Ten Thousand Skies Above You

Then it’s as if there’s nothing else in the room. The gun makes everything else invisible, silent, irrelevant. The dull sheen of black metal stands out even in the darkened room. Then my vision focuses even tighter, on Leonid’s hand as he squeezes the trigger.

When the sound of the gunshot explodes in the room, I scream—in fear, and in pain, because it’s so loud my eardrums sting and I think they might have ruptured. Then I’m too scared to scream anymore. Through the ringing of my ears I hear a heavy, wet thud on the floor just behind me.

Leonid has one less henchman.

Every other guy in the room remains completely quiet, like if he shows Leonid enough respect, he won’t be next. Paul is the only one who challenges his father. “What did you do that for?”

“I don’t need idiots.” Leonid slips his gun back under his jacket as casually as I’d put my phone back in my purse. “This wasn’t his first mistake.” His gray eyes—so like Paul’s, yet so much colder—focus on someone else in the corner of the room, probably the other man who kidnapped me. “You—it was your first mistake. So you get another chance. One more. Understand me?”

Even as Paul clenches his jaw, flushed with unspoken anger, he looks toward me. His gaze is a message I think I would understand even if I didn’t know him so well: Don’t react, don’t move, and this won’t happen to you. I won’t let it.

“Clean it up,” Leonid says to his goons as he puts one hand on Paul’s shoulder, the gesture of the warm, loving dad he so obviously isn’t. “Come, Paul. We should talk about what happens next.”

Don’t leave, I think.

But he has to bargain with his father, probably for my life. I force myself to remain calm as father and son walk away, and the heavy metal door behind me swings shut again.

Men grumble in colloquial Russian I can’t quite catch as they remove their dead or dying comrade. I only glean a few words—trash, hurry, silent. Why didn’t I study harder after I got back from my first trip? I’d gotten so good at Russian then, and I wish I spoke it fluently now. At my feet, I see a trickle of blood oozing toward the metal grid in the center of the room. With a rush of horror, I realize this is what the drain is for.

Finally I have to let the fear take me. A strange immobility sinks over me, and I know my expression has gone totally blank. This must be the way rabbits or deer feel when they see headlights coming on the highway. This is why they stand perfectly still as death rushes toward them.

All I can do is sit in this chair, feeling duct tape tight against my ribs, stealing my breath. My body shakes—trying to burn off the adrenaline shot into my blood so I could fight or flee. I can do neither.

I zone out. Time blurs. I am bound to this chair forever and for only a second before the metal door clangs again. My stomach clenches as I brace myself for Leonid—but when I see Paul, I can breathe again. Our eyes meet, but again, he doesn’t speak to me. “We need to set up a more convenient place for her to stay. She’ll be with us for a few days.”

Days? I bite the inside of my cheek. But captive for days is still better than dead.

“Why the hell are we keeping her?” one guy asks. They’re still working; I can hear the crinkle of trash bags being wrapped around a body. “The sooner we get done with her, the better.”

“Miss Caine turns out to be valuable,” Paul says.

Surely he doesn’t know anything about the Firebirds. They haven’t tried to take them, anyway; both of the Firebird devices are still nestled against my chest, metal edges almost cutting into my skin from the pressure of the tape. Nobody from this dimension should notice them easily.

Paul answers the question I didn’t ask aloud. “Her sister’s engaged to a billionaire. Wyatt Conley, the founder of ConTech. Ten minutes ago, at a press conference, he offered a million dollars for information leading to her safe return.”

I could scream in frustration. If Wyatt hadn’t done that, they probably would have let me go within the hour! Even now, in a world where he’s actually trying to help me, he’s still screwing me over. Figures.

Yet I take comfort in one fact: The price of my life is one million dollars. Wyatt’s reward might keep me imprisoned, but it might also keep me alive.

16

APPARENTLY THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME THESE GUYS HAVE kept a prisoner. Leonid’s men prepare for my captivity swiftly and efficiently.

The bag goes back over my head before the duct tape is cut. They get rid of the zip tie around my ankles—blood rushes into my cold, tingling feet—but the one around my wrists remains. The large hand that closes around my arm doesn’t belong to Paul; I know from the way the fingers dig cruelly into my flesh, even through my thick wool sweater. Many footsteps follow and surround me, a dull ominous cloud of sound. The loudest thing I hear is my own ragged breathing within the bag. My half-numb legs make me clumsy as I walk along some corridors, turning that way and this, until someone jerks me to a halt and growls, “Down the stairs.”

I reach forward with one leg and feel the first step—then almost lose my balance and fall. One of the men near me laughs at my uncertainty, and rage swells inside so hot my temples throb. It’s almost enough to turn me stupid, to make me start screaming at him. You think it’s so funny? I’m scared to death and I can’t see where I’m going and you’re trying to push me down a flight of stairs and if I ever get my hands free—

But I remember the guns, and say nothing.

A gentler hand cups my shoulder. “Here,” Paul murmurs. “I’ll walk you down.”

I lean on him the entire way, as I feel each step with my toes. The space where they’re putting me is so damp I already feel clammy. Cold, too. I remain aware of the warmth of Paul’s body near mine.

When I finally stand on a level floor, the door above us swings shut; several locks turn and click, sealing Paul and me within. One tug, and Paul lifts the bag away from my head. This room is smaller than the one I was originally held in, and quieter, too, farther from any sounds of the city above. More light shines from the few bulbs on the low ceiling, though, and the floor lacks a drain. Of the two rooms, I definitely prefer this one.

In one corner I see a cot with a blanket; in another, a bucket with a lid. Normally the thought of peeing in a bucket would gross me out, but I’ve been on the verge of wetting myself since the first moment I was grabbed on the street. By now the bucket looks pretty good.

Paul says, “We’ll bring you some food soon. A few bottles of water. The blanket should keep you warm, but if you need another, tell whoever comes in here.”

“You. I want it to be you.”

Different emotions flicker across his face—surprise, confusion, even some pleasure at being chosen. He says only, “Why me?”

Because I have to get close to you if I’m going to have any chance of rescuing my Paul’s soul. Fortunately I have other reasons, ones I can say out loud. “You want me alive. And you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“No one here is going to hurt you,” Paul says. “They have their orders, and they’ll follow them.”

I lift my chin. “It wouldn’t matter what the orders were. You wouldn’t hurt me, no matter what.”