But I kept going, because Drew kept going. And if I was his sun, his dazzling little star, he was my rainbow lighting the way. The AOS needed more information, something told me without it things could go so very wrong. Worse than they currently appeared to be.
After what felt longer than our allotted ten minutes, but ended up only being about three, we came to a stop. Another broken piece of air duct, twisted metal, shards of sharp edged knives.
Drew swore under his breath and methodically pushed a safe passage through the broken, lethal tips, ripping into his hands and dripping blood down onto the floor of level six. It must have hurt like hell, but he didn't make a sound, other than breathe deeply through each movement he made.
Finally he eased forward, hauling himself out like he did back at the last gap. Coming to his feet he spun to help me, blood from his various cuts spreading over my skin where he grasped me at the wrists. I turned his palms over as I came to my feet, but time wasn't on my side now. We couldn't stop for me to offer rudimentary first aid. Drew simply tore off some more material from his rapidly dwindling business shirt and wrapped them around his palms as we walked over to another grate.
Thankfully this one was relatively easy to approach. The air duct having been obliterated from this point on, not so much shards of twisted metal, but filings left in the wake of - I was guessing - the sixth floor explosion on the north side.
With our breaths somewhat laboured we stood side by side at the small cover that showed the rest of the large space King was in. I wondered if one of us should have stayed behind at the last grate, because now we couldn't be sure that some of the mercenaries we saw before us were not made up of some of the six from back down by the stairwell end of this floor.
I sure as hell hoped so, because before our eyes were at least twelve more. Eighteen in total, including King and another guy who couldn't have been a hostage because he was sitting in front of computer screens.
Computer screens that showed the rooftop of the District Court. And on it, the AOS team about to break down the door.
So many things vied for attention in my head at once. The fact the AOS were outed by closed circuit video they assumed had been cut. The fact that the other side of the door they were about to break through had its own image on a separate screen, this one depicting what looked like wires and, even as a layperson I could identify, plastic explosives. And the fact that Declan King held a remote controlled device in his hand and was watching the scene unfold with a type of hunger that left me feeling quite ill.
But none of that mattered, not really, because we'd found the pile of corpses in the corner of the room.
There are times in your life where you may experience a depth of pain that you're sure you wont survive. As I looked into that room and saw those bloody, still bodies, I knew this was mine.
The dead had indeed been piled up against two walls, some of them more gruesome than others. Sightless eyes, slashed throats revealing pale spines within, small holes in their foreheads, minimal blood around their ragged edges of skin, but nothing at the back of their skulls remaining, on those that I could see. And pools and pools of blood. So much, so thick, so telling.
I doubled over, vomit reaching my mouth, the pain more than my heart could bear. So many souls, so many bodies, so many lost lives.
...And Dom's was amongst them, discarded in a pile of the dead.
Chapter 26
For A Second I Was Furious
I couldn't think. I couldn't breathe. My mind refused to believe what my eyes had seen. Images of Dom with Genevieve flashed through my mind. Smiling, laughing, staring into her eyes as though she hung the moon.
And Gen, five months pregnant trying on her wedding dress at a fitting just last week. Excited, so, so happy, on top of the world because of this man.
It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. Anger pushed the heartache back, my hands clenched into tight fists where they rested on my thighs. I straightened my body and looked towards Drew. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, but he had his cellphone to his ear and was murmuring words into it.
Relaying what we'd seen to Eric, hopefully in time for the AOS not to get blown off the top of the roof.
I still couldn't think, and although the anger had made me suck in rapid and harsh breaths of air, I had no idea what to do next. I wanted to curl up in a little ball and be numb, but that wouldn't help Gen now. My friend would need me. I had to get out of this alive.
My eyes moved reluctantly towards the grate again, the view from the angle I now was at showed me only Declan King and the computer screens. I willed my body to move closer, to check again that it had been Dom on the top of that pile. But my body refused to budge, my mind screaming if I checked, then it would be real.
How much more real does it get than this?
I blinked at King slamming the remote controlled device down on the desk beside the guy who had been operating the screens, his consequent shout of anger made my body jerk. Drew's hand came down on my shoulder to still me, maybe it looked like I was about to bolt. I didn't feel like I was, but right then I couldn't think straight, so who knew.
I watched, numbed, as King threw a hand out over the top of the desk, making miscellaneous objects spray across the room and land on the floor. He spoke rapidly in what sounded a bit like French, then ran a hand over his short, shaved head of black hair. He was beside himself with rage.
Something other than numbness seeped under my skin and I felt the edges of my lips twist into a sneer. We'd sabotaged his trap. Drew and I had saved lives today.
I took one last look at the scene unfolding, King still irate enough to rant and rave, while the computer guy hunched in on himself. I hadn't paid him much attention, but I bothered to take the time now, knowing our countdown to the AOS breaching the building had changed. He was pale skinned, and wore tan chino trousers with a polo shirt. Thick rimmed glasses and geeky haircut completed the look. King's IT guru, at a guess.
I wondered where else he'd had cameras, whether they were aware of us or not. But the only screens on display were the rooftop covering the emergency door from just one angle, and inside the stairwell showing the other side of the door. He didn't flip through other images, so for now I had to hope we were an unknown factor at play.
Before I turned away from a now silent, and somehow more ominous because of it, King, I noticed the AOS had moved back from the door on the roof, but the camera had not panned to see where they'd gone. I wondered what their plan of attack was now. The emergency door at the base of the stairwell we'd used hadn't been rigged. Maybe they'd go there, somehow break through the padlock, and come up the building from the base.
How long would that take?
"Call the helicopter," King suddenly said. "And I want eyes on that fucking roof."
He spun and searched the faces of the mercenaries standing to attention around him, then walked over to one and gave orders which we couldn't quite catch. But when eight of the twelve armed men broke off and headed towards the other end of the sixth floor by our stairwell, it was obvious they'd been instructed to do something. Just what, we couldn't say.
I turned my head to look at Drew, who was still relaying all of this to Eric over the phone, then I glanced past him and took in the air duct's destruction heading toward the north side.
We couldn't go back to the stairwell, King's men were heading that way. We could stay here until it blew over, but how long and how safe that was, I just didn't know. We'd sabotaged one thing King had planned, we could very well gain more intel here that could help the AOS out, but a compulsion to check further along pulled at me, made me take a step away from the grate and Drew, and walk further into fading black.
I'd made it half a dozen feet when Drew caught up to me, placing a hand on my upper arm and turning me back to face him. The cellphone had been pocketed. His face looked ten years older than it had that morning. The horror of our day creasing his features and dulling those beautiful grey eyes. I reached up
automatically and cupped his cheek. For a moment we just stared at each other, no words could ever convey the pain we both felt.
Finally he leaned forward and rested his forehead against mine, eyes closed, chest heaving. Our breaths intermingled, hot and sad and full of grief.
Dom.
I sucked in a hitched breath of air and pulled back, Drew reluctantly let me go and then looked around where we stood.
"We could probably find a way out onto the sixth floor up ahead," he suggested.
"Or fall off the side of the building where the explosion ripped it apart," I offered.
"It's either that, or stay here." He'd come to the same conclusions as me. "We're doing some good here, relaying what we observe. It might be best to hang tight."
I nodded. Gut wrenching pain making it difficult to think.
"They'll kill more people," Drew whispered. No doubt thinking of Justice Crane.
My lips pressed together and a new type of twisted emotion joined the heartache and tipped it into an agony so hot I felt my nails dig into the palms of my hands. I slowly and methodically released them, willing myself to calm the fuck down and think straight.
I rubbed a hand over my face, scrunching up my hair in a short pony-tail at the back, exposing the sticky skin of my nape. Willing the air on my neck to calm me. Within a split second Drew's hand was there, drawn to my uncovered flesh like a moth to a flame. His thumb stroked softly, absently, as he gazed at the hold I had on my hair. I don't think he was thinking too straight right now, either.
"Eric said the AOS are regrouping," Drew suddenly offered. "They won't use that door, but they have back-up plans."
My eyebrows rose up my forehead. "Did he say what they were?"
He shook his head. "No. Just to sit tight and let them know if there are any further developments. But the good news is the advance team has secured level four."
"But they can't get out through the stairwell door," I pointed out, regretting locking them in now, but it could have easily gone the other way.
"There are other options for egress," Drew countered. "Air ducts, for one," he added with an upturn of the right side of his lips.
I smiled back, but I was so tired of this now. Beyond tired. Defeat was making an appearance in my heart. Not to mention a little black.
"You look exhausted, Kels," Drew whispered, pulling me into his embrace. My arms wrapped willing around his body, seeking comfort the only way we could right now.
"If I sit down," I admitted, "I'll not rest, my mind will just go back to..." I couldn't complete the sentence. I couldn't say Dom's name.
"I know," Drew murmured, his voice scratchy on the words. "So, let's just go on a bit and take a look. We can always come back here in a few minutes and see if the situation has changed. For now, King is smoking a cigarette and staring at some obscure piece of art on the wall. He's down to four guards with him, plus the computer guy, on this side of the floor. We can assume six remain with the hostages, because the eight that left are headed to roof, at my guess. Odds are better in our favour over this side of the building. So, let's go take a look."
I held him close for a few moments longer then pulled back. Sitting still would drive me crazy, and if we went slowly and made little noise, we could find a way out of here and a better place to wait the AOS out. I needed to be doing something more than eavesdropping, it didn't have to be particularly constructive, just active. For my mind, for my heart. I couldn't stay here.
"OK," I whispered.
"OK," he whispered back.
We picked our way through what was left of the air duct, finding scorched pieces of metal now, as opposed to just twisted and bent. Burn marks marred the concrete, the dust and debris had a blackened hue. Drew used his cellphone light to guide us, despite the fact his battery must have been running low by now. We still had my phone for contacting Eric, so without voicing agreement aloud we relied on Drew's phone for illumination until it would run flat.
Space became a premium the further on we went and although it seemed like we'd meet a dead end, we didn't stop when we had to move to our hands and knees and crawl though the destruction, seeking God alone knew what. Something made us both keep going. It felt more than just a need to be mobile, to fill in the time without conscious thought. A compulsion, like I'd felt earlier, when we'd forced ourselves on and found the trap hidden for the AOS.
I wasn't naive enough to think we'd find another vital piece of intel, this was all the desperate desire to do something, anything, to keep us from thinking of Dom.
It took ten minutes to find evidence of open space up ahead, illumination filling the darkness, making our progress easier than the pitch black of before. Fresh air filling our nostrils, bringing the smell of the city directly to us. And just as well, Drew's phone shut down not long after the ambient night light of Auckland started to filter through. There was just enough light for us to see by, until finally we came out into an office which had to face the north wall of the District Court.
Its window was blown out, and part of the wall further along, but the door was still intact and when Drew tried the handle, it turned easily, meaning King hadn't seen the necessity to lock this as part of his security plan. Drew cracked the door slowly and glanced through the gap, then shut it and turned back to me.
"Well?" I whispered, feeling the chill of night time Auckland wrap around my frame. It wasn't a windy night and I could only be thankful for that fact.
"A foyer on the other side, doors closed on a couple of the offices, but light down the hallway that has to lead back to King."
"But no one there?" A stupid question, I was sure Drew would have led with that first had there been. Logic was clearly not top of my mind.
He shook his head. "But I can't be sure of the closed doors and once we step out there, anyone could walk back down that hall."
I stared at him for a second, trying to decide what we should do now. The window seemed to make the room precarious, too exposed, too close to a drop-off of six floors. Well, at least three floors, down to the larger footprint of the District Court. Morbid fascination made me want to walk to the edge and glance down the side. But nothing about that north wall looked safe, even if this room was still mainly intact.
I looked back at the air duct, or what had been an air duct, where we had just come from. Going back through there seemed like too much hard work.
"Stay here and wait?" Drew asked. My eyes flicked back to him. "We could hunker down in the corner, farthest from the window, well away from the gun fight that is sure to happen sooner or later."
I rubbed my eyes, aware a headache was starting to form. I was hungry again, low on sugar, and thirsty as fuck to boot.
"What if they rig the building to blow after they leave?" I finally asked.
It was clear to me that King calling for the helicopter and sending those guards out - as Drew had guessed, no doubt to the roof to secure its landing - meant he was preparing to leave. Game over, whatever he'd come here for achieved, or passed over as a bad bet now.
What a fucking lot of waste for nothing. The man needed to be contained, once and for all.
I pulled my cellphone from my pocket and swiped to activate a call to ASI. Drew came close as I pressed the device to my ear.
"Eric," I whispered when he answered. "We're on the north side of the building, what's happening with the AOS?"
"Why did you move? Did something happen?"
Eric was a smart cookie. Probably the most intelligent guy I'd ever met. I was sure that was why he was in ASI control and no longer out on the streets like Ben. He knew his way around a computer, could wire anything for sight and sound. And many a time I'd heard him typing furiously on his keyboard while relaying a joke over the phone and probably overseeing an assault on a building or something equally as challenging, all at the same time.
But I'd forgotten how astute he could be with people, not just equipment and strategies. He knew we'd moved on for a reason. More than just t
o gather further intel.
My eyes filled with tears, because fuck it, how the hell did I tell him what we had seen. Who we had seen. Dom's brother Nick was probably in that control room with Eric. Possibly even listening in on every single word we said. How could I tell him Dom was dead? How?
The tears trickled over the edges of my eyes and I didn't stop them. I knew it was unwise to let the emotion have free reign right now. It could completely incapacitate me, make me a blubbering mess when we were nowhere near safe enough to breakdown.
And breakdown is exactly what I wanted to do.
It hurt. It hurt so much that again I couldn't breathe. It hurt so much I could no longer see for tears, no longer think for the agony that cleaved my heart in two. I didn't love Dominic Anscombe, he wasn't my rainbow like Drew. But fuck it, I loved Genevieve like a sister and the pain I felt now was for her loss, for her heartache that was to come.
If I could carry that weight for them a little longer I would, but Eric is too clever by far.
"Fuck," I heard him whisper. "Hang on a sec," he added, and the phone was set to mute.
Drew wrapped an arm around my shoulders and buried his face in my neck, well aware of what was happening on the phone. I felt his body shake slightly, his own grief momentarily catching up. We huddled as we waited for Eric to return, both of us adrift in a painful storming sea with our memories of Dom.
The phone line reactivated and we heard Eric suck in a deep breath.
"I've cleared the room," he announced, and how he achieved that without them getting suspicious was beyond me, but if anyone could use subterfuge successfully, it would be Eric. "You've found him," he added. Not a question. He knew.
"I..." I started, intending to tell him I couldn't talk about it right now, but not even able to get those words out. And Drew? Drew was crying openly now.
Sweet Seduction Sabotage Page 26
