When Darkness Builds (The Caldera Series)

by M. C. Sutton

  Emma didn’t even want to think about what that meant.

  “Sam,” she whispered. “Can you see anything?”

  Sam peered around the curve. “No, not really. Just give them a minute, okay? Given what he just did to me back there, I’m pretty sure your husband can handle himself.”

  Emma rested her head on the back of Sam’s shoulder as another wave of dizziness washed over her. “You’re certainly right about that.”

  “I’m sorry, by the way.”

  “For what?”

  “For this. All of this. I never meant for any of this to happen. I never meant for anyone to get hurt. Especially Vice President Allred. You know he tipped me a hundred bucks at that dinner you guys had together the other night? Then the next day he came up to my room and personally thanked me for making sure that you and your husband were taken care of after you stormed out. He was a really nice guy. He didn’t deserve to meet his end the way he did.”

  “Jack was alive when they wheeled him out of here. He might still make it,” said Emma.

  “Dr. Grant. I could tell that you guys were pretty close, but there’s no point holding on to false hope.”

  Emma tightened her jaw. “There’s no such thing as false hope.”

  Beside her, Rachael whispered, “They’re coming back.”

  Emma stepped quietly around Sam to look down the hall. Sure enough, past the elevators, three dark figures were headed toward them.

  Sam searched for what Emma could only guess was another gun holstered somewhere beneath his vest. She took a deep breath and held it, waiting for the figures to get close enough to know whether the stranger was friendly. Even in the darkness, she could pick out Jon and Aaron. But the third figure…

  “Oh my gosh, E, am I glad to see you!” Emma ran forward and wrapped her arms around Ephraim’s neck.

  He squeezed her tight, lifting her up off the floor. “Come on now, Emmy. You didn’t think the old man would leave the two of you to deal with this mess on your own, now, did you?”

  “And believe me, no one’s more grateful than we are,” said Jon. “But I’m not so sure sending someone in was a good idea. If we hadn’t already been on our way out, there’s no way you would have been able to get to us.”

  “What do you mean?” said Ephraim. “Richard didn’t send me in to get you. I’m here to defuse the bomb.”

  Emma’s heart dropped. She put a hand on the wall to steady herself.

  “What bomb?” said Rachael.

  “Yeah, Emma,” added Jon. “What bomb?”

  Emma only faintly heard them. “If Dad sent you in, I take it he isn’t in charge anymore.”

  Ephraim shook his head. “No. And Sanchez has absolutely no intention of complying with their demands.”

  “Then what does he intend to do?” Aaron asked.

  “I don’t know. All he said was something about Richard buying him some time.”

  Emma sucked in long, calculated breaths. She was determined not to slip into a panic attack.

  “I don’t understand,” Sam said quietly. “Mac talked about using a bomb as leverage in case they decided to storm the building, but I refused to allow it. What makes you think he planted it anyway?”

  “Because,” Emma answered, her lip shaking. She raised her eyes to meet Jon’s. “Because I saw it.”

  Jon rubbed a hand across his face and turned away.

  “Wait,” said Rachael. “If Sanchez used Richard to buy him more time, then that suggests Sanchez is going to try to take the terrorists by force. And if there’s a bomb…”

  “… then Mac will blow this entire place sky high,” Sam finished.

  “Unless we do something about it,” Emma added.

  “No,” Jon snapped. The intensity in his voice made them all turn.

  “Jon,” said Emma, “there are over three hundred people in this building.”

  Jon stepped in closer to her, pushing Sam away. He rested a hand on the wall beside her head and leaned in. “I don’t care, Emma,” he said quietly. “This is not our fight, and we are not getting involved. Do I make myself absolutely clear?”

  Emma’s anger temporarily pushed aside the knot in the pit of her stomach. “Jon, you know as well as I do the unlikelihood Ephraim can stop that bomb from going off on his own. I’ve seen it. But if we help him—if you help him—there’s a chance we can still save everyone.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Aaron, staring wide-eyed at Jon’s hand. At Jon’s ring, judging by the look on his face. “You’re the—”

  Jon shot a dangerous glare at Aaron.

  Aaron shut his mouth.

  Jon handed the gun to Sam. “We’re leaving, Aaron,” he said, his jaw set. “Now.”

  He headed down the hallway toward the sky bridge. Aaron and Rachael followed. Sam, with an uncertain look at Emma, trailed after them.

  “Look, Emmy, maybe Jon’s right,” said Ephraim. “Maybe you should just—”

  Ephraim didn’t get to finish his sentence. There was a burst of gunfire, and he crumpled to the floor.

  “Ephraim!” Emma screamed, dropping down beside him. Pieces of tile rained down from bullets hitting the wall above her head. She felt a sharp pain in her back.

  Sam grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away. “Dr. Grant, come on!” he yelled.

  “But what about Ephraim?” she said. Or at least, she thought she did. Between the gunshots, the shouting, and the intense ringing in her head, it was hard to tell.

  Jon had darted into a doorway and was firing back up the hall. Mac’s men were holed up in an alcove. With Jon laying down cover fire, Aaron grabbed Ephraim and dragged him after Sam and Emma.

  The dizziness and nausea took over again. Emma wanted to be sick.

  “Jon!” she shouted, kicking and fighting against Sam, who had wrapped an arm around her waist and was dragging her down the hall, away from Mac’s men.

  “Let’s go, Grant!” Sam yelled at Jon.

  Jon stepped out from the doorway and fired again at Mac’s men, taking one of them down. The others fell back.

  “We’ve got to get out of here before they call for backup,” Jon yelled as he ran toward them.

  Sam froze in his tracks. “I think it’s a little late for that,” he said.

  A dozen of Mac’s men poured from a stairwell thirty feet in front of them.

  Jon grabbed Emma by the wrist and dragged her into a sitting area beneath the escalators to the third floor, leaving her on a bench before joining Sam and Aaron at the corner of the escalator. Rachael helped Ephraim into the relative safety of the sitting area and dropped beside him. He pulled the duffel that hung across his chest over his head and unzipped the bag.

  Emma grabbed her shoulder as a white-hot pain shot across her collar. That’s when she noticed the blood all over her jacket.

  She had been shot.

  In the course of her career, Emma had been broken and bruised in more ways than she could remember, but she’d never been shot before.

  “Jon!” she tried to shout, but could only manage a whimper.

  Somehow Jon heard her anyway. He rushed back to her and passed his gun to Rachael, who knelt beside Ephraim, helping him wrap his leg.

  “Just try to buy us some time, okay?” Jon said to Rachael.

  Rachael nodded. She shoved Jon’s gun in her waistband, then grabbed Ephraim’s gun, as well as a handful of extra clips from his bag, before joining Sam and Aaron by the side of the escalators.

  “Jon,” Emma whimpered as he knelt in front of her, the warmth of her tears even more noticeable against her cool cheeks.

  Jon put a hand on her face. “Emma, honey, listen to me. You’ve been hit. I’m going to have to take a look, okay? But I need you to stay calm. I need you to stay with me. Can you do that?”

  Emma nodded. She knew how important it was that she didn’t pass out, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop shaking.

  Why is it so unbelievably cold in here?

  Jon g
ently slipped her blazer off her shoulders and slid the strap of her camisole down her arm. He wrinkled his forehead as he examined the damage. “Well, the good news is it looks like there’s an exit wound,” said Jon. “The bad news is,” he added, his voice shaky, “you’re losing a lot of blood.”

  Ephraim lifted himself up onto the bench beside Jon and handed him a pressure dressing. Emma shuddered on the edge of consciousness as Jon wrapped it under her arm and across her shoulder, pulling it tight.

  “Grant!” Sam called, his voice echoing inside her head as hollow as if they were still in the stairwell. “We’re going to run out of ammo eventually! We can’t hold them off forever!”

  Emma knew it was nothing short of a miracle they had even made it this far. If they were caught, they were dead. Period.

  “Go,” Ephraim said to Jon.

  Jon turned to him. “What?”

  “You heard me. I said go. I’ll cover you. Just take them and get out of here.”

  “And then what, E? You going to shimmy up the elevator shaft? Or climb out the window and scale down the side of the building?”

  “No. I’m going to do what I came here to do. Stop a bomb from going off.”

  “Oh, right. And how exactly are you going to do that with a busted leg?”

  Ephraim looked down at the bandage wrapped around his thigh, now more red than white.

  “He can’t,” Emma said quietly. “And you know he can’t. Not without our help.”

  Jon clenched his jaw. “I said no, Emma.”

  “Damn it, Jon! Since when did you turn your back on the world?”

  “When they turned their backs on us!” he shouted. “Fifteen months, Emma. Fifteen long months they left me over there while you lay in a hospital bed dying. Haven’t we already done enough? Haven’t we already lost enough? Let someone else be the hero for once, because I’m done.”

  Emma pulled away from him. The sudden movement made her dizzy, but she wasn’t in the mood for his anger.

  Jon softened his voice. “I’m sorry. But you’re in shock, and you’re not thinking clearly. We have got to get you out of here and to a hospital. You and Ephraim. And what about Jack, Emma? He sacrificed himself to save us, you know.”

  “So that we could lose ourselves in the process?” snapped Emma, her head spinning. It was becoming harder and harder to focus. “Hundreds of people will die when that bomb goes off. Probably more. What do you think he would say if he knew we could have stopped it? What do you think he would say if he knew that he saved us just so we could turn around and only save ourselves? Why do you think he even did it in the first place? Because he believes in us. Because he believes in you. Do you really want to be the one to prove him wrong?”

  Jon’s face fell. “Emmy, I didn’t ask for any of this. I don’t want any of this. All I want is to go home, with my wife, to my kids. Why is that so bad?”

  “Because that’s not who we are, Jon. And you know it.”

  Jon stared down at his right hand, his forehead wrinkled. He sucked in long, deep breaths. “We are the choices we make,” he whispered.

  “That’s right,” said Emma quietly. “And we made a choice, remember? Maybe it’s time we stopped hiding from who we really are.”

  When Jon looked up at her, there was a sad combination of defeat and acceptance in his eyes. He brushed a lock of hair from her face, put his hand on her cheek, and leaned in to kiss her. Emma relaxed as the energy of it radiated through her body, warming every part of her, alleviating the anxiety and pain.

  He pulled away from her and smiled. The way a man smiles at that one person, the only person in his entire life, who has always been there and always knows.

  Then he squared his shoulders and stood. “But that doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got to get you out of here before you bleed to death.”

  “What?”

  “Hackett!” Jon called.

  Sam ran over. “Please tell me you guys have more ammo.”

  “Give me a status update.”

  “Aaron and I are out,” Sam answered. “I’ve counted seven men down the hall, but that’s just a start. Any second now Mac’s men are going to be crawling all over this floor.”

  “Emma,” said Jon. “I need you to tell me what you know about the bomb. You said you saw it. Where?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. All I remember is…” She squeezed her eyes closed to think, then found it hard to open them again.

  “What? All you remember is what, Emma?” Jon shook her lightly.

  “Red,” she said, forcing her eyes open. “Red and white.”

  “Red and white?” He looked at her blankly, then realization flooded his face. “The pop machine.”

  “The what?” asked Sam.

  “Hackett, your guys guarding the sky bridge—do you think they’re still down there?”

  “Absolutely. I gave them explicit orders not to move from that spot, no matter what.”

  “And you trust them?”

  “With my life.”

  “So you’re certain that not only are they still there, but you can get past them without a fight?”

  “Yes.”

  Emma interrupted. “Jon? They’ve stopped firing.”

  They all turned to Aaron and Rachael, who were squatted behind a brick planter at the side of the escalator, breathing hard, their guns still in their hands. Rachael was loading what Emma was sure was their last clip into her gun.

  “Grant!” Mac’s voice boomed from somewhere above their heads. “You’ve got exactly sixty seconds to come out of there, or we’re coming in after you!”

  “And why should we, Mac?” Jon yelled back. “You’re just going to kill us anyway!”

  “I don’t want to lose any more of my men, Grant. Oh yes, you’re going to die, you better believe that. But I tell you what—if you give up without a fight, I’ll spare your wife. Do we have a deal?”

  Jon’s eyes darted to Emma’s as if, for a split second, he actually considered the offer. Then he gestured for Aaron and Rachael to join them.

  “All right, listen to me very carefully, Hackett,” Jon whispered, taking the gun from Rachael. “You, Ephraim, Rachael, and Aaron are going to head for the sky bridge.”

  “What about you?” Sam asked.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Jon answered with a wink. “I’m more resourceful than I look.”

  Sam shook his head. “I don’t know, Grant…”

  “Look,” said Jon. “You’re the only one who can get them across that sky bridge, and I’m the only one with any kind of training who isn’t already bleeding to death. We don’t have time to argue.”

  “Thirty seconds, Grant!” yelled Mac.

  Sam looked at Emma, then nodded.

  “Rachael. Aaron. Help Ephraim,” said Jon.

  Aaron and Rachael pulled Ephraim to his feet. Emma noticed that, despite his dark skin, Ephraim was starting to look a little pale.

  “And Hackett…” Jon added. “Just one more thing. What I said earlier about keeping your hands off my wife?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, for the moment at least, you have my permission to touch her.”

  Sam looked as confused as Emma felt. “Why?”

  “Twenty seconds!”

  “Because,” Jon answered, “you’re going to have carry her kicking and screaming if you’re going to get her out of here.”

  Emma leapt to her feet, furious. “What?”

  Sam grabbed her.

  “Damn it, Jon!” Emma shouted. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it!”

  “Emma, shut up and listen to me,” said Jon, cupping her face in his hands.

  “Ten seconds, Grant!”

  “The more you struggle, the faster you’re going to lose blood. And one of us has got to make it home.”

  “No, Jon. I will not leave without you! Please. Damn it, Sam, let me go!” Tears streamed in hot streaks down her face as she fought against the pressure of Sam’s arm across her
chest.

  “Tell the kids I love them, okay?” said Jon, an odd tingling sensation radiating from his fingertips.

  Emma’s eyes grew suddenly heavy. “Jon! Don’t… you… dare…”

  Then Jon leaned in to kiss her.

  And everything went dark.

  CHAPTER 32

  Jon was amazed it even worked.

  “Dr. Grant!” said Hackett, catching Emma before she collapsed to the floor.

  “Just take her, okay? She’ll be fine. Just get her out of here.”

  “That’s it, Grant!” Mac boomed. “We’re coming down! Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance!”

  “Ephraim,” said Jon, “please tell me you have a flash bang or a smoke grenade or something.”

  Ephraim nodded. “Here,” he answered, tossing his bag to Jon. “Front pocket. The rest of my gear is in the last elevator shaft on the left.”

  Jon sighed in relief as he pulled out the smoke grenade. “Thank God,” he said, slipping a finger into the pin. He looked at Hackett and nodded.

  Hackett scooped Emma into his arms, and he, Aaron, Rachael, and Ephraim moved toward the side of the escalators.

  Jon pulled the pin and rolled the canister across the floor, just past the escalators, on the opposite side of where Hackett and the others would make their break for it. As the hall began to fill with smoke, Jon popped out from under the escalators and fired up into Mac’s men, lingering only long enough to make sure he was seen before running up the hall away from the sky bridge. As the smoke began to fill in around them, Jon caught a glimpse of Hackett darting away with Emma in his arms. He wondered if he would ever see his wife or kids again.

  “Grant!” Mac yelled from somewhere behind him. “That was the stupidest thing you could have done!”

  Jon bolted down the hallway and didn’t look back.

  As he rounded the corner toward the elevators, an idea popped into his head. He darted into the alcove with the elevators and hid in the darkness of a corner.