“Eric, Gus, get up, we have to get out of here.”
Eric surged to his feet, not letting go of his brother’s collar.
“Why are you trying to get me out?” Gus demanded as Eric dragged him out of the cell. “Leave me here to blow up.”
“Nope. I’m going to beat you to death myself,” Eric snarled.
“Eric, not helping. Hurry.” Nikolett led the way up the stairs.
Gus sucker punched Eric in the gut, pulling out of Eric’s hold as he wheezed. Gus retreated several steps.
“No, you don’t, asshole.” Eric lunged for him, but Nikolett, several steps above him, grabbed him, holding tight.
“Eric, please. Please.”
It was time to go. Time to run as fast as they could. He was counting on Regina having followed his commands. The instant he realized Nikolett was missing, he’d told them to evacuate Triskelion. He hadn’t had a definitive reason why, but that ever-trusty scope sense and decades of being in dangerous situations and improbably surviving told him they needed to get out of the castle.
If they listened, all his people were safe.
Except Nikolett. The person who mattered most of all. She was here with him, the bulk of the castle above them, waiting to become their tomb.
And yet he hesitated. He hesitated because Gus wasn’t coming with them. Gus, his brother. A brother he hadn’t known existed, whose story he only barely knew, wasn’t going to leave.
When the bomb went off, Triskelion would become a tomb with only one occupant.
“I can try to disarm it. Buy you time,” Gus said. “The bomb it’s…big. You need to get back. As far as you can.”
“You can disarm it?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you need help?”
Gus hesitated, just enough that Eric knew the answer wasyes, even as he said, “No.”
Eric leapt down the steps. “Nikolett, make sure everyone’s out.”
He didn’t think she’d obey, was prepared to fight her, but her footsteps raced up the stairs.
He looked back in time to see her disappear down the hallway.
I love you. I’m sorry. I have to try to save him.
He hoped she’d understand.
Gus disappeared under the stairs.
Eric raced after him, turning sideways and cursing as he tried to squeeze himself through the narrow opening of the half-crumbled arch. He’d assumed whatever was on the other side had long ago caved in, or was full of long-forgotten items and impassable.
It was almost, but not totally impassable, for the first two meters. Then it opened up into a dank, dusty, but otherwise clear, corridor.
Gus was in a small alcove off the left side. Eric skidded to a stop when he saw what was waiting there.
A bomb the size of a large suitcase.
This was no sleek, military thing, but homemade. A mess of pipes and wires.
The clock on the side read 2:24.
