“Comeoncomeoncomeon!” Fiona hopped in place while we waited for an elevator to swoop down and rescue us from the invasion that was about to happen. Boots thudded outside—no doubt soldiers fast-roping it down from the low-flying hovercrafts.
I glanced at the emergency stairwell to the left of the bank of elevators. Two hundred and fifty-two flights of stairs weren’t an option. No way. No thanks.
Shade took hold of my hand and turned it palm up. The skin was red. There were two blisters. All in all, it looked better than I thought it would, but I already knew that superficial wounds healed quickly thanks to my A1 blood.
Footsteps scuffed and churned behind us. I looked over my shoulder, and fear spiked inside me as a team of goons spread out, blocking our exit.
“Stop! Stay where you are!” someone shouted.
Jax’s lift opened. We swept inside and flattened ourselves against the walls. The second we moved, the Dark Watch opened fire. Bullets slammed into the mirror behind us. Glass shattered, crumpling our images. Shards flooded the floor like water. I shot out a hand and pressed the button for our docking level. Sparks flew off metal, and I curled into the corner. Shade covered me with his body.
Shooting and shouting, soldiers sprinted toward us as the doors began closing. Tension locked me in place. Would the panels latch before they reached us?
A dozen goons bore down like a black cloud of destruction. My heart clenched so hard it nearly folded inward. A woman at the front lunged, her hostile gaze clashing with mine for an awful split second before the doors met in the middle. She thumped hard against them.
We started moving. Yelling snuck through the cracks in the elevator. I exhaled in a gust, my heart exploding back into beating. The voices faded, but the sudden quiet blew like an eerie wind around us, untrustworthy. Fear and gun smoke stung the back of my throat as I waited for the lift to lurch. To stop. To drag us down again.
I looked at Shade, trying to hide the volcanic terror inside me. He looked back, and I knew he saw it anyway. The hard set of his jaw turned his sweat-slicked face even grimmer. Short brown hair spiked in places, damp from exertion. Eyes that were always warm when he looked at me now blazed like bonfires. He lifted his hand to the back of my neck and kept it there, gently squeezing. I closed my eyes and leaned against him. We continued rising, thank the Powers.
“Everyone okay?” Merrick asked tentatively. I’d fear the worst, too, after hearing all that gunfire.
I opened my eyes and straightened. I hadn’t seen any injuries, but I took careful stock of my companions before answering.
“Yeah. Miraculously, no one’s bleeding.” My pulse still rioted as I watched the levels crawl by.Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.We had a hellishly long ride ahead of us, and this had to be the slowest elevator in existence.
“I’m surrounded now,” Merrick said tightly. “This tower’s mostly empty platforms. They locked on to our hot engine almost instantly. Three hovercrafts are blocking our exit.”
I cursed softly. “We’re going to have to either plow or blow our way out. Shade?”
He kicked some broken glass away from me. “I’ve got firepower on my cruiser, and I set some pressure-sensitive charges this morning that should keep the hovercrafts away from the dock. They try to land, they go boom. And if we have to, we’ll set them off.”
“You set explosives? When? Before I woke up?”
“Yeah.” He looked at me like rigging bombs at the crack of dawn was par for the course. “Just in case.”
“We could’ve stepped on them,” I said in shock.
Shade shook his head. “You’d have seen them if you went anywhere near the edge of the dock. And I didn’t activate them until we were all off the tower this morning. I told Merrick. He knew to watch out.”
I frowned. We didn’t do large-scale damage. Then again, we didn’t melt faces, either. Apparently, today was a day for firsts. “Okay.” If it meant getting off the platform, I’d blow it up myself.
“Merrick, can you somehow cover us while we run to the ship?” Battering our way off the dock requiredgettingto the battering ram first.
“I’ve got six Grayhawks loaded and on me,” Merrick answered. “But it depends on the guns they’ve got aboard those hovercrafts.”
I glanced at the digital readout showing our position on the tower.Eighty-two. Eighty-three. Eighty-four.The painfully slow progress made me want to light a rocket under the elevator.
“Can you do something super-soldiery?” I asked.
“Well, I can’t fly, and I’m not bulletproof,” Merrick grumbled. “I’m open to suggestions, though.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, squeezing my eyes shut.
“S’okay.” Something clanged over the coms, and Merrick grunted. “I’m thinking.”
“Me too.” Unfortunately, I wasn’t coming up with a safe way to cross the distance between the elevator tubes and theEndeavor.
Three floors higher, shots banged in our eardrums. My lungs squeezed tight, and I touched my necklace. “Merrick?”
