Chapter 44

Nix

These bastards were better than the average assholes I’d dealt with in the past. They were intelligent. They had thought about the ways I could get out of their grasp. I was still working on an exit plan, but the small cement room that I was being held in was windowless. I was hanging from the ceiling. They had thick rubber worked into a chain. These chains were around my wrists in such an elaborate way, my double-jointed fingers were no use.

They were using electricity and water alternately as the method of torture. They knew what they were doing on a molecular level. These fuckers were industrial.

I was coming to terms that I wasn’t going to make it out of here. They wanted me to flip on Animal. Turn on Animal.

Not in a million years.

Not even for Becca.

I’d been in a ton of shitty situations in my life, and I’d gotten out of all of them pretty much on my own.

I was under my bed watching when my father killed my mother when I was a child. I’d been captured on purpose as an adult and had to get out of that, too. It made me think—obviously erroneously. They were going for the water again.

The system for drowning me looked very similar to an oxygen mask, but did the exact opposite.

My shoulders were stretched way past the point of use. The muscles were like warm taffy. I realized that they were having trouble getting the water mask on me because I was heaving out groans. The pain was incredible. Tears were sliding down my face and insultingly going up my nose when I sucked in precious oxygen. I was being gluttonous with the air because soon it would be gone. Getting any extra moisture up my nose pissed me off.

I wondered where Animal was. I knew Ember was safe with him. I had to believe that. And that he would get her far away.

The men were in white zip-up jumpsuits, like I was hazardous waste. They were the kind of professionals who knew exactly how to kill a man because they read it in a textbook and performed it on cadavers before ever implementing the torture on a living person.

There was a knock on the door.

I watched as the tallest of the four pulled off his safety glasses. “What’s this?”

He met the gaze of all the others in the room. Everyone shrugged.

The tall one hit the intercom on the wall, but there was no response.

The soft knock sounded again. The shorter man walked over and looked through the peephole. “It’s a chick.”

I kept my eyes on the tallest one. He had the contraption it took to get my arms out of the elaborate rubber chains that were hanging me from the ceiling. Just the tips of my toes were touching the cement floor.

The shorter one swung open the latch and pushed open the lock.

The door swung out, and the girl was admitted. I tried to get my eyes to focus on her. I fully expected it to be Albany, Animal’s nemesis.

The black heels were ankle cracking-ly tall. The legs were nice. The black dress was painted on. Her face was classically stunning, the makeup obviously professionally applied. Her hair was swept up off the back of her neck. I looked at the face for a few beats before I placed her. I made sure not to show my surprise.

T.

T looked like a mix of a model and royalty. She had a thick silver band as a necklace and a matching one on her wrist.

“I’m sorry? I think I came into the wrong room? I was with Mr. Feybi and just wanted to pop into the powder room.”

She put one hand out, fingers in the air like she was offended by the obvious stench and sweat in the small room.

“You went the wrong way, gorgeous. Or maybe the right way. Feybi treating you right?”

My captors were smart, but they were still thugs and assholes.

T put her other hand on her chest, emphasizing her cleavage with her deep breaths.

I was slapped across the face and admonished. “Don’t look at the lady, you freak.”

“Is everything okay? Is he all right?” T playing dumb.

“He’s one of the bad guys. He’s done evil things. To children. And pregnant women. The worst of the worst. Deserves everything he’s gotten and more.”

“I feel so safe knowing you guys are here taking care of this kind of thing. Thank you.”

I glanced up. I wasn’t sure what the hell she was planning on. She wasn’t armed, and I didn’t see Animal.

I trusted her. I didn’t doubt she was completely on my side. She needed me to be at the top of my game, and I was as close to dead as I’d ever been. I didn’t even know if I could use my arms.

I swallowed the gag of sadness that hit me. Thinking of Becca, that we’d had so little time together. Thinking of Animal. He would take the loss deeply. Of me. Ember as well. What T was doing, I wasn’t sure.

Water was trickling onto the floor. I closed one eye and tried to focus with my right one. The hose that supplied the water mask had a hole torn into it.

As I noticed the leak, so did the other men in the room.

“I’m sorry. That’s my heel. I’m so klutzy.” I think it was then that things were going to go down, and fast.

Despite the threat of another slap, I lifted my head and opened both eyes.

The men in the room felt the shift. She was not as she appeared.

The alarm started in the men in the room, but T knew it. She snatched the necklace off her neck and twisted it until it formed a blade.

Her high heels were also weapons.

This was a girl who knew how to kill people. I was in pain, half-dying, but I knew she’d win this battle. At least, the first wave of these four men.

She sank her heel into one man’s abdomen, and the blood instantly expanded on his white jumpsuit.

Her necklace/blade took another man down, right across his throat. His blood spurt was more spectacular.

The man who grabbed her up from behind just helped her attack the tallest with a slash of her heels again. The last man’s body language became more frantic. He grasped at T’s throat. I tried to kick my leg out, but it was useless, just a meaningless effort. I had no way to get any leverage.

T was an obstetrician of death. She was incredibly capable at delivering it.

The last man didn’t stand a chance. She hit him with the blade she hadn’t dropped right into the center of his chest.

The electrodes that had been used to shock the fuck out of me lay on the nearby counter. They were attached to a powerful voltage.

Both T and I heard the pounding of Breston and/or Feybi soldiers coming our way. The door was closed and a pool of water was at our feet.

T finally addressed me, “Can you lift your feet?”

I wasn’t entirely sure.

She wasn’t really asking, though. T ran to me and leaped up, grabbing the rubber chains above my wrists. I crunched my abs and lifted my feet out of the water.

Together we hang as she used one hand to toss her knife in the direction of the wire on the electrodes. As the door opened, the water spilled into the hallway. In the same instant, the wire touched the water.

We could feel the electricity zap through the water and hear the instantaneous screams of the men with their feet in the electrified water.

My legs started to fall despite my best efforts. I had been through too much.

We were chest to chest, and she used her legs to hook under my knees. She was sheer strength, keeping me from touching the water.

The fuse in the room popped and the lights went out.

T let my legs drop. It was wet, but we weren’t dead.

“You got to get out of here. I can’t move.”

I heard her splashing around in the dark, the hallway light giving just a hint at what the torture room contained.

She ignored me.

In a second I had a flashlight in my face, then it was aimed above me. T had the small light in her teeth while she worked out the release system.

I heard more voices. “T, go.”

My voice was gruff and grumbly.

She got both locks undone, but let my hands stay up as she kicked a body out of the way to wheel over a table.

After she positioned it behind me, she totally ignored my directions. Male voices were shouting and orders were being issued.

At least the water’s electricity had subsided. If the power came back on, maybe T could live through that.

By the time she was done with me, she had me on the wheeled table and dragged it behind her. She kicked bodies out of the way, only pausing to grab guns. She put a machine gun on my stomach. I tried to flop my stretched arms in the right direction.

She tossed another gun from a dead man across her chest. She swung the table around her so she was pushing it.

I forced one hand to hold the trigger. “Lean left.”

I sure as shit didn’t want to shoot her dead by mistake.

T shifted her shoulders and I started shooting up the hallway behind us.

She kept running me down the hall and seemed to know the layout.

The place was a fortress, though. This was an exercise in futility.

She skidded us to a stop and made a quick right. The door wasn’t locked, and behind it lay a line of about ten four-wheelers. Breston probably used them for grounds maintenance or security.

T acted like she and I had practiced this whole thing ten times before. Her movements contained so much precision.

Instead of going straight out the door we had come in once she had the four-wheeler, she threw it in reverse.

“We’re not going to make it.” I was trying to get her to understand. Instead, she pulled my head to her chest and covered me as we flew backwards through the glass window.

“Shit!” We bounced clear of the building and halfway down the sprawling hill.

She pulled it to a stop despite the fact that we were starting to take fire.

“Listen to me.”

T grabbed my jaw. “I have to light a few fuses. I have a different way out, okay? You’re going to go on this, and when you stop, you’ll be near a boat. Take it through to the river. There’s a cell phone taped under the steering wheel. Call Becca and tell her to track the phone.”

She stopped her instructions to fire off some return volleys. “You hear me? I know you’re messed up, but do this for her. And for him.”

“Light the fuse. We’ll go together.”

She shook her head and threw the four-wheeler into reverse. “Tell him I only love once.” T jammed something down on the gas pedal and I was off.

The vehicle started the descent backwards. When it flew through the fence unhindered, I realized that the hole had been prepped for this very thing.

I grabbed the steering wheel and tried to keep it even, straight.

Sure enough, the four-wheeler drove into the river as far as it could go.

I heard bombs going off back at the Breston building, one after another.

The man in me wanted to go back and help T. The realist in me knew I was too injured to help. My eyesight was blurry, and I was the most tired I’d ever been in my life.

I had to believe that the woman who had the foresight to get me out of a cement room surrounded by an army had a solid plan and that she would get out. I had to listen to her. I had to force myself to float toward the boat, right where she said it would be.

I used my last bit of energy to fall into the boat close to the motor.

I pressed start, and thank God, it cranked easily. It was a fast boat, but I wasn’t fit for driving. All I could think to do was reach for the phone. For Becca. The steering wheel was tied in place, and I was moving.

I flipped open the burner phone and Becca was the only contact. I hit her number.

“Nix? Nix?”

She was in a panic.

“It’s me, love.”

“Nix!” My name was a sob. I heard an alert tone on the phone, like Becca was getting a notification.

“Okay. Okay. I just got an email from T. It says to tell you to motor straight across the river. I can be at the dock. I have the directions. And it says that Animal is in the weapons cellar. Are you okay?”

I really loved the idea of seeing Becca again, but the phone and then my consciousness fell out of my grasp. There was only blackness.