The smile grew wider. “Neither. I amMindy.” She strode her way over and lifted the chair upright. The heel of her right boot retracted, and she pulled the knife out from the boot and cut the rope away from his legs. She helped break through the cuffs and kicked the chair to the side, while Aiden collapsed to the ground. “Move your shoulders and your legs to get your blood circulating again. Then we have to get moving. We don’t have much time.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him up.
“Is someone else in trouble?” Relief washed over Aiden’s body. He rubbed his shoulders and paced the floor.
“Your prince charming.”
“Prince?” He blinked. “Brendan? What does he have to do with anything?”
“Unfortunately, he has been looking for you. All over the place. Asking around on campus and posting about it on social media with your picture. Not to mention he has also reported you missing to the police.”
“What?” He was never so thankful for the soundproof room. “What picture?”
Mindy pulled out a folded missing person poster from her purse and handed it to him.
Aiden snatched it. His jaw dropped.
Aiden, in his shimmering hanfu, sat against the dark green grass of a clear spring night. The sky sparkled of starlight, and a moon guided its beams right onto his face while his eyes stared distantly into the sky.
“Pretty good picture, too,” Mindy said, looking at it.
“Damn it! That’s what he was calling after me for, the idiot.”
“Yell at him once we rescue him.” Mindy showed him the gun. “You do know how to use this, right?”
He nodded.
She tossed the gun over to him before pulling her curled hair up into a ponytail. “There’s a camera only a few steps away from this room. Shoot the camera. I’ll stand at the end of the hallway to draw the guys’ attention, and you can kill them from the corner.”
“No.”
“Did you just say no?” She turned around, baffled.
“We can escape without killing them. They’re not behind this.”
She raised her eyebrow. “They imprisoned you and tortured you from the looks of your face.”
Aiden shook his head. “I’m not going to kill. I’m not going to become them.”
To his surprise, Mindy acquiesced almost immediately. “How do you suggest we do this?”
“I’ll shoot at their limbs.”
She clicked her tongue. “I suppose it won’t take much to incapacitate them.”
She opened the door, and her heeled boots echoed in the empty hallway. Aiden followed after her, and, despite the pain rocking his body, aimed and shot the camera perfectly.
The armed men barked orders at each other as Mindy stood unafraid in the hallway. The first raised his arm to shoot her, but Aiden shot the man’s hand. As the guard screamed and dropped the weapon, Mindy rushed forward to the first wounded man. She picked up the gun along the way, wrapped her legs around the man’s body, and swung him to the ground while shooting into two other men’s hands in quick succession.
The remaining three scattered in their attempt to kill her. Aiden shot at one of them, but missed. Mindy promptly knocked out the first man and sliced the hand of another with a kick of her boot. Aiden could not tell how the heels retracted and returned so quickly, but every few seconds, a dagger hung out from where her heel was. She sliced their legs and arms with kicks before landing on the ground on a heel. Aiden only fired three shots in total before she subdued them. Some groaned, some were knocked out cold, and all bled.
Aiden blinked and glanced upward.You would pick her,he thought.
She kicked all their guns away and motioned for him to follow. “Careful not to step in the blood,” she called, striding toward the exit at the end of the hall. He followed after her.
Aiden burst through the door with a gasp. The door slammed behind him, and his lungs gulped for the outside air. He gazed longingly at the grass, imagining the blades prickling against his skin, but he followed quickly after Mindy.
She walked over to one of the guard’s fancy cars, withdrew a car key from her purse, and unlocked the doors.
“How could you have—how much of this is planned?”
