The first thing Reaper saw was Caroline’s empty hospital bed. He saw the empty lines hanging around it. Was he too late? Smoke drifted around the room, falling into the open door from the explosions he’d set down the hall. Dust lifted in the air. His visibility was hazy at best.

His heart plummeted into his stomach and straight to the floor at the thought. If Ranier had already moved her, he knew without a doubt that he’d never see her again. The ramifications for his team were horrendous, but the ramifications for him were worse.

She’d managed to somehow pull him out of the black hole he buried himself in so deeply and forced him to see the light around him. She’d given all of herself to him—and he’d knocked down her every attempt at the end, he’d done his best to annihilate her feelings for him. Surely, she’d be safer away—

How wrong he’d been.

His throat was closing from more than the dust in the air, and Reaper croaked out her name, “Caroline?”

There was a cough and then her voice, like the sweetest music, filled his ears, “Reaper?”

Reaper impatiently fanned the dust and smoke away. Caroline had pushed herself up from the floor into a half-sitting position, her face and bare arms covered in a coat of grime. He went to his knee instantly. “Caroline, come with me. Hurry.”

He hadn’t expected her to follow his lead, but the slash of horror that twisted up her features and sent her jerking away from him made his gut recoil.

Fuck. They didn’t have time for this; the soldiers he’d managed to maim and kill on the way in would be replaced by more within seconds. He had a few more grenades and well-placed bombs ready to go off to cover their tracks, but they had to hurry. “Look, I don’t have time to explain, but you’ve got to come—now.”

She scrambled away on her hands and feet. “So, you can just torture me like them? Use me as your donor the same way you used my body?”

Every word she said was a knife to his chest. And now that he’d opened himself up to the possibility of hope, it was like his entire soul had been flayed open and lay at her feet. The numbness he’d cloaked himself in so long was absent.

Is this how he’d made her feel with his hateful, lying words? Like his very insides were being boiled in acid?

He couldn’t help but reach for her, knowing she’d pull away and the pain that would cause him. “I was wrong. Completely wrong. I realized my mistake as soon as I left. God dammit, you’ve got to believe me.”

Her chin lifted, stubborn as ever, there was no hiding the traces of the trail in her baby blue gaze as she stared at him with loathing. “I’d be a fool to believe a single word out of your mouth. And I’m no longer innocent enough to fall for your lies. Get out.”

Sweat was trickling down his brow and he glanced at the timer he’d set on his watch. In three seconds, another explosion would go off. Without explanation, he threw himself over her body just as a huge wave of shockwaves rocked the room, sending more dust and dirt and smoke raining down.

When it was safe, he lifted his hands and trapped her delicate face between his palms, forcing her to look at him. “If you believe nothing else, believe this. I’ve set a series of timed explosions and every 30 seconds, they’re going to go off, each one closer to us than the next. If you stay here, you’ll die.”

She wrenched from him, staggering to her feet, and she stared down at him with nothing but pure scathing disgust. “At least it would be a quick death. I’d rather be taken out by a bomb than slowly drained. Besides, I have no one to go home to. I don’t care anymore.”

Every dark memory crawled out from behind the walls he’d built and seeped into his pores, the weight of despair more staggering than a pile of concrete on his back. He’d done this to her. He’d managed to destroy that nurturing innocence that had drawn him to her like a moth to an inferno.

She’d rather die than go with him. Could he blame her?

Crushing the fragile hope sprouting inside his should, he’d used every weapon in his vast arsenal to ensure she hated him enough to never come back.

“I don’t care. I don’t care whether you’d rather die than come with me; I’m not willing to let you make that sacrifice. If I have to knock you out and throw you over my shoulder, I’m taking you from this place. As soon as we get to safety, I’ll set you free and you never have to see me again, but you are not dying today.”

Caroline threw up a hand as if to ward him off and Reaper took a menacing step forward. Another voice, female, pierced his awareness. “Caroline, I sent for him. He’s here to save you. We have to go with him.”

Reaper froze, his muscles point tight, ready for an attack as a dark-haired woman wearing a lab coat stepped through the haze surrounding them. His chest went on lockdown as her face came into view. “I recognize you.”

In the same stubborn way as Caroline, the brunette lifted her chin. “I was Dr. Winters’ assistant.”

Reaper’s entire core shifted and he took a deadly step in her direction. “Then you deserve to die the same way she did.”

Caroline cried out and flew in his direction, yanking his arm back as he reached for his weapon. “No! You can’t hurt her. She’s the only one that’s helped me in this hellhole.”

In a daze of rage, Reaper shrugged her off and withdrew his pistol, taking aim at the woman’s forehead with a steady hand. “If she worked for Winters, and she’s responsible for the torture of my team, she deserves to die.”

“In the beginning, before I realized the true evil nature of Project Mayhem, you’re right. I willingly participated. But I swear on the Hippocratic oath that when I discovered what Winters was really up to, I started subverting everything I could. I was the one that saved Quantum when Winters wanted to let him die so she could dissect him.”

A whiplash of fury so potent it choked off his air slammed into him. He gritted his teeth together, uncaring if the force of his bite cracked his jaw. “And what about John Dawson? You didn’t save him.” The last that Reaper had seen of his teammates had been Dawson being wheeled out in a black body bag and him helpless to do anything but stare.

“I—it was too late for him. The massive seizure he suffered caused an aneurysm in the subcortical portion of his brain. He was dead before I got to his side.”

“Reaper, please! I trust her! She’s the only one that’s protected me from Ranier.”

Reaper searched Caroline’s gaze for any hint of the open and caring way that she had just stared at him only hours ago, but there was nothing but desperate determination directed toward him.

“Yes, I protected her. I’m the one that triggered your tracker so you’d come back for her. I’ve planted incendiary devices on every computer and server in the lab. I alone hold the data. I can help you,” the brunette said.

“And how is that? How can you help me?”

“I haven’t figured out how to fix it yet, but I’ve identified the hole in the genome sequence which causes your dependency on the serum and the breakdown you and your men suffer. I think I can fix it.”

Fix it? Was there really a chance? Could he save his men?

Or was she simply lying to him to hold him there longer, giving Ranier and his troops time to swarm. Reaper pressed the tip of his Beretta against her flesh. “You’re lying.”

Caroline yanked on his arm, trying to pull him away from the brunette, but Reaper didn’t give an inch. “Do you really think I would believe anything you or anyone in this entire place said?”

“I don’t expect you to believe me right now, just take me with you so I can show you.”

“There’s no way in hell you’re coming with us.”

“If you take her, I’ll come too,” Caroline said quietly.

It was all Reaper could do to draw in a breath of air, let alone restrain himself from pulling the trigger.

“You don’t understand what they did to my team,” Reaper ground out, unwilling to cave.

Caroline ducked beneath his outstretched arm and placed herself between him and the brunette. “Take her with us, or you might as well put that gun to my head and pull the trigger.”

Reaper’s resolve shattered and he stumbled back a step. How could she ask him to save someone responsible for such evil? Was this the ultimate sacrifice required of him for redemption in her eyes? Would she ever speak to him if he didn’t do what she asked?

He couldn’t take the chance.

“Fine, I’ll get her out of the lab. But if I so much as sense a hint of betrayal, I’ll slit your throat.” Reaper directed his last comments to the brunette, who gulped but nodded.

Boom!

The entire room shook. Reaper threw himself over Caroline, shielding her from the falling debris.

“Dammit, we’ve got to go now or none of us will make it out of here alive.” Reaper hauled Caroline to her feet, made a blind grab for the brunette who was on her hands and knees coughing a few feet away, and propelled them all from the room. The smoke was so thick now; he couldn’t even see a foot in front of him.

But he didn’t need to see to detect the enemy. He could feel them moving through the hallways, scurrying toward them like rabid rats after a feast.

“Hold hands and be quiet,” Reaper whispered harshly and dragged the two women along behind him, his fingers firmly entwined with Caroline’s.

Debris littered the floor and crunched under his boots, the blast had knocked out the lights leaving on only the red emergency lights in the corners. It didn’t matter. He knew his way out of here by heart. He could take another bullet too, but not Caroline.

Moans filled the hallways and drifted from distant parts of the labs. Reaper cut right, propelling them down another dark corridor, this one partially free of the haze from the explosions. He checked his watch. Fifteen more seconds before the next bomb went off.

Suddenly, another boom sounded, this one completely out of sync with his and much closer than Reaper would’ve liked. He pinned the women against the wall and threw his arms over their heads, ready for the roof to fall in. The structure could be suffering from the series of attacks, and with nearly three levels of earth directly overhead pressing down on the ceiling; even the steel beams would give way to that kind of pressure after the blunt force trauma he’d purposely inflicted within the laboratory. He’d set the bombs at critical load points with that exact purpose in mind, but the timing was off. “What the hell?”

The brunette lifted a shaky hand, holding up a small black detonator. “I don’t want them scrubbing the hard drives. Ranier can’t get his hands on the data. He can’t replicate this on anyone else.”

“The computers,” Reaper breathed out.

“Are destroyed,” she finished.

There was a loud boom and the floor beneath their feet quaked. The entire place was going to cave in. “Go!” He grabbed the girls and dragged them behind him, gunning down the hall so fast he barely registered his feet touching the ground. Reaper glanced at his watch. One second. Boom!

Huge chunks of concrete slammed into the ground right behind them.

He caught sight of the exit closing in twenty feet ahead. “Almost there!”

Using every ounce of strength he had, he pulled them along behind him. Ten feet. Five feet.

Boom! Boom!

Reaper glanced over his shoulder. The entire section of roof where they’d been only seconds ago had crashed to rubble on the floor, blocking off the path behind them.

Reaper yanked open the steel gray door and shoved the girls in front of him, up the blindingly dark stairway. Debris crumbled and plinked in small showers at their feet.

“I can’t see anything,” the brunette cried out.

It was Caroline who answered, “Here, let me in front of you, I’ll lead.”

Reaper easily saw Caroline step around and in front of the brunette and then grab the girl’s hand. If he had any doubt that Caroline was enhanced like him, this proved she possessed skills.

Another massive explosion went off and the entire hallway shook. The brunette hit her knees and Reaper instantly picked her up, urging them all onward.

Light spilled through the open doorway two stories up. Almost there. He almost had them out.

A loud crack screeched overhead. The doorway began to crumble. “Go!”

Reaper ripped off his belt, slung it over Caroline’s shoulder, shoved the brunette to the side, and then grabbed Caroline around the waist. “I love you.”

He focused his entire being and threw Caroline through the doorway. The roof in front of them collapsed, trapping him and the brunette in a tiny, dark section of stairway, completely blocked from the rest of the world.