by Susan Grant
The door slid open, and the guard stepped inside the cell. “You will come. Come now—”
“Make me!” Bree threw a punch. Her fist impacted under the woman’s hairy jaw. Pain shot up her arm from her knuckles.
Bree rubbed her knuckles as the guard took a single staggering step backward and growled—actually growled—like a childhood version of a monster. But then, lowering her head, the guard launched her big body forward.
Bree thrust a leg out and tripped her. The impact spun her around as the commandant crashed to the floor. A pistol attached to the guard’s belt flew across the cell, ricocheting off the back wall like a hockey puck.
Pushing up on thick arms, the guard swept her gaze around to find her lost weapon. Surprise registered on her face, then desperation. Before she could snatch back the gun, Bree whirled in a roundhouse kick, knocking away her hand. Then she used her momentum to swing around for another go.
The kick caught the guard on the side of the head. A grunt of pain and the woman went down again. Down, yes, but still not out. How many freaking times was it going to take for David to topple Goliath?
Bree hefted the pistol into her hands and aimed. The surveillance viewers embedded in her cell and all through the corridor were recording every second of this, she thought. By now, someone in a far-off room could have already thrown the alarm switch.
Her body fidgeted, screaming at her to run. If she didn’t get the hell out of this section soon, more guards would be on the way. She hadn’t seen a single one besides this woman, but it didn’t mean they weren’t there. However, armed or not, no way could she leave the place dressed in a fluorescent-orange jumpsuit that screamed, I’m an escaped prisoner. She opted to delay five more minutes to trade clothes with the commandant.
Bree aimed the gun at the woman’s head. “Take off your uniform.”
“No! You must come with me now.”
“I don’t think so.”
The guard was halfway to her knees. The whites of her eyes had turned almost red with rage, and she foamed at the mouth like a rabid dog.
Bree aimed. “Sit. Stay!”
A sound rumbled ominously in the guard’s throat.
Bree released the safety on the pistol. The guards didn’t carry stunners; they packed the real thing. These guns had one setting: kill. “I have no problem blowing your head off,” she warned. “Take off your clothes and give them to me.” Bree stared down the sight of the pistol. Sweat ran down her forehead and made her eyes sting. She swiped at her face with the back of her hand. “The weapons belt first. Slide it to me.”
The big woman unbuckled her belt, her eyes never leaving Bree. She stood there, the belt dangling from her hand.
“Slide it!” Bree snapped.
The belt scraped over the floor. Bree kicked it outside the cell, into the corridor. “The rest. Now!”
The commandant tugged off one boot. Then the other.
“Faster!”
The commandant continued to undress at a maddeningly slow speed until she finally sat on the floor in a massively constructed bra and panties: regular boring white panties. Bree was almost disappointed not to see the jockstrap she’d expected. “Give me the uniform!”
Finally the commandant threw the wadded-up clothes at Bree. The guard was a large woman. The size difference suited her needs perfectly. She couldn’t get rid of her prison jumpsuit—it was how the Voice of Freedom contacted her. The guard uniform would have to go on top of it.
Bree backed out into the corridor and removed the handcuffs from the commandant’s belt. She slid them across the cell floor to the woman. “Put them on.”
The guard glowered at her, dangling the handcuffs from an index finger.
“A battle of wills is pretty stupid when someone’s got a gun pointed down your throat,” Bree said calmly.
The commandant seemed to think so, too. She opened the cuffs.
“Lock one on your wrist and the other on the bars. That’s it. Good.”
The woman was now locked to the bars inside the cell. Bree had the key.
She closed and locked the cell door. “Hasta la vista, baby,” she said, and took off running.
The halls were empty, eerily so. Where were all the guards? The prison was large, the floor plan like a maze. Which way out?
What was it the Voice had told her to do? Look above when things grow darkest. Get as high as you can. Look to the sky, and you’ll know.
Look above? Bree did, and saw only the ceiling. Get as high as you can. Bree’s heart jumped. The roof! That was where she needed to go.
She remembered a ladder she’d seen leading up firehouse-style to the next floor, and returned to it. She didn’t know where it led, but it went up. That was a good start.
She clambered up the ladder. Once on the next floor, she flattened herself against the wall, peering up and down the corridor. No one was around.
The ladder continued up to the next higher floor. She took it and repeated the drill five more times before she hit a brick wall—literally. But carved in the brick wall was a heavy porthole-shaped door. And it was open.
Bree hesitated before going through it. Was it a trap, leading her onto the roof and certain capture? Or was someone like the Voice facilitating her escape?
What are your choices? You can backtrack and try to get out another way. Or you can trust in the Shadow Voice and see what waits on the roof .
What was the worst that could happen to her, anyway? Execution? The way she saw it, that was already on the schedule for today. She gazed moodily at the lightening sky. And not too far off, by the looks of it.
“Freeze!” someone shouted from the floor below. “Stay there. Do not move.”
Bree peered down through the ladder opening, her pistol gripped in two hands. Two armed UCE prison guards dressed in riot gear were climbing the rungs.
Bree yelled at them. “Throw down your weapons, or I’ll shoot!”
“Bree!” One of the guards lifted his face mask. “It’s me—Ty.”
A strangled sound that said far more than she was able to verbalize slipped from her throat. His hair was cut short again, but it looked as if it had been days since he’d shaved—or slept, judging by the shadows under his eyes.
She wanted to run to him, to throw her arms around him. No.
She steeled herself against all emotion. What if the drugs were still circulating in her system? The last time she’d had this dream that Ty was wearing the uniform of a UCE officer, he’d walked away from her, leaving her to die. “I’m getting out of here, Ty. Don’t try to stop me.”
“Bree, no. Don’t go out of the roof. General Armstrong’s heli-jet’s due to arrive any minute. He’s come to watch your execution.”
She inched toward the open porthole. “I’m supposed to go outside.”
“On whose orders?” Ty appeared distraught. And who was the man standing with him? He was big and very quiet. A stranger.
“I can’t tell you!”
“Listen, Bree. You’ve got to trust me.”
She swallowed, her mouth dry. “I’m not sure I trust anyone right now.”
He flinched, as if her words had hit him like physical blows. “I don’t know what they did to you in here, if they turned you against me, but I’m here to get you out. There’s a supply truck waiting downstairs in the depot. We’ll get in the back and get the hell out. Up here, we’re trapped. If you go out on that roof, we’re dead.”
Her aim didn’t waver. She wanted so much to believe him. Then she thought of Lee-lee, and it took all she had not to pistol-whip the man.
Thwap, thwap, thwap. She jerked her attention to the open roof door. One thing that hadn’t changed much in 170 years was the sound of a chopper.
“Goddamn,” Ty’s friend muttered. “He’s here already? Two fucking hours early! I’m going out to meet him. Whatever you do, stay hidden—and keep her hidden—until I get everyone down from the roof and inside.”
His friend departed, presum
ably for a different way out to the roof. Ty turned back to Bree. “That’s my father in the heli-jet. He’ll have a security detail with him that won’t be interested in getting you anywhere but out in front of a firing squad.”
“Who’s your friend?” she asked.
“He commands this prison.”
“But he’s helping you help me.”
“He’s on our side, Bree. Ninety percent of the guards working here are. They saw your trial. I saw it, too. Before, you fought with missiles; now you fight with passion. You’ve inspired the entire colony, Bree, and much of the world.”
“Everyone keeps saying this. But I’m just me, slogging my way through something I know nothing about.”
“People don’t follow status, Bree. They follow courage. If you’re willing to lead them to freedom, they’ll follow you. And so will I.”
Her eyes filled. “Ty . . .” Her throat squeezed tight.
He fought a visible struggle to get hold of himself as well. “I love you, Bree. Trust me.”
No one could fake the look in his eyes, the way he gazed at her as if there were nothing in the world more important to him.
She sat back on her haunches, her pistol dangling from one hand. “Where the hell were you?”
Ty was up the ladder with her gathered in his arms before she had a chance to blink. She shoved against him, pummeling his breastplate with her fists. “They beat me. They interrogated me. I waited for you. Why didn’t you come—why?”
Cognizant of her gun, he grabbed her wrists. “I’m here now,” he soothed. “I’m here. I’m not leaving your side. I’m getting you out of here. Out and far away, baby.”
She fell into his embrace, closing her eyes, pressing her cheek to his leather breastplate. He rocked her gently, and she breathed in his scent. Ah, how she loved him. “I guess we’re even now. I got you out of Kyber’s dungeon, and you’re getting me out of this hellhole.”
“Not unless we get moving.” He jerked his chin toward the orange jumpsuit peeking through her guard uniform. “You should get rid of that.”
“I can’t. The Voice of Freedom contacted me using some kind of transmission device in the collar. Except that the Voice never seems to be around when you need her.”
“He’s a she?”
“Well, is she a he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. I decided to pick a gender and stick with it. Less confusing.”
“What did he say, the Voice?”
“That she was working on getting me out of here.”
“That explains this, then.” Ty waved a hand at the open porthole to the roof. “All the doors to the place are unlocked. The security system’s been hacked into somehow, but they can’t trace it. They don’t know who did it. What was supposed to be impossible has happened. Key areas of security are disabled, but not all of them.”
“When did it start?”
“Right after I got here.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m not. The few guards who showed up for work today are outside guarding the exits.”
“Not all,” she muttered. “One’s handcuffed to my cell.”
His mouth tipped crookedly. “Why am I not surprised?” He reached for her collar to help fasten the clips to a breastplate, helping hide her jumpsuit. She could feel his body heat. She could smell him. Every cell in her body reacted. She could block out so many things, but never him. Never Ty.
Her eyes lifted to his, and she saw how dark his eyes had become. A jolt of attraction shot between them, but this was neither the place nor the time to do anything about it.
He grabbed her by the upper arms. “We’ve got to go, Bree. We’ve got to do it now. Chico’s busy distracting my father. If the security system comes back up, it’s going to get ugly for us. Let’s get out while we can.”
She shook her head when he tugged her toward the ladder. “No, not down. Up. The Voice told me to look to the sky and I’d know what to do. I think she means the roof.”
“That’s suicide!”
“Is it?” She pushed away from Ty and went to the circular door. Crouching, her weapon drawn, she peeked around the door frame. The heli-jet sat in a painted circle in the middle of the roof. Wind rushed past, pushed by the spin of the vertical engines. In edgy, tense silence, they watched a severe-looking man dressed in a crisp black trench coat and a high-crowned, General Patton– type hat trimmed in patent leather storm away from the craft. He had sharp cheekbones and a hard mouth, and looked as impossible and arrogant as she knew he was. It was easy to see why many said the Ax had designs on the UCE presidency, wanting to install a military dictatorship in its place—with him in charge, of course.
Ty’s friend Chico and another officer escorted the general off the roof. The heli-jet pilot followed a few moments later. The whine of the engines faded as they spun slower and slower.
“That’s it,” she cried, turning to Ty. “That’s what the Shadow Voice meant. The heli-jet. We’re supposed to hijack it. The Voice must have known somehow that it’d be left here, unguarded.”
“It’s ideal. The craft has weapons and stealth tech—the best the UCE has, and probably even more equipment than I’m guessing. We’ll be invisible to anyone tracking us.” Ty’s face lit up. “I’m going to fly my father’s heli-jet to his house.”
“His house . . . ? I think we need a better idea.”
“No. It’s the house I grew up in—in Montana. It’s locked up tighter than Fort Powell ever was. Better than that, no one would expect we’d have the gall to go there, particularly my father.”
“Okay.” Bree’s heart was beating hard. “We’ve got the plan, the means, and the motivation. But do you know how to fly that thing? I don’t.”
“I’ve got a couple of thousand hours flight time in helijets. Haven’t flown in a while, but—”
“I don’t care! Let’s go!”
Guns at the ready, they burst through the door and into the cold, predawn air. Hands clasped together, they bolted for the heli-jet.
A voice pierced the silence. “Freeze!”
Bree swung her attention around to the source of the sound. Behind her was a UCE guard, his arms extended, a rifle aimed right between her eyes.
Chapter Nineteen
Outside the palace, Kyber crouched. Dressed in black, he knew he was almost impossible to see when he stood, swinging a cablelike rope over his head. His heart thumped hard, and he knew it wasn’t from the jog through the shadowy palace grounds. He would soon show Cam that there was nothing more he could do for Banzai, but oh, so much he could do for her.
“Kublai, on second thought, this isn’t such a good idea,” Cam said. “If we get caught, I’ll probably get a scolding, but you’ll get fired. Or worse.”
“Impossible, pretty one.”
“Lack of self-confidence has never been an issue for you, has it?”
Only where you are concerned, he wanted to say. With a grunt of effort, he threw the rope to the balcony high above.
It hooked around the railing. Kyber tested it. “It’s good. Now you simply hold on and the rope will carry us up.”
Her mouth twisted as she gazed skeptically at the rope dangling from the balcony. “And if he meets us at the top? The flesh-eating prince?”
“He does not eat human flesh!” Kublai lowered his voice. “No more than I . . .” He drew her close and kissed her, a hungry, deep kiss. She giggled, a muffled laugh against his mouth, until the heat took her, too.
Sometime into the embrace, driven by a sixth sense, Kyber pulled away from Cam to find his bemused chief of security walking up to them. Nikolai peered at them as if his vision had somehow failed him. “Kublai?”
At least the man had the wherewithal to remember to call him by his alias. “Nazeem, greetings. Out enjoying the pleasant evening, too, I see.”
“It is a rather . . . warm night for this time of year, I see.” The smile was in Nikolai’s tone rather than on his face
. “I suspected you might be out strolling in the gardens, so I thought I’d have a look.”
Kyber knew what the chief really meant was that the prox-beacon embedded in Kublai’s clothing showed him sneaking about the palace gardens at night, and the chief wanted to make sure the clothes were still on Kyber’s back and not some intruder’s. Had they not been on Kyber, he’d have alerted palace security immediately and raised a barrier around the gardens, preventing escape.
Cam appeared quite happy to see the chief. There had always been a quiet respect between the two. “Are you on your way out? Nice suit.”
“Thank you.” The chief ran a hand down the crisp, dark gray collarless outfit he wore daily. It was a far cry from his dusty Rim Rider wear. He looked to have wanted to return the compliment, but couldn’t seem to form one that would suit Cam’s disheveled, though rather adorable, appearance. Her white shirt was dirty and snagged in several places, and dark stains on her silk pants confirmed her collision with a wall of kimchi pots. “So, what are you two doing at this late hour?” he asked casually.
“Breaking in, if you can believe it,” she confided.
“Oh, I can believe it,” the chief said with a stern glance in Kyber’s direction.
“You Rim Riders are definitely the kingdom’s bad boys.”
Nikolai lifted a brow at Kyber. The man had an impressive range of nonverbal communication, and it was clear he didn’t approve of their lies extending beyond their now-ended mission as Rim Riders. I hadn’t intended for it to be so, either, Niko.
But he’d rectify that tonight. “She wants her audience with the prince, Nazeem, and I intend to give it to her.”
“I see. With all due respect, Your H—” The chief stopped himself before he blurted out the royal title. Before he began again, his gaze settled on Cam, warmed, then cooled as he returned his attention to Kyber. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
With sudden and unaccustomed qualms, Kyber hoped so, too.
Nikolai turned to Cam. “A pleasant evening to you.”
“And to you,” she replied.
He hesitated, then said, “Yours is a true heart; have the courage to follow it.”
