted to me. “Miss, you’ll definitely need stitches for that cut. Come along, and we’ll get you taken care of.”

  The police officer opened his mouth but apparently thought the better of objecting when Dimitri’s bushy eyebrows furrowed in his direction. Jace put his arm around Ritter, who leaned on him, nearly pushing him to the ground with his bulk. Ritter’s mouth twitched, but he managed not to grin. I bit the inside of my lip to keep my own expression suitably upset.

  “What about an IV?” The officer with medical training pointed to Keene. “He shouldn’t be moved without an IV.” His eyes slid to Ritter. “And if that man has internal bleeding, he shouldn’t be walking.”

  “Do you want him to bleed out while he waits for another ambulance?” Jace said, feigning offense. “Let us do our job, man.”

  Dimitri was already pushing Keene down the hall, trailed by the two Secret Servicemen who’d arrived with him.

  “What about these other men?” asked the officer in charge.

  “The other ambulances will be here soon,” Dimitri said over his shoulder, apparently unconcerned at how his words contradicted Jace’s. “We can’t help them all at once. This is my patient, and I have to do what’s best for him. He needs surgery now.”

  The officer nodded. “Okay, but one of my men will go with you to the hospital. Until we clear up exactly what happened here, we need to make sure we have contact information from everyone.”

  Dimitri shrugged and continued walking. We followed him around the corner and halfway down the hall where two more Secret Service officers stood guard. They held the door open for us as we left.

  “Nice playacting,” Jace murmured under his breath to Ritter. “But can you stop leaning on me so hard?”

  “Why? You think you might puke?” Ritter teased.

  Jace scowled. “Man, are you guys ever going to forget that?” It was in large part my fault that no one let it rest. Jace seemed to be on a permanent high since his Change and I’d found that reminding him of his reaction to the first deaths he’d seen at Emporium hands was a good damper.

>   All four agents walked outside with us. Ava O’Hare, the leader of our group of Renegades, and also my fourth great-grandmother, jumped lithely from the driver’s seat, her chin-length blond hair pulled back from her unlined face in a short ponytail, one hand inside her long jacket. I knew it wasn’t a simple pistol she gripped there—and a good thing because I sensed at least a dozen life forces in the dark, just out of sight. All of them dimmed with their mental shields in place. Emporium agents.

  “They’re here,” I said softly to Jace and Ritter. “A lot of them.” Ritter stepped away from Jace and went to my other side, forgetting he was supposed to be ill. I saw the dull gleam of our nanotech knives in his hand. Jace looked around intently, his hand going to his own weapon hidden in his pocket. But what good were knives against so many guns?

  Dimitri and three of the agents carried the gurney down the few steps to the sidewalk and over to the ambulance. Were our enemies willing to risk a shootout with the Secret Service here in the street? Was capturing us that important?

  Apparently not today. I breathed a sigh of relief as the ambulance doors closed with all of us inside, except the police officer and Ava, who sat in the front. As Ava drove through the dark streets, Dimitri kept his hand on Keene’s chest. “I wasn’t joking about the surgery,” he said. “We need to get him to the safe house immediately.”

  “Keene’s mortal,” I said. “Wouldn’t the hospital be better?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t have operating privileges at any of the hospitals here, and I can’t leave him alone right now, or he won’t make it. I pulled in a few favors to borrow this ambulance, but that’s pretty much the extent of my influence.”

  Ritter nodded and spoke into his ring. “Cort, are you still there?”

  I couldn’t hear the response, but Ritter looked outside the back windows. “Good, I see you. As soon as we’re sure we’ve shaken our tail, we’re going to pull into a street and make the switch. Ava, try to keep our friend occupied while I get him a sedative.” As he spoke, he peeled off the tight hotel uniform, revealing a blue V-necked T-shirt that hugged his muscles like a second skin.

  Jace shook his head. “I should have been the one to go with you,” he said to me in an undertone. His eyes were troubled, almost resentful, and that worried me. Especially when I still kept secrets from him. Secrets that ate at my conscience.

  “Maybe.” I didn’t know anymore. Jace’s hot head might have gotten us into trouble, but the switch would have prevented Keene’s injury. Seeing Keene lying on the gurney gave me the oddest feeling, a numbness with a sharp edge that felt like a razor blade. He was mortal. I’d come to think of him as permanent, like the other Unbounded Renegades, but no matter how well he fought, he would age and die and leave us all behind. I didn’t know exactly how I felt about that, but it wasn’t good.

  “How’s your arm?” Ritter asked me.

  “Fine.” I lifted my eyes, hoping he couldn’t see the turmoil there. A shock ran through my body as our gazes connected. Emotion threatened to drown me, to overcome who I was and destroy the independence I’d worked for. It was as scary as hell. And more enticing than a needle full of curequick. My emotions and his swirled together. I wanted him and he wanted me and eventually we’d have to do something about it.

  After a few sharp turns, Ava pulled into an alley and came to a stop. Ritter stepped out the back, meeting Cort who’d jumped from a brown van, followed by Marco Collins, one of our mortal security men. Cort handed off something to Ritter before hurrying toward us. Dimitri was already jumping down and pulling the gurney after him.

  “Erin,” he said to me, “grab my bag and as many of those supplies as you can carry.”

  “How is he?” Cort’s voice was tense, and I could feel the sorrow emanating from him as he stared down into his brother’s face. Keene had taken years to follow Cort’s defection from the Emporium, and the brothers often didn’t agree on issues, but their loyalty to each other ran deep. Cort had lived five hundred years, and he’d seen numerous mortal half-siblings die, but Keene was different. Everyone who knew Keene understood that. He lived by his own rules, regardless of the consequences, even while working for others. He saw things no one else saw, and he wasn’t afraid of making tough choices.

  Filling my arms with medical supplies, I glanced through the window to the front of the ambulance and saw Ava talking to the police officer. His words cut off as Ritter opened the door and fired a tranquilizer into his neck. The man struggled for a few seconds, his hand going to his gun before slumping over.

  Ava and Ritter came to help us move Keene over to the van. “I’ll take the ambulance back,” she said, her gray eyes like steel. “I’ll have to remove the officer’s memory of the tranquilizer and tell someone in the emergency room that he became ill. Hopefully it will be enough so he won’t lose his job.”

  “Should I go with you?” Ritter asked. “Or Jace?”

  She shook her head. “Marco and I can handle it. The Emporium doesn’t know where we’re heading, and if I sense anyone nearby, we know how to avoid them.” Her sensing ability might not be evolving as mine was, but she had three centuries of experience that I envied.

  Marco was already walking to the front of the ambulance, his dark hair and olive skin blending into the night. He looked to either side as he moved, his eyes constantly roving. He might be mortal, but his time in black ops with the government had made him as tough as they came.

  “Will Stella be able to get a hold of that video recording from the hotel?” I asked. “If not, our faces will probably be plastered on the late evening news.” Whatever happened at the hospital, there were going to be questions at our disappearance.

  Ava gave a short laugh. “I’m betting the Emporium will get to it before we do. They have just as much at stake and a lot more plants in the police department.” She turned and strode after Marco.

  “We can’t wait any longer,” Dimitri said as I climbed into the back of the van. He was slathering his arms with antiseptic, his jaw twitching in exactly the same way mine did when I was forced to confront something I wanted to reject. “I’ll have to put a clamp on that artery. We’re lucky it was only partially severed or he’d be dead already. Erin, help me take off his shirt. Cort, I’ll need some of your blood. You’re the same type, right? You others, stand guard. If they come on us now, we’re sitting ducks.”

  “Jace, get ready to start the van on my signal.” Ritter pulled an automatic rifle from the back of the van and stalked to the end of the street. Jace grabbed another gun and went to stand halfway between the van and Ritter.

  I couldn’t sense anything suspicious nearby, so I dropped my blanket and grabbed a pair of scissors from my supplies and began cutting Keene’s shirt, keeping pressure with one hand on the cloth over his wound. A sort of desperateness crept over me. I felt guilty that he might die of a wound that in the rest of us would eventually heal by itself. Removing the shirt revealed an ugly scar curving from Keene’s left kidney to the middle of his chest. I’d seen it once before, but I hadn’t learned the details of what had happened, only that it had occurred in a fight with the Renegades when he’d worked for the Emporium. It was a wonder he’d survived. After tonight he’d have more scars to add to his collection.

  Cort had grabbed two needles from the supplies I’d brought. In seconds, he had a makeshift infusion taking blood from his arm into a bag, which in turn filtered down to Keene.

  Dimitri injected Keene with a sedative before removing my hands and the cloth from his wound. “Dab away as much blood as you can,” he told me, “but don’t be too concerned. I’ll be working mostly through my gift not sight. For now I’ll clamp it off and stitch it up once we arrive. Get ready to let the others know when to go. This shouldn’t take long.”

  He cut the wound open another two inches and sank his fingers inside. He wasn’t wearing gloves and I remembered that he needed direct contact for his gift to work best. I understood because my ability was enhanced the same w
ay. I watched in gruesome fascination as he delved inside Keene’s stomach, at one point closing his eyes.

  “There it is. Hand me that clamp.”

  I ripped open the top of the package and held it out on my palm. The clamp disappeared inside Keene’s body.

  “Let’s go,” Dimitri said, his bloodied hands spread over the wound. “Put the blanket on him and tell the others. Jace needs to turn up the van heater as high as it will go.”

  “Is he going to be okay?” Cort’s worry seemed to deepen his physical resemblance to his brother, though his hair was shorter and his eyes a piercing blue instead of green. He was also a little on the nerdy side in his demeanor and dress, an oddity when his assurance rivaled that of any other Unbounded.

  Dimitri’s face was grim. “I’m doing everything I can.”

  If Cort made a response to Dimitri, I didn’t hear it as I jumped from the van and called to Jace. As with many Unbounded abilities, healers had limits. They couldn’t repair mortal organs damaged beyond repair, though they could often keep the person alive until a replacement organ was found. They couldn’t heal instantly or bring back the dead, but they could slow bleeding, immediately pinpoint a problem, and repair damage in the most efficient way. Most healers chose to become medical doctors, their talent enhanced further by study. I hoped tonight all of it together would be enough.

  Moments later, we were once again careening through the streets, this time with Jace at the wheel. What had the night accomplished? For the moment it all seemed useless. I knew we’d uncovered some important information, but was it worth Keene’s life?

  Not to me it wasn’t.

  But we had a duty to humanity, as Keene would be the first to remind me. I placed my hand on his cheek. Live, I told him. Please.

  THE SAFE HOUSE WAS AN older building located at the north edge of Midtown Manhattan and was one the New York Renegades had renovated. As this had been accomplished after one of our own had leaked information about our other safe houses to the Emporium and betrayed us during a worldwide gathering of Renegades, we were fairly certain the Emporium had no hint of our presence here.