Chapter Eighteen
Sawyer grabbed Elizabeth’s arm and spun her around, but when she whirled toward him, she brought up the laptop, and she slammed it against him. Hard.
“Shit! Doc, stop! I’m in control, okay? I’m not going to hurt you!”
“In control? You’re out of control! You all are! You’re killing each other—you’re attacking—”
He blocked another hit from the laptop. “They’re going to release the gas in five minutes.”
She stopped hitting him. “What?”
His jaw locked. “It’s shut down protocol. I planned for it.” He just hadn’t planned for the rest of the fucking madness. “They’ve sealed us inside. They think we can’t get out. They’re going to release the gas so that anyone here will be rendered unconscious, and then more guards will come back inside to take over. To lock up the test subjects.”
Her eyes were wide. Her face was too pale. And she was staring at him as if he were a monster. I am. I just killed one of my teammates.
But what Elizabeth didn’t know…Three had sent him a message. Right before he’d tossed the knife, Three had told him…I’m going to put a bullet between the pretty doctor’s eyes. Drive it right into her brain. She’ll be dead before she hits the floor.
Sawyer had stopped him. He’d stop anyone who came at Elizabeth.
“Maybe you need to be locked up, did you think of that?” Elizabeth shouted at him. He still held her left arm in his grasp, and Elizabeth tried to jerk away, but he wouldn’t let her go. “You guys are insane, you are—”
“We’re sharing thoughts and emotions. And someone is poison in our group. It’s bleeding through to us all. It’s been happening for a while, only I didn’t realize how deep the darkness was spreading.” Like a freaking virus.
Her lips parted. She blinked. Shook her head. “What?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. Someone is in our heads.” He thought it was Five but the guy had been unconscious when he left him. So how come Three was still intent on murder? “The team and I—we can communicate telepathically.”
Again, she shook her head.
“We’re fucking dead men walking…we can communicate telepathically.” He used his hold to make her move with him. They had to get out of that place before the gas released. Five minutes. “But it’s not just thoughts that we are sharing. It’s emotions, too. Dark and…shit, twisted desires, okay? Things are wrong. I swear, it’s like someone is pumping poison right in my brain. Trying to make me do things, terrible things.” I won’t hurt you.
“L-let me go, Sawyer.”
His head turned toward her.
“You don’t need to take me with you. Wherever you’re going, whatever is happening, you don’t need me.”
That was what she didn’t get. He let out a soft sigh. “You want to know why I’m not as fucking crazy as Five? As Three? Want to know why I got my shit back together in Landon’s office?”
Her lips were trembling. He hated her fear.
“Because of you,” he told her.
“Sawyer…”
“Something is between us. Something about you gets to me. And I can’t hurt you. I won’t hurt you. I’ll also fucking never let anyone else so much as bruise you. There’s danger here, all around us, and I don’t know who I can trust and who I can’t. I only know this—” His voice dropped. “I won’t leave you alone. I have to protect you. I can’t let you go.”
“What if…what if you’re the one I need to be protected from?”
He looked down at his ankle. “You disengaged it.” He freed her wrist and bent to touch the band. He’d heard the lock disengage when he’d been in Cecelia’s quarters. Beneath his fingers, the band pulled easily apart, and he tossed it aside. “You did that for me because you feel the connection, too.”
“I didn’t want you to explode, okay? I didn’t want—”
“I want you.” Flat. True. Dangerous. “I want you to stay alive. I want you to stay safe. I don’t remember what we were like before. Hell, I wish that I did. And I don’t have time to convince you that you’ll be safe with me. I just—we have to go. Leaving you behind isn’t an option. Protecting you—it’s the only thing I can do. It’s my mission. You are my mission.”
She stared at him with her deep, dark eyes.
“We need to haul ass, baby. And we have to do it now.”
She hesitated, but then gave a grim nod.
Fucking A. He pulled her into his arms, carrying her easily even when she gave a start of surprise. “I’m faster,” he said. And he was. So much faster than he’d let on. Faster. Stronger.
The hallway disappeared in a blur as he ran. First, he went back to the cells because he needed to find the others. Four. Six.
But a fast glance showed him they weren’t there. Their cell doors had been broken open, just like Two’s. Sawyer sent out a fast, mental call…Four? Six? Where in the hell are you?
There was no answer. Only silence. He didn’t know if that meant the guys were dead, if they were unconscious or if…if Three had been right. Maybe Four and Six weren’t the men he’d thought they were. Maybe one of them was sending the poison into his brain.
We’re running out of time. He sent out that fast mental call. The gas is coming in less than five minutes. Get to safety. He headed for the elevator, for the shaft that would lead him to his freedom. He just had to get there. Had to get up to the helipad. He kicked down any doors in his way, and the heavy metal was not a match for him. In moments, he could see the elevator waiting. Two was there, with Cecelia at his side. They were there, and…General Jamison was crumpled on the floor.
Sawyer caught the coppery scent of blood.
“We’ve got a problem,” Two snapped.
The problem was that Jamison’s throat had been cut, a long slash from ear to ear. The general’s body was still warm and blood soaked his shirt-front.
“Not my kill,” Two added darkly. “Someone beat us here.”
Subject Four? Subject Six?
But…“The access keycard is still around the general’s neck.” Sawyer put Elizabeth down and yanked up the card, ignoring the blood that covered it. He scanned it, and then he typed in the code he’d seen the general use that day.
The elevator opened. “Everyone…in.”
But Two didn’t move. “What about the others? The others on our team? We can’t leave them behind. No man gets left, remember?”
“We can’t trust them.” He barely trusted Two. “Five was attacking Cecelia. He wanted to torture her, and you saw Three for yourself.”
At the mention of Five, Two’s face went hard, brutal. “He touched Cecelia?”
“Get in the fucking elevator.”
Two grabbed Cecelia’s hand and held her tight. “He was the one who hurt you? Five? He was—”
“Stop using the damn numbers!” The cry burst from Elizabeth as she jumped into the elevator. “You all have names. You’re people, not numbers!”
Sawyer hit the button to take them up to the helipad.
“He’s Sawyer, and your name is Flynn.”
Flynn. Sawyer saw the other man blink slowly.
“Five is a man named Bryce King. I didn’t know him before I came here, he didn’t work with us back in D.C.” Her words were coming fast now. A wild tangle. “Flynn, you and Sawyer were best friends before Lazarus. You went on every single mission together. You always watched each other’s backs. You trusted each other then, and I-I don’t know what’s going on now, but the facility has gone mad. We have to think. We have to—”
The elevator dinged. The doors opened. Sawyer advanced first, making sure to keep Elizabeth behind him. The chopper waited up ahead, and no one was near it. The helipad was empty.
“That’s our way out.”
“Yeah, but I know someone beat us here.” Flynn clenched and unclenched his hands. “I can smell the blood.”
So could Sawyer, but they didn’t have time to waste. “Get in the bird.”
Flynn was already running for the chopper. Flynn. Had the guy really been Sawyer’s best friend before the nightmare began?
“I sure as hell hope you remember how to fly,” Elizabeth said.
He locked his hands around her waist and lifted her into the chopper. “I remember.” Just as he remembered how to kill. But how to love?
He’d forgotten that.
They got in the chopper. He took a position in the pilot’s seat. “Buckle up!” He yelled over the roar of the blades.
“They might try to shoot us down,” Flynn warned grimly.
They might. If they stayed, Sawyer knew he was dead.
“The others…” Flynn stared at him. “Are you sure we can’t help them?”
Elizabeth. Have to get her out. She’s priority. “Three tried to kill her. And Five—fuck, Bryce—he went after Cecelia. We can’t risk them.”
Flynn nodded grimly.
“I can’t reach Four and Six.” Yeah, they had names—he didn’t know them. But I will find out. “Can you? I try, but it’s just darkness.”
“Only darkness.” Flynn’s voice was soft. Sad. “Does that mean they’re dead?”
Sawyer didn’t know what it meant. The men should have met him at the rendezvous point. The elevator had been the rendezvous point. The gas would be spraying in that facility at any moment. If they didn’t leave, there was no going back.
Attack. Destroy…The sinister thoughts shot into his head again, surging hard at him.
“Fuck!” Flynn snarled. “Someone is in my head!”
The chopper lifted into the air. Up, up, higher and higher. The higher they rose, the softer the voice in their heads became.
Sawyer could taste freedom. It was so fucking close.
They’d get out. And the Lazarus bastards would never find them again. He and Flynn would vanish. Disappear.
But what happens to Elizabeth?
His head turned so he could see back into the rear of the chopper. She sat with her shoulders huddled, still clutching that laptop in her hands. Still so beautiful it made him ache. He was getting her to safety, but after that, was he supposed to walk away from her?
Her head lifted. Their eyes met. There were a thousand things he wanted to say to her, but the helicopter blades were whirring at full force and it was too late.
Higher, higher.
Flynn let out a whoop of joy. “Never gonna be in a cage again!”
No, no, they wouldn’t be. They’d be free.
Dead men? Hell, no. They were finally about to start living. The chopper flew away, heading into the growing darkness of the night. With every beat of the blades above him, the tension eased from Sawyer’s shoulders. His thoughts settled. The rage and darkness eased. It was okay. They were going to—
Do you think you can come back from the dead again?
The voice blasted right into his head, rough and hard, mocking with laughter. A familiar voice. A voice—
An explosion sounded from overhead. The blades stopped spinning—half of the blades flew away, and the chopper plummeted. It just fell, like a stone sinking from the sky.
Sawyer heard screams and yells. Desperate cries. And he didn’t realize some of those cries were his own. He didn’t realize— “Elizabeth!” He wrenched free of the harness and belt and jumped from the seat. Piloting was impossible. They were going down, and they only had seconds left.
He grabbed for Elizabeth. He saw Flynn reach for Cecelia.
“I love you,” Elizabeth said as her hands stretched toward Sawyer.
No, no, she hadn’t said that. It was a dream. It was the past. It was a nightmare. It was—
Wind whipped around them. The chopper was plunging straight for the ground. They were all going to die. Just when he’d started to live.
Fuck, no.
“Hold tight,” Sawyer told her. “Baby, don’t ever let go.”
She closed her eyes, and she held on. And he curled his body around hers, determined to hold her in his arms, to keep her safe, no matter what price had to be paid.
I’d die again for her. Over and over…for her.
When the helicopter slammed into the ground, he was still holding her tight.