Seek: Project Xol

by Amabel Daniels

  “Asking for company in the shower?”

  Now she made eye contact, complete with a fuck-off smirk. “Excuse the piss out of me if I’m a little freaked. The last time I went into a room by myself, I was attacked.”

  I answered by grabbing her hand as I walked to the bathroom, pulling her with me. Once five seconds passed, all that I needed to prove to her she’d be alone in there, I jerked my head toward the shower stall. “Stay filthy for all I care. But it might make you stand out a bit when we try to stay on the down-low.”

  She pulled out of my grip and maintained that icy glower.

  I held back a sigh. “I’ll be right outside. There’s no way for anyone to sneak in here except the fire escape in my bedroom. Which I’ll watch.”

  Her hair fell over her eye as she tilted her head.

  Or was it that she couldn’t trust me? Hadn’t I shown her I meant no harm by freeing her from Michael? I crossed my arms, daring her to sass back.

  “Can you—” She huffed, more to herself than anything. “Whistle or something? If there’s danger? Like a heads up?”

  I whistled. “Happy?”

  She didn’t lighten up but it hardly mattered. I exited as she pivoted, setting her bags on the closed toilet lid.

  As soon as the water started running, I took a few painkillers with an entire bottle of water. On the counter before me lay the skillet and the syringe. She must have put the ID case in her bag. True to my word, I stayed out of the bathroom and watched for trouble. Through the peephole, I saw that no one climbed to my floor and no one walked down the hall. For now, the coast seemed clear, but I was no fool to believe this relative calm would last.

  Cassidy came out of the shower a couple of minutes later, halting my paces back and forth between the window in my bedroom and the front door. Steamy mist wrapped around her and hovered at the ceiling, cocooning her in an ethereal mystery as she approached me. In a black tank top and the same jeans from before, she wrung out excess water from her long tresses. The spots on her neck were still pink, but she was at least clean from blood.

  I didn’t linger in her gaze because those cyan orbs seemed even sadder, as though the crash of adrenaline had caught up to her in the short shower with a sob-fest.

  Not wasting time, I headed for my turn under the water.

  “Can—” She snagged my sleeve. “Can I come?”

  I arched my brows again.

  She huffed, and a blush stole across her cheeks. “I don’t want to be alone out here. What if someone breaks in?”

  I slapped Michael’s closed switchblade into her free hand. “Then watch my back.”

  Her throat tightened and she closed her fingers around the weapon. “I just—”

  Didn’t want to be alone. I got it. “Suit yourself. Won’t be my first time in a communal shower.”

  She didn’t reply as I entered the bathroom. I sucked in a deep lungful of the fog as she sat on the closed toilet lid. When I reached for the bottom hem of my shirt, I grunted at the stab of pain radiating from my shoulder. There was no way I was lifting my arm that high. Not right now, at least.

  I gritted my teeth and faced her. “Could you…”

  The blush deepened and spread toward her ears. “Oh! Um, yeah. I’ll…turn around.”

  She thought I didn’t want her to watch me undress? Modesty? I could have laughed. “No, no.” Her eyes were still so wide as she tried not to look at me. “Either get the scissors in the kitchen and cut this off me, or pull it off. I can’t do it myself.”

  “Oh.” After she shook her head as though to snap herself out of her embarrassment, she stepped up to me in the already tiny space. “Sure.”

  Her fingers slipped under the fabric at my waist and I sucked my breath in. It wasn’t a tickle, but something sharper. Bolder. Awareness of her touching me sent sparks across my flesh, shooting too much energy into my heart. I swallowed as she spread her soft fingers higher, fisting the material. As she pulled up my shirt, I raised and bent my left arm to at least start with the less-painful step.

  I hissed as she began to slide the shirt down my right arm, and she stilled. “Come on. Get it over with.”

  Together, we forced the cloth off my arm. My breaths came out ragged. Nothing to do with her standing an inch away. Nothing. At. All. But when she blinked back tears at the sight of my shoulder and gasped, I groaned.

  “I’m so—” She covered her mouth with one hand and tenderly pressed a couple of fingertips to the edge of my injury. “I’m so sorry.”

  I caught her hand and squeezed it before stepping away. Crying wasn’t on the agenda, not when more trouble was due our way. There was no doubt she felt like shit for bashing me with the pan. And now I regretted my previous smartass comment about her aim. What happened in Rosa’s apartment was likely the scariest thing she’d ever done. I was just glad she’d had the guts to fight back. To save me. Save me for saving her. Hell, that was new. Someone else who’d had my back—even if she’d beaten it. I grinned and turned to take off the rest of my clothes.

  “It’s not so bad. And…thank you,” I said as I kicked off my shoes. I lowered my jeans and boxers, saying, “Thank you for not leaving. For thinking I was worthy to fight for.”

  She could have left me there to die under Michael’s hands. Or curled up into a wailing ball of panic. But she’d bravely acted. I wasn’t letting her innocent looks trick me. She was a feisty one when she needed to be.

  I stepped into the shower and moaned at the first stings of scalding hot water. Shielding my shoulder, I acclimated to the only kind of massage I could afford.

  “Are you a fugitive?”

  I frowned at my bottle of body wash, considering her sudden question.

  “You said,” she explained and cleared her throat, “you said you’ve killed before. And you flipped out when you saw he was a cop.”

  “An ex-con will never be happy to see a cop.” Especially one he’d fought. “I served six years of my sentence. When I was attacked in prison, my brother’s mentor intervened and ending up getting me out early. Got my sentence cut.”

  “Ah.”

  I glanced at her through the hazy door and she immediately averted her gaze.

  Any other time, any other circumstances, and I’d be testing the limits of her timidity.

  Focus, you idiot. She was still a stranger.

  As I moved to wash my bruised shoulder, I gritted my teeth to avoid crying out. I doubted she’d broken anything. Definitely deep-tissue damage though. And all I could count on was flimsy over-the-counter drugs. Once we find Rosa, I’m going to the closest Urgent Care.

  Thinking of medicine, I couldn’t help but recall that syringe. “Did he get you with that needle?”

  Cassidy shifted in her seat and shook her head. “No broken skin. I checked when I showered. Well, other than the slash with the knife.”

  Good. It wasn’t a typical instrument like the ones for flu shots. Covered in a retractable lid, it seemed like a very high-tech device. If he’d been toting it around in his pocket, it had to be secure to not pierce him. It seemed too advanced for heroin. “Wonder what’s in it.”

  She scoffed. “I’m betting nothing good.”

  “Would it have anything to do with what Rosa studies?” Biology. I knew she was a scientist who studied life, which was awfully vague.

  “Her focus is on Alzheimer’s. On late-onset dementia. I don’t see how a police officer would have anything she’s worked with.”

  I had to agree. Silence resumed for the last minute of my shower and I rapped my knuckle on the door. “Just a heads up,” I said and shut the water off, “I’m about to get out.”

  She stood then and opened the door to the rest of the apartment, keeping her eyes away from me. “Can I leave this open? In case…”

  I’d already slid the glass partition back and I waved at her, dismissing her. “Yeah, yeah.”

  After she left, I dried and exited to retrieve clothes. Cassidy wasn’t just outside the bat
hroom, but on her tiptoes, peering through the peephole at the front door.

  She didn’t speak or make a sound, so I went in my bedroom. I dropped my towel and started to get dressed.

  “Oh, my God.”

  I jerked my head up at her whisper. It was so quiet, I heard her clearly in my room. Shoes and jeans already on, I roughly yanked a t-shirt over my head. “Cassidy?”

  “Oh, fuck…” she murmured and her footsteps sounded over the linoleum.

  “Cassidy—” I shot my left arm into the sleeve and ran toward the living room. In a flurry of pink and blonde hair flying, she sprinted into me, clutching me at my sides and pushing me back. Backpedaling me in the opposite direction. I fumbled with my shirt half on and looked past her. “Cassidy—”

  “Go!” she whisper-yelled it, pressing on my chest to guide me to the window. “They— There’s—”

  “Cassidy!” I bit back a scream and raised my right arm to finish putting on my shirt. Deep pulses of pain throbbed down to my fingers.

  “Open the window. Go!” She edged me aside and undid the lock mechanisms to the window.

  “What’s—”

  “Let’s go!” Gripping the slots, she tried to raise the glass, her lips smashed together in a wince. I brushed her fingers away as her knuckles turned white and then opened it. Rain shot into the room and thunder boomed in the distance.

  Cassidy’s breath hitched and I helped hoist her outside. If she was convinced of danger on our heels, I wasn’t going to dillydally. The terror in her eyes told me enough. “What did you see?”

  As she stood upright on the shaky metal ladder, I levered myself out after her. Streams of water poured from the skies, wetting my eyes and slickening my grip on the rungs.

  “Cassidy?”

  She’d already rushed down two steps, her shoe slipping on a rung before she reclaimed her footing.

  Then the building heaved as an explosion rocked the earth.

  Chapter Five

  Cassidy

  The rickety ladder shook and shifted as I hurried down. I didn’t want to plummet three stories to the wet pavement waiting for us, but we didn’t have the luxury of time. Gravity and the abrupt movements of the exterior wall forced us to tumble through the fire escape. I grunted each time my elbows and knees banged into the rungs and caged wall. Grimaces twisted my face at the stabs of the rusted metal slicing through my jeans. But it wasn’t a freefall.

  I didn’t look up at Luke’s ass as he rushed to the ground above me. Nor did I chance a distraction to investigate why a building would be rattling. The noises of a blast were telling enough. Add those clues to the men I’d seen heading into Rosa’s apartment, and I could put one and two together.

  Michael had sent some buddies to blow up my mom’s home.

  I had a half a dozen rungs to go, and I flinched as a torrent of stone and busted bricks rattled along the outer shell of the fire escape. Too late. It was enough of a slip-up that I lost my grip and dropped to the ground.

  My ass landed first, at least, and my breath shoved out of my lungs with an ooft. Luke came right after me, slamming down on his side. “God…dammit,” he breathed out with a wretched expression of agony.

  He lay there on his hip and propped up by his elbow. I couldn’t remember which arm he’d—I’d—injured and tried not to worry. It wasn’t the softest descent possible, but we were alive. I stood and raised my sight to the top corner of the building. Shielding my eyes from the rain, I gaped, swallowing too much water and inhaling a mouthful of particulate debris. I coughed and blinked at the inferno. Black smoke rose up into the cloudy navy sky. Flames climbed and curled despite the downpour. Rosa’s apartment was gone. Obliterated into void space and fire.

  “Don’t just stand there.”

  I spun to Luke and trotted over to him. My legs throbbed as I moved, my butt not a fan of running right now—or ever. He groaned as he shifted to sit, and I lowered my hand to help him up. Together, we got him off the ground and I held onto his side as he tested a few steps. He limped, but he wasn’t immobile.

  We weren’t in any condition to run, and if I had debated the urgency to get the hell away from Rosa’s apartment and where I’d “met” Michael, I didn’t doubt it now. Only, we were going to be much slower.

  “Can you walk?”

  He snorted. “We need to fucking run.”

  I twisted to look behind me, toward the entrance to the side alley we’d fallen into. No one was there. Nope. Wait. As if my act of observation had summoned them, two men approached. Two of the same kind of guys I’d seen determinedly entering Rosa’s apartment before the explosion. Khakis and almost-formal jackets. Undercover cops? They had to be. A bald one spotted us and hastened his steps.

  “Over there!”

  Oh, shit.

  “Well,” I mumbled to Luke as my heart rate tripled, “let’s run then.”

  He didn’t even bother to glance back. The yell told him we weren’t alone.

  “Shoot him,” one called out.

  Him? Not them? Why’d they single out Luke?

  I hot-footed as much as I could with helping Luke along. No easy feat with his injuries and bringing his massive weight down against me. One more look back. I had to.

  The bald man was lowering his weapon and raising another device. A tranq gun? It held a vial instead of bullets. Frowning, I panted and faced forward to see where Luke was guiding us. Even if he was the slower of us, he would know our surroundings.

  Another look back—I was a glutton for punishment tonight. The black man raised a real gun. And fired.

  I ducked and Luke wrapped his arm around my waist even more, pulling me toward the right. Seemed the fear of being shot numbed him to the pain from falling, because he was now matching and almost beating my pace.

  “You drove here? Where’s your car?”

  “Yes,” I got out between pants. All right. He was full-out sprinting now, albeit with a weird, lopsided gait. It was no mystery that he was finely fit. The adrenaline of the chase was working mighty powers with him because now I struggled to keep up. “A couple blocks down. By some liquor store.”

  He nodded once and turned around the corner.

  Pounding footsteps sounded after us on the slick pavement, but I ceased hearing them as the screeching whines of sirens neared. Too much noise and chaos echoed off the city walls, competing with the constant drum of blood in my head. I tried to tune it out as I followed Luke’s zigzagging escape through the maze of buildings and dumpsters.

  “Here,” Luke instructed. I was hot on his heels as he held my hand, taking me through a narrower alley. Claustrophobia threatened, frightening me that we could easily be trapped or overtaken in such a tight fit. We sprinted through the slimmest gap between buildings. How Luke could run through here with such broad shoulders, I didn’t know. Just before we spilled out onto a sidewalk, he had to turn and edge out sideways.

  “Over there.”

  Twenty yards. My trusty Ford waited for us just at the end of the next block. We’d cut through the neighborhood via the turns of alleys, the burning building behind us now.

  I unlocked the car as we approached, and I cringed at the lights blinking their hello. We didn’t need any attention drawn to us. Luke skidded as he reached the passenger door. I dashed to the driver’s door, key at the ready, and wrenched on the handle.

  A gunshot rang out and I coupled my actions as a dive into the car and ducking from the shot. Luke slammed his door shut and I righted myself. My fingers shook so much I used my free hand to steady my forearm to get the damn key in the ignition. Another shot. A pop of metal on metal. Maybe it hit the trunk. If the one guy had said shoot him, it was clear my car was now the consolation prize as a gun target.

  I turned the engine over, slammed the gear into drive, and punched my foot to the gas. I didn’t even care where I was going, as long as I was gaining distance between us and the end of that hot barrel.

  “You know how to get on 74?” Luke asked. He gri
pped the armrest as I took a turn too sharply. It was either go right or fly through incoming traffic at the intersection. He inhaled harshly, and I realized he’d pressed his bad arm into the door.

  “Yeah.” I wiped water from my eyes, shoving back my wet hair so I could see. With our labored breaths, the windows were already fogging up.

  “Head south.”

  “You’ve got somewhere specific in mind?”

  He turned to look behind us, his neck stretching those taut muscles. His jaw was clenched, but I could see him relaxing an inch. No one followed us. Yet. “My brother’s…mentor has a property he’s just purchased. It’s empty.”

  Mentor. Like in life goals? If Luke was a former killer, something I still needed more info about to feel truly safe, I doubted he was much into self-help representatives. Mentor, not like a coach, but a…sponsor?

  What kind of property could this be? “Is it legal?”

  He scoffed, like he’d been waiting for me to ask a judgmental question. “Dale Hanson isn’t the kind of guy to mess with illegal activities. Or if he does, he can afford to cover it up.”

  Hanson…? It sounded familiar, common enough that anyone could recognize it. Not a brand name, or a celebrity title, though. I’d pick at it later. I had enough to worry about at the moment.

  “It’s an empty place where no one should bother looking for us,” Luke said.

  Sounded like paradise. Only now did my breathing calm down to the point that I wasn’t on the verge of hyperventilating. What was this? Two fight-or-flight episodes in as many hours? I was going to be flirting with cardiac arrest if we couldn’t simply sit down and not fear our lives for a second.

  We divvied up our priorities as I sped out of the concrete jungle. As the driver, I focused on pressing the pedal to the floor without causing an accident or breaking a law to warrant a cruiser stopping me for reckless operation. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Luke took the watchdog role, turning to look out the rear window and side mirrors, as well as casting a survey around our passing scenery.

  “What did you see in the hallway back there?” he asked after a few moments. I’d entered the highway and he told me which exit to look out for.