The moment she managed to jump behind a wall that blocked her from his view, she began a frantic search for some place to hide. A section of one wall had cracked and folded over, leaving a narrow space at the floor. It looked impossibly small, but she figured if she could squeeze her ass into it, that would work in her favor.
Making a scrambling dive for it as she heard a curse not far behind her, she managed to get the front half of her body in on her hands and knees, and then flattened out and slithered snake-like the rest of the way. She froze when she heard the scrape of a boot and the sound of scattering rumble nearby, holding her breath, hoping against hope that she’d crawled in far enough that her feet weren’t sticking out the end.
Her heart was pounding so frantically in her ears that many moments passed before she realized the sounds were moving away from her. When she’d caught her breath, she began to back slowly out of the narrow, tunnel like space.
She eased up onto her hands and knees and looked around cautiously when she’d backed completely out. When she saw no sign of the guard, she got to her feet and looked round. There was no sign of anyone in any direction and she wondered if she was even in the building that had housed the secret base.
There were broken walls, shattered windows, and bits and pieces of furniture everywhere, but no sign that anyone had been in this particular area. Climbing out of the hole that had been created by falling debris, she glanced around again. Far into the distance, she could see the troops spread out now in a line.
They’d swept the area for the enemy first, she realized, and were moving back slowly now in search of survivors.
There was one soldier between the line of soldiers and the building where she stood, jogging quickly away from her.
No doubt to report that she’d escaped him.
Dismissing them, she began to pick her way carefully through the rubble, pausing to listen for any faint sound that might indicate anyone was buried beneath the broken bits of mortar and stone. “Nigel? It’s me, Lena!” she called softly.
She kept calling as she looked, softly at first and then, as she grew more focused on finding Nigel and less on being caught by Dax, louder.
She saw no one, no one at all. Instead of feeling comforted by that, she grew more distressed, moving more quickly, shoving pieces of wallboard out of her way, flipping others over. She’d covered most of what seemed to have been the main part of the building and began to climb carefully down into what looked like it might have been a bunker, or possibly only a basement when she heard something. She stopped abruptly.
“Nigel?” she called, her voice quavering on a note of fear as it occurred to her belatedly that it might not be Nigel at all.
“Lena!”
It was little more than a harsh whisper, but Lena whirled toward the sound.
“Nigel?” she called again, feeling her heart began to hammer with hopefulness as she looked around.
He emerged from a pile of rubble, so dusty with the powdered mortar that she didn’t recognize him at once. He was holding a pistol, however, and it was leveled on her. “Say something so that I know it’s really you!”
“Oh, Nigel,” she said in dismay. “Don’t tell me you don’t know me!”
“What color were mother’s eyes?”
She was on the point of telling him she’d finally remembered when she realized that she had always told him she couldn’t remember their mother. “I was just a baby when she died. You know I don’t remember her!”
He grinned, but even as she started toward him, the smile froze on his face. He swallowed. “Get out of the way, Lena!”
Realizing his gaze was focused beyond her, Lena turned.
Dax had frozen halfway down the pile of rubble she’d just climbed through.
“Dax! I found Nigel!”
“That’s not Dax,” Nigel said harshly. “It’s a fucking clone.”
Lena’s head whipped around, her eyes widening. “It’s not. I came here with him!”
His lips tightened. “Then who’s that?”
When Lena turned to look again, she saw that another Dax was standing at the edge of the pit, looking down. “Oh my god!” she whispered, covering her mouth with her hands.
“Come to me, Lena. You’re in the line of fire,” Nigel ground out.
Reluctantly, she took a step toward him, wondering how she was going to prevent him from shooting Dax if she moved out of the way.
“Don’t!”
