‘‘So as you might imagine,’’ the guard continued when she didn’t say anything, ‘‘when we get our hands on a pair of real-life criminals, caught in a real-life criminal act. . . . well, that’s a red-letter day.’’ He smiled and shocked her again. She screamed.
‘‘You call holding and torturing us legal?’’ Grant asked.
‘‘We’d be working in law enforcement if any of us cared about what’s ‘legal,’ ’’ the guard said with a bored expression. His empty eyes stayed on Grant as he Tasered the woman again, calmly holding the button down. A few of the other men in the room chuckled as she shook so hard Grant thought she might break the chair.
He was becoming increasingly frantic each time the woman received another jolt. She wouldn’t be able to withstand this forever. But what could he do? He couldn’t even move.
His thoughts returned to that strange phone call, and what the man had said.
Was it possible? Was he responsible for the knife in the subway wall? Could he have somehow caused the knife to leave Konrad’s hand?
It was bizarre, but he had no other explanation.
He strained his memory, trying to remember how it had felt, in the moment. He’d been hit by a wave of panic. It had washed over him accompanied by a cold sweat, and then there had been that mind-splitting headache that lasted for just a second. He remembered closing his eyes with the pain, and when he’d opened them, it was over.
There are no coincidences. That’s what the man on the phone had said.
Grant took a long, deep breath.
He closed his eyes and focused on trying to recreate that feeling of overwhelming panic. He thought about being captured, trapped by security guards who were clearly sadistic, and probably had no intention of releasing him.
The panic began to build and he breathed faster.
He thought of the woman seated next to him. The Taser darts embedded into her stomach. The pain she was experiencing. Her waning stamina. Whoever she was, whatever she had done—no one deserved this kind of cold-blooded cruelty. And he was responsible. He had led her out that secret exit.
He began to sweat, his chest rising and falling harder. Faster and faster he breathed, the cold panic mounting, until— A violent pain stabbed through his brain. Someone shouted.
And just as fast as it had happened, the headache was gone.
He opened his eyes to see the guard no longer holding his Taser— he wasn’t even in the chair. Instead, he had curled up on the floor, clenching his stomach with both hands. Blood was visible between his fingers.
‘‘Holy . . .’’ one of the other guards muttered. ‘‘Get some help! Go!’’ the man shouted. Two of the guards left the room. The one who’d shouted for help knelt down beside the man on the ground. The others had frozen in shock, but now they moved in for a closer look, eyes wide.
Grant looked over at the woman. A hole had been ripped in the side of her jumpsuit, where the pocket was, but otherwise she looked okay, although she was barely conscious and her breathing shallow.
‘‘Forget it,’’ one of the guards said. ‘‘We’ll take him to medical.’’ The kneeling guard nodded and three others moved in to help pick up the man on the ground.
They hefted him, and he grunted in pain. As they marched toward the door, they passed Grant, and he looked between them at the injured man. He gasped.
The familiar black handle of the blond woman’s screwdriver was sticking out of the guard’s stomach.
He’d never consciously thought about the man with the Taser gun or the screwdriver. He’d just forced himself to panic, and the rest had somehow happened.
‘‘Watch them!’’ the guard who had knelt down shouted back at the others in the room, as they carried the injured man out.
The remaining dozen or so guards became all business, dispersing throughout the room, some taking up positions at various monitors, one standing in front of Grant and the woman.
Grant began breathing faster.
Could he do it twice? They had to get out of here.
Now.
He shut his eyes tight and bore down, clenching every muscle he could. He started to shudder, sweating again. He thought about the man with the screwdriver in his gut and that he had somehow caused it . . .
The panic hit again.
His brain seized, much harder this time.
He nearly blacked out.
When Grant opened his eyes, he was lying against the corner wall, on the floor. The cuffs were still around his wrists and ankles, but the chains were broken. He was free!
The pungent odor of burning metal awakened him to the chaos filling the room. The metal chair he had been sitting in was sticking straight out of one of the enormous digital screens across the room, smoke and sparks pouring from the gaping hole. One of the guards reached for a fire extinguisher, the others looked like they were too stunned to react.
That was when Grant noticed they were one short. The guard that had been standing right in front of him was gone. Grant looked across the room at the chair again and saw that the spot where the guard had been standing was directly between the chair and where Grant now lay.
He didn’t move for a long moment, looking harder at the broken screen and the chair sticking out of it, as he swallowed the obvious implication.
Finally, he hopped up and moved toward the woman. One of the guards noticed and ran over to him. The guard threw a wide punch and Grant ducked it, bringing his fist up into the guard’s stomach. It knocked the wind out of him, and he doubled over. Grant saw a key-chain on the guard’s belt loop and he swiftly reached in and grabbed it. Then punched him again in the stomach. The guard toppled over.
The few guards that were left were still attending to the electrical fire or shouting into radios. They seemed to have forgotten about their prisoners in the corner.
Grant found his earpiece on the ground and put it back on.
‘‘You still there?’’ he whispered.
‘‘What happened? Are you okay?!’’
‘‘Tell you later. I’m in a humongous room inside some kind of security bunker. Need a way out.’’
‘‘All right, hold on.’’ Grant knew she must be checking the floor plans. ‘‘Is there a door at the far corner of the room?’’
‘‘Looks like it.’’
‘‘Take it.’’
With a glance at the still-distracted guards, Grant uncuffed the woman and scooped her up in his arms. She was shaking all over, unable to stand. But the look on her face was completely changed. Gone was the playful grin, the seductive eyes. She was aghast, drained of color.
She took in the chair in the screen and then turned back to Grant.
Whatever had happened, Grant realized she’d seen the whole thing.
Grant ran out the door and into a long, dark corridor. He couldn’t see to the hallway’s end, and the only exit from the hall that was visible was the door he’d just come from.
‘‘What am I looking for?’’ he asked Julie.
‘‘A door,’’ she replied, as if it were obvious. ‘‘Other end of the hall.’’
Grant ran as fast as he could until the end of the hall became visible. There were two doors, one to the left, one to the right.
He chose left.
When he opened the door, he nearly dropped the girl.
A small, wide foyer gave way to a massive, O-shaped metal structure.
Grant stepped inside. Neither he nor the blond woman could take their eyes off of the three-story-high mechanism. It looked like a massive bank vault but was probably much thicker and had to weigh over a ton. And just like a vault, there were hinges on one side . . .
A quiet hum filled the room.
Grant was certain this wouldn’t appear on Julie’s floor plans. Which only made him all the more curious as to what was behind it.
A security panel waited patiently on the right side of the room, for what looked like a keycard, retinal scan, and vocal identification. There was nothing else i
n the room.
The door itself was flat and smooth.
Grant glanced at the woman in his arms; she was still staring at the big metal door, her eyes wide and taking in the entire thing.
This . . . this was breathtaking. Massive and beyond comprehension.
‘‘What’s going on?’’ Julie cried in his ear. ‘‘Did you find the door?’’
‘‘Uh-huh,’’ he replied, dumbstruck. ‘‘We found the door.’’
17
The blond woman in Grant’s arms was gaping at the door as well, but finally she croaked, ‘‘We can’t stay—they’re comin’.’’
‘‘But . . .’’ he protested, ‘‘we’ve got to find out what’s behind this thing. It could explain everything that’s happened to me!’’
‘‘Then we’ll come back for it later,’’ she implored. ‘‘If they find us, they’ll kill us. We gotta go!’’
‘‘No! We’ll never make it this far again! All the answers I’m looking for could be behind this thing!’’ Something about the size of it was . . . captivating.
‘‘You’ll find a way,’’ the woman said slowly.
He didn’t hear her.
‘‘Hey.’’ She put her hand on his cheek. ‘‘I’ll help you find a way. I promise.’’
For the first time, he transferred his attention away from the door and really looked the blond woman in the eyes. A bright shade of blue, her eyes were soft, round, and absolutely stunning, yet dark and pained from her ordeal. For the first time all evening, he felt like he was seeing the real her.
Finally he nodded, taking one last look at the door. He turned and exited the room, opening the opposite door on the right of the hall. It led to a stairwell, going only up.
They were underground. Deep underground, from the look of these stairs.
Grant charged up the steps, adrenaline surging again, flight after flight.
After several minutes, they emerged from a nondescript door into a garage full of minivans, sedans, and golf carts, all marked ‘‘Inveo SECURITY.’’ The guards themselves were nowhere to be seen.
‘‘We’re in some kind of security garage,’’ Grant reported to Julie.
‘‘Good. If you go out the back door, there’s a smaller side entrance to the campus. I can meet you there.’’
Grant turned; the back garage entrance was open. But no, that wouldn’t work. He was sweating, fatigued, and his mind was reeling from the day’s events; he couldn’t carry his new friend any farther. Besides, the side entrance would no doubt be shut tight, so how was he supposed to . . .
An idea sparked, and Grant dumped the blond woman in the passenger seat of the nearest security van. He found a corkboard hanging from a nearby wall where dozens of key rings, all numbered, waited. A sticker on the rear bumper of the security van said ‘‘08.’’ He snatched the corresponding key from the board.
‘‘Julie, change of plan. You start heading back toward L.A. We’ll meet up with you shortly.’’
Grant cranked the van’s engine to life and jammed the pedal to the floor. A few guards lurked just outside the exit, and they began screaming at him, but he never slowed, nearly ran them over.
The tires squealed loudly as the van took the corner at full speed, bearing down on the side entrance. It was gated, a barbed wire fence blocking the way along with an enormous metal arm.
‘‘Seatbelt on and head down!’’ Grant shouted. Still shaking, she fiddled with her seatbelt until it locked; then she leaned over all the way, covering her head with her arms.
A guard emerged from the gatehouse when he saw the van approaching at high speed, but he was far too late.
Grant covered his face with one arm and kept the other on the wheel as the van exploded through the gate with a horrible screeching.
Metal grinded and clashed against metal, but it only lasted a moment, and then they were out.
Grant never let up from the gas pedal, the van careening down the road. But the woman was still leaning over in her seat.
He wiped his sweat-soaked face with a dirty sleeve.
‘‘It’s okay, we made it,’’ he said, panting.
She slowly sat back up and looked around, rubbing her arms and shivering.
‘‘No we didn’t,’’ she said softly.
She was looking behind. He checked the rear-view and saw flashing red-and-blue lights.
He punched the steering wheel in frustration, and the horn blared.
Checking his surroundings, he saw that they were on what had to have been the local main street. It was late, so most of the stores and streets were deserted, save for cruising teenagers and joyriders.
‘‘Are you able to get up on your own?’’ Grant asked the woman beside him, a plan rapidly formulating.
‘‘I think so,’’ she said uneasily.
‘‘Julie, how far out are you?’’ She should be on the same road we are . . .
‘‘Few miles outside of downtown, why?’’
‘‘Anywhere nearby where you can pull off the road inconspicuously?’’
‘‘Um . . . Yeah, I see a car dealership a few blocks ahead.’’
‘‘Turn in,’’ Grant commanded, ‘‘and shut off the car and all the lights. Wait there.’’
‘‘Okay . . .’’ Julie replied, clearly wanting to know more, but not asking.
Grant glanced quickly over each shoulder. ‘‘Good, sliding doors on both sides . . .’’ he mumbled.
‘‘You’re not thinkin’ what I think you’re thinkin’ . . .’’ said the blond woman.
Grant nodded, assuming she was already on the same page with him. ‘‘We need something to aim for, something that’ll cover our tracks but won’t hurt anybody.’’
‘‘You’re crazy,’’ she commented wearily, but quickly joined him in scanning the road for an appropriate target.
The chasing vehicles behind them had crept closer, the leader less than three car’s lengths away. Grant couldn’t see how many cars there were, but from the noise of all the sirens, it had to be a lot.
They know what we saw underground . . . Grant surmised.
A sign for a car dealership was visible in the distance, on the right side of the road.
‘‘Julie, can you hear sirens?’’
‘‘I’ll say,’’ she replied. ‘‘Sounds like a fleet.’’
‘‘We’re in a yellow security van. We’re about to pass you,’’ he said. Then he turned to his passenger. ‘‘Open the doors.’’
She nodded and carefully got to her feet in the speeding van, holding tight to seats, the ceiling—whatever she could find.
Just as the second door slid open, the van shot past the car lot like a bullet, police cars and more security vehicles right behind.
‘‘Stand by, Julie . . . There.’’
A rock face on the side of the mountain was ahead on the left, at least a hundred feet from the nearest buildings.
‘‘You ready?!’’ Grant shouted.
‘‘No,’’ the blond woman replied, ‘‘but go on and do it anyway!’’
Grant jammed the pedal all the way down and swerved the car just enough so that it would aim for the rock face. When they were three hundred feet away, he turned off the car’s headlights, jumped out of his seat, and shouted, ‘‘Now!’’
She jumped out of the van’s right side, and he followed suit on the left, hitting the ground with a hard crack and rolling at an impossible speed. He came to a rest against a wooden road barrier.
Grant looked up just in time to watch the van ram straight into the mountain, generating sparks, fire, and the loudest crash he had ever heard.
Twenty minutes later, Grant was driving the Corvette, the barely conscious blond woman riding shotgun and Julie in the backseat. Grant and his companion were scraped and bruised, but they’d both managed to escape with no broken bones.
‘‘You’re insane,’’ Julie huffed. ‘‘If I had known what you were going to do—’’
‘‘Why do you think I didn’t
tell you?’’ he cut her off.
She pouted in the backseat.
His blond companion stirred awake and watched him drive for a very long time before speaking up.
‘‘So what’s your name?’’ she asked in a tired, raspy voice.
‘‘Grant,’’ he replied. ‘‘Grant Borrows.’’
‘‘Well, Grant Borrows,’’ she replied slowly. ‘‘I’m Hannah.’’ She held her hand out to him. ‘‘And I am very pleased to meet you.’’
He took her hand and held it. She seemed to take strength from it. She sat up taller in the seat.
They let go and she studied her hand for a moment, lost in thought.
‘‘Grant, I need to ask you something . . . And it might sound a little odd.’’
She sat back in her seat, relaxing, and began peeling off her gloves.
‘‘Okay . . .’’ he said, curious, but still watching the road, nervously checking the rear-view for signs of the Inveo security or the police.
Hannah looked down for a moment, and then back up at him.
‘‘You used to be someone else, didn’t you?’’
His head snapped around. ‘‘How do you know that?’’
She pulled the glove off from her right hand and lifted it for him to see. Resting there was a gold ring with an inset burgundy gemstone.
‘‘Because I used to be someone else.’’
The Corvette’s tires screeched to a halt in the middle of the road.
He took her hand and pulled it closer, biting off his own glove with his teeth. Julie leaned forward from the backseat. Grant compared the two rings. Hers was slightly smaller, and it had none of the etchings or markings on the sides that his had. Otherwise, the two rings were identical.
Grant let go and sat back in the driver’s seat, his mind spinning. Hannah and Julie both watched him silently.
‘‘I’m not the only one,’’ Hannah broke the silence. ‘‘There’re others.’’
He looked her in the eye and tried to speak, but found himself breathless.
‘‘How many?’’ he got out.
‘‘I don’t know. I know a place where some of them live, or hide . . . It’s a sort of a . . . commune. People like us, who live . . . away. From the rest of the world. A friend of mine runs the place; the same friend who sent me to Inveo to help you. They’re the only ones that I know of myself. But I’m told there are many more . . . out there.’’ She gazed out the front window.
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