The Quintan Edge (Roran Curse Book 2)

by Heidi J. Leavitt

  “Got it,” Jenna said in satisfaction. But with the loud humming of the gate gone, she could hear gunfire echoing down the hallway. Had the security officers finally shown up? Would they be in time to diffuse the bomb? With the timer counting down quickly on the explosives, she had very little time to get out. The only option seemed to be sealing the bomb inside the room with the gate. The gate would be destroyed, but at least the rest of the Tower—including whatever officers were outside—would be protected.

  She stepped out of the gate room into the access passageway and spoke. “Close blast doors,” she commanded.

  “Unauthorized command,” the bland computer voice responded. Jenna groaned and turned to dash back down the passageway. Of course closing the blast doors couldn’t be done by just anyone. She had seen a thumblock on the wall. It probably had to be authorized by Zane or one of his cleared security officers. Someone who would actually have access to the room. No choice but to get as far away as quickly as possible.

  The gunfire had died away. Encouraged, Jenna moved faster. When she reached the end of the passageway, she was appalled to see that the attackers had blown the access door completely away. She spotted the mangled remains of the gate tech named Evers and averted her eyes. Now she knew why he hadn’t closed the blast doors or shut off power to the gate. He must have been caught in the explosion that tore open the wall.

  She didn’t have time to be cautious, so after taking just the briefest look out, she stepped through the jagged hole and out into the tube station, emerging onto the body-strewn platform. She scanned the bodies quickly, trying to see if there were any survivors. Suddenly, she choked and threw herself forward.

  “Jimmy!” she screamed.

  He was lying on his back, his eyes closed. She slipped to her knees beside him, her fingers fluttering over his body. His chest was still rising and falling, so he was still alive. He had a tourniquet on his leg, though, and his pants dripped blood. She found another wound up near his shoulder, though that one wasn’t bleeding much.

  “Hey,” Jimmy croaked, his eyes cracking open.

  “Jimmy, I’ve got to get you out of here. Is there any way you could walk at all, with my help? We need to get away. There’s a bomb in the gate room.” Her voice shook. There was so much blood. His skin was clammy. He had to be in shock.

  “Lilah is here,” he said quietly, his voice almost too weak to be heard. Jenna gasped and looked around, spotting Lilah’s prone form only a few feet away. She moved to Lilah’s side quickly and tried to check for a pulse. She felt one, but Lilah’s head lolled unresponsively. There was no way she could get both Lilah and Jimmy upstairs. And not enough time to go for help either. She probably had three minutes left, at the most.

  “The blast doors,” Jimmy wheezed.

  Jenna left Lilah and scurried back to Jimmy. “I can’t close them,” she said, her voice cracking. “It doesn’t recognize me.”

  “It will recognize me,” Jimmy said, his voice gaining strength. “I just need you to get me to the thumblock.” Jenna swallowed the sob stuck in her throat. She grabbed Jimmy around the chest and hauled him into a sitting position. Then she stood, trying to hoist him to his feet. Finally, he stood, his arm hooked around her shoulder in a death grip. His forehead was beaded in sweat, and he clenched his teeth, but he nodded, so she started forward. Jimmy found that he couldn’t move his leg at all and had to drag it along. Jenna did the best she could to support his weight and keep moving him forward. The blasted door proved to be the biggest obstacle. Jimmy couldn’t quite get his footing and lost his balance, and they both crashed into the wall, the jagged metal tearing through the sleeve of Jenna’s borrowed coat and slicing into her skin. She cried out in pain and tried to grab the wall, cutting her hand as well. Jimmy managed to catch himself, and luckily they didn’t end up on the ground. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to get him up again.

  After a brief moment, Jenna pushed herself under Jimmy’s good arm once more and urged him onward.

  “Just a little bit farther,” she coaxed. “We can make it.”

  Jimmy chuckled feebly. “You’d make a terrible drill sergeant. Didn’t your father teach you better?” He stumbled forward and she grunted under his weight, trying not to go down again.

  “What, you think I should be shouting at you?” Jenna asked incredulously, as she gasped for breath. Just a few more feet to go.

  “It’s more motivating, you know. Swear at me a little. Insult my strength,” he said, his voice high with effort. Jenna shook her head.

  “How about this motivation?” she suggested instead. “Get over to that blast door, get it shut before we die, and I’ll spend a week in bed with you showing my appreciation.”

  Jimmy actually laughed faintly. “Now that is motivating, tigress.” He took a deep breath, and they pressed forward the last few feet. Jimmy cleared his throat and then said clearly, “Close blast doors!”

  “Close blast doors,” the computer voice repeated. “Press lock to confirm,” the voice ordered. Jenna helped Jimmy raise his thumb to the pad. “Authorization complete,” the computer accepted. With a deafening squeal, the massive doors began to slide shut. Jimmy let go of Jenna and slumped against the wall, his eyes closing. Jenna eased him to the floor and then sat next to him. The doors slid into place with a reassuring clang.

  “I won. You better put in for some vacation days, Jen,” Jimmy whispered without opening his eyes.

  “We haven’t survived yet,” Jenna reminded. “Don’t you dare give up on me.” She looked worriedly up at the doors. Would those be strong enough to protect them from the explosion?

  “I won’t ever give up on you,” Jimmy mumbled.

  “I know,” she said, kissing him gently on the lips. Then the world erupted around them. Jenna slammed into the floor, unable to breathe. Her ears rang, and she stared up at the ceiling in shock, her mind completely numb. Fine dust rained down on her from above. She lay there unmoving, her eyes glazed, her thoughts sluggish. Her eyelids drooped.

  Jenna’s eyes snapped open. Had she fallen asleep? What was she doing? Jimmy and Lilah needed help now. Her ears ached, but she could still seem to hear. She rolled onto her side, wincing at the soreness in her ribs, and pushed herself up. Jimmy’s eyes were closed. He was still breathing though, and she muttered her thanks to the universe.

  “Jimmy?” she said. “Jimmy?” she repeated insistently. He didn’t respond. “I’m going for help,” she explained hurriedly, just in case he could still hear her. “I love you,” she added, kissing him quickly on the cheek. Then she scrambled unsteadily to her feet and scurried back down the hallway.

  When she stepped out of the cratered door, movement caught her eye. She almost shouted, thinking that it was a security officer at last, then realized it was the limping form of one of the black-garbed intruders. He was making his way back to the stairwell. She held her breath and watched him go from inside the hallway. When he had disappeared through the door leading back upstairs, she sighed heavily in relief. She didn’t have time for another firefight. All of the other bodies left on the platform were completely motionless, either dead or unconscious. Jenna swallowed thickly and then darted back to Lilah’s side. She patted at Lilah’s slimsuit and then pulled Lilah’s pearlescent flipcom from a side pocket. Within seconds she had an emergency responder online. She explained that she had several people injured from gunshots in the basement of Quintan Tower, gave her name, and then was informed that the arrival time would be a matter of minutes.

  She stayed connected, gently probing Lilah’s body and relaying what she could see to the dispatcher. As far as she could tell, Lilah had taken one shot to her abdomen. There wasn’t much bleeding, not enough to explain Lilah’s lack of consciousness. She wondered if something internal had ruptured. She was about to leave Lilah and return to Jimmy when a shout echoed down the stairwell.

  “Hello?” she ca
lled back.

  “Your responders are nearly there,” the dispatcher reported to her. “They are heading down from the lobby right now. They had to override a blast door upstairs.” Jenna stood up, still eyeing the other prone figures nervously. If any of them were still alive, would they attack medical help? Surely not. She probably should warn the responders, though. She moved closer to the entrance to the tube station and then stopped short as several Armada soldiers burst out of the stairwell, weapons raised.

  “Ms. Donnell?” one of them called.

  “Y-y-yes,” she stammered nervously. What was the Armada doing here?

  “We have a medical transport on the way. We will carry any victims up, since we arrived first.” He scanned the platform, his eyes taking in the results of the gun battle. “How many victims are there?” The soldiers started to move toward the platform, and then a sharp buzz sounded, and all four froze instantly.

  “You’re inside the Red Zone,” the lead soldier said accusingly. “You can’t comm Omphalos Emergency from the Red Zone!”

  “But Quintan Tower isn’t in the Red Zone!” Jenna argued incredulously. Surely they weren’t going to stand there while people were dying!

  “Ma’am, we have monitors that let us know exactly where the boundary is,” another soldier explained, her voice grim. “It’s right here. We can’t cross it. That’s a serious violation of Zenith law.”

  Jenna didn’t bother to argue any further. She grabbed Lilah’s arms, whispered an apology, and dragged her best friend across the platform. As soon as she made it, two of the soldiers hoisted her between them and started back up the stairs. Then Jenna stood there, her hands on her hips. “You have to help me!” she demanded. “See that hole in the wall over there?” she jabbed her finger at the opening to the gate room hallway. “My husband is through there, and he is not conscious. You have to help him! He’s dying!”

  The two remaining soldiers looked at each other. Then a commotion from the stairwell announced the arrival of the first of the medical crew. Jenna nearly cried with relief. They had a floating stretcher with them. They started out of the stairwell and then stopped at the sight of the array of motionless soldiers.

  One of the medical techs swore vividly. “They’re in the Red Zone?” she guessed.

  “Not you too!” Jenna screamed. “He is bleeding to death in there! Don’t you understand?” Her voice had gone hysterical.

  “Screw it,” the first soldier muttered. “They can court-martial me later.” He grabbed the stretcher from the med techs, and headed past the columns onto the tube station platform. Jenna led him straight over to the blown-off door, over the debris, and toward Jimmy. She heard a grunt from the soldier as he registered the remains of the gate room tech in the hallway. “Looks like you guys had quite a battle down here. I thought it was only going on in the streets.”

  “There’s a battle going on in the streets?” Jenna repeated incredulously, as they reached Jimmy. She dropped to her knees beside him.

  His eyes fluttered open. “Hey, you,” he whispered.

  “Hi,” Jenna answered in relief. He was still alive. She grabbed his feet and helped the soldier slide him onto the stretcher. It lifted into the air, and then the soldier started to move Jimmy out. Jenna walked beside him, holding his hand.

  “There’s some pretty serious fighting going on in the Red Zone tonight,” the soldier explained to Jenna as he helped guide Jimmy’s stretcher out of the hallway. “That’s why we were so close already. We were on call to keep anything from spreading out of the Red Zone.” Jenna absorbed this news silently. Lev Quintan was going to be one infuriated man after tonight, and there was no telling who he was going to blame. Maybe it was time to cut her losses and start looking for a new job.

  Just as they were carefully working the stretcher back through the hole, trying not to jostle Jimmy unnecessarily, Jenna heard the muted roar and the high-pitched whine that announced the arrival of a tube capsule from the QE at the station. Jenna helped the soldier hurry the stretcher back across the line to the waiting medics, who took Jimmy and headed straight back for the stairwell. Jenna lingered for just a moment to see who was arriving from the QE. Someone who could reset the power to the Tower would be high on her list.

  A full squad of eight Quintan Security officers emerged from the tube, climbing onto the platform with their weapons drawn. The leader took a good look at the bodies on the floor, at Jenna and the Armada soldiers at the columned entrance to the Tower basement, and at the hole in the wall where the maintenance door leading to the gate room used to be. He waved at the other officers, two of them dashing off toward the gate room. One other went around checking the bodies of the intruders. The leader approached Jenna and the Armada soldiers.

  “Is there a problem with the Tower security?” he asked gruffly.

  “We have secured the Tower,” explained the Armada officer stiffly. “There have been comms for help, and the Tower is within the jurisdiction of Omphalos.”

  “As Quintan Security, we cover both the resort and the Tower. Have you coordinated with other officers from my team? I have not been able to contact them on our internal comm system,” the security officer asked.

  The Armada officer shifted uncomfortably. “We have found the bodies of seven Quintan Security officers so far,” he stated. “In the absence of any local security, we have assumed control of the building. My team is sweeping it as we speak.” The Quintan Security guy frowned, but he didn’t protest.

  “Well, we will not need your assistance here on this level. As you must know, this section of the development falls within the Red Zone.”

  The corner of the Armada guy’s mouth quirked just a bit. “Yes, I’m aware.”

  Finally, the Quintan Security officer looked to Jenna. “Are you Ms. Jenna Donnell?” the QE security officer asked.

  “Yes,” she answered hesitantly. Should she send a message through him to Lev Quintan? Surely he would want to know about Jimmy’s injuries? She didn’t need to tell him about the gate, which was presumably nothing more than rubble now. His own security could break that news to him when they explained how they managed to botch the “security” part of their job.

  “I have orders to take you into custody,” the officer stated, his tone apologetic.

  Jenna’s head snapped around. “What?” she exclaimed. “Why?”

  “I cannot discuss that here,” the officer said.

  “But the medics just took out my . . . just took out James Forrest. I need to go with him!” Jenna protested.

  “I’m sorry. I have my orders. And you are in my jurisdiction, I’m afraid.” She glared at him. She could take a couple of steps and be out of the Red Zone. Then what would he do? Fight against the Armada guys to get her back? She glanced to her side, where the Armada soldiers looked more alert, their hands on their weapons. They were prepared to defend her, if needed.

  “Oh all right,” Jenna conceded grudgingly, with a heavy sigh. No matter what, if Lev Quintan wanted her in custody, she would end up in custody. She didn’t need to make a scene about it now. The man practically owned her life. It was past time that she found a new job—and a new place to live.

  The Quintan Security officer didn’t bind her hands. Instead, he gently took her by the arm and steered her back to the tube. She glanced back once at the Armada soldiers still standing at the invisible line dividing her from safety and the land where survival of the fittest reigned supreme.

  She would have to survive this and get back to Jimmy’s side as quickly as possible.

  22. Recovering

  When Jimmy woke, he shot upright. Where was he? Where was Jenna? They had to move! Then the sense of extreme urgency faded, and he slumped back down in his bed. Well, it wasn’t his bed, exactly, but a quick glance around the room let him know he was in a hospital room. Clearly he had survived the explosion. Thank the stars for blast doors!
Hesitantly, he glanced down at his leg. There was nothing but a thin sheet covering the lower half of his body; his blood-soaked lounge pants were gone. Peeking under the sheet, he saw that his leg looked pretty normal. There was a bandage wrapped around it, and it still hurt pretty badly, but he found he could wiggle his toes, which was more than he had been able to do on the tube station platform. His shoulder was stiff, another bandage plastered across his skin, but other than that, he seemed to be unharmed.

  But what about Jenna? She hadn’t seemed hurt at all when she appeared like some kind of angel of deliverance in the tube station. Had the explosion injured her? Was she here in the hospital somewhere too? And what about Lilah?

  He pressed the button on the side of his bed. A full-size hologram sprang to life in front of him.

  “Yes, sir?” the figure said politely.

  “Has my wife arrived?” he asked the simulation. He knew that the admitting doctor would have done a full body scan and retrieved Jenna’s contact information from the marriage chip. They should have tried to notify her. If she had been in to visit him, the hospital’s main computer would know.

  “No, sir.”

  “Was she notified?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yes, sir, notification was made by comm within five minutes of admittance, per hospital policy.” By comm? They’d probably left a high-priority message for her. It was probably still flashing up in Jimmy’s apartment, with nobody to see it. Still, Jenna wouldn’t have had any trouble figuring out where he was, even without the notification. Where was she?

  “Have I had any other visitors?” Jimmy asked.

  “A Mr. Grier Nuris is waiting for you,” the apparition detailed. Jimmy raised a brow. So Grier had tracked him down already. It was impossible to get away from that guy. The good news was that meant almost certainly that Jax was perfectly fine, wherever they’d stashed him. Or, Jimmy frowned, Jax was having a meltdown and Grier needed Jimmy as soon as humanly possible.