Chapter Thirty-Three - Five
I can hear people yelling down a dark hallway.
Then footsteps behind me. I look over my shoulder, pull the pistol from my pocket and aim—
“It’s just me!” Chen says.
I lower the pistol as he walks up, looking warily round for enemies.
“They’re down here,” I say, surprised at how calm my voice is. “They’ve got Rory. Middleton told me just before he died.”
“I saw his body,” Chen whispers. “What did he say?”
“Nothing,” I lie.
“Nothing?” Chen asks as we stalk forward. We’ve both got our guns ready, our backs pressing against a wall as we come to another hallway.
I don’t hear anything, but I stay flat against the wall as I peek around.
No one.
I slip to the right, down the new hallway and continue forward. The yelling is getting louder and I can barely make out a sliver of light.
Suddenly there’s more gunfire behind us. Chen and I both look at each other, then back the way we came.
“They’re coming in after us,” I say. “We gotta do this now, man. Fuck everything, we gotta do this now.”
Chen looks uncertain. He glances back at the commotion, and that’s when I take off for the door.
I expect it to be locked when I turn the long metal handle, so when it’s not, I almost hesitate.
Rory.
That’s the only thing I care about right now.
I do not hesitate. I throw the door open and stand there, gun pointing at the chest of Jack Joseph.
I knew that fuck was behind this. I knew it.
“Five!” Jack bellows in his fake magnanimous greeting. “You’re right on time.”
A blonde woman is on the floor with my princess, who does not look good. She’s pale and there’s foam coming out of her mouth.
“What the fuck,” I growl—so low, so dangerous—“did you do to my wife?”
“Your wife?”
I glance over to where the voice came from, find Frank Fulbright smiling at me.
He opens his mouth to continue with some smartass remark, but I shoot him in the chest before he even utters another word.
That’s when a gun is pressed to my back and Chen, the one man my father trusted—never should have trusted—is behind me.
“Put the gun down, Five.”
“You,” I say, my gun trained on the woman now—I don’t know why I think she’s the one in charge here, but she is, I know it—“killed my grandfather.”
Chen huffs a laugh. “And you’re about to lose your precious princess too. Unless. You. Drop. That gun.”
I drop it. It clanks loudly to the hard, concrete floor.
“Good boy,” the woman says, nodding her head to some big guy, who picks up the gun and backs away into the shadows with it. “Now listen carefully, Mr. Aston. Princess Shrike here has taken upon herself to end her life tonight. But I can stop this reaction.” She holds up a syringe. “We use the poison wafer to scare people, really. It’s a tactic, you understand, right?”
Her eyes dart over my shoulder. To Chen, I realize.
“So this is how you did it?” I ask, looking at the woman, but talking to my father’s most trusted advisor. “This is how you betrayed him?”
“We don’t have time for small talk, Mr. Aston,” she says in an overly calm manner. “Aurora will be dead in less than three minutes if we don’t give her this antidote. But I can’t give it to her. I can’t save her life unless you agree to be one of us.”
“Fine,” I say. It’s an automatic response. I don’t even think about what her offer means. I don’t even care at this point. “Fine,” I say again when she makes no move to push those drugs into Rory. “Do it!” I yell. “I said fine. I agreed. Now save her fucking life or I will take down every single one of you.”
The woman smiles. Confident. “Every one of us?” She actually laughs. My eyes fall to Rory lying helpless on the ground. Her body is shaking, like the beginning of a seizure, and she’s moaning. Is that a good sign? Or a bad one?
“Save her,” I say, calm now, my threats gone. “Just do it. I don’t give a fuck what I have to do for you people after this, just save her.”
“Now that’s what we like to hear.”
But still… she makes no move to plunge that antidote into my dying princess.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?” I ask. “Do it!”
But there’s a squeaky noise behind me. That big guy has wheeled in a stretcher.
It’s not for saving Rory. It’s not for transporting her to a waiting ambulance, and then to a hospital.
It’s for an escape.
He lifts Rory up off the ground. She’s seizing up, her arms folded, but stiff, on her chest. Her head falling back, the saliva pooling in her mouth until some reflex takes over and she begins to choke.
I rush forward to help her, but Chen grabs me from behind. I elbow him in the kidneys, making him falter. Big guy is still holding Rory, so he’s no help. Jack is clumsily pulling a gun from his jacket pocket, but I shoot him. Not in the chest. Fuck that shit. I shoot him in the face.
All of a sudden the lights come on. I blink, then cover my eyes, trying to adjust to the brightness. The woman and her bodyguard have Rory on the stretcher, and the big guy’s arm is moving, lifting a shotgun at me when—
Wen’s men appear—finally—from the door I came through with Chen.
They shoot Jack in a spectacular show of power. They spray him with bullets. The walls are made of mirrors and I watch, transfixed by his jerking body until it’s pinned to the cracked slivers of silver.
The next thing I know, the entire room is up in flames and the woman and her bodyguard are gone.
So is Rory.
But she left something behind.
The syringe.
And it’s empty. That bitch lied.
It never had the antidote in it at all.