“I don’t…” Her eyes roll backwards. “I don’t know. I’m so tired.”
“Fuck. Hold on.” I forfeit my weapon and scoop her off her feet, tucking her against my pounding heart. Both halls are quiet. Both are unknown. One comes with a slight incline, the other goes down. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”Left is down. Right is up. “Help me, Nov. Help me choose.”
“Left!” Tank’s heavy footsteps thunder against the concrete floor, his massive arms pumping as he sprints toward us. “Down,” he roars, dodging pinging bullets from soldiers racing in his wake. He’s got a fucking audience, and we’re about to swallow lead. “Go!” He rushes past us, blood on his shirt and a spray of red spreading along his neck and up to coat half his face. “Castro! Let’s go!”
I take off like a shot, dropping my head and tucking Nova close as her eyes fall shut. “You lay ground cover.” I match his pace, but twenty feet behind. “I’m unarmed for as long as she’s unconscious.”
“These are tunnels.” He slows just long enough to grab the sleeve of my shirt, then he takes off again, pulling me along faster as bullets chip the wall mere feet from my face. If I stumble, we’re dead. “Aster winds these fuckers to make it impossible for his captives to escape. It’s a method of torture he enjoys.”
My leg sizzles with every pounding step I take, blood making my jeans stick to my skin. “Please tell me you know the way.”
“Better hope I don’t miss a turn.” He jerks me left again, through a doorway I would’ve missed if not for his guidance. Then he draws us deeper underground.
My intuition demands we goup. Find the sunlight. Find freedom. But I have no fucking clue how to get there, and whenhe drags me to a stop and presses a finger to his lips, I clamp my mouth shut.
“Keep her quiet,” he whispers, releasing my shirt and tiptoeing toward a doorway cleverly hidden within the shadows. His chest lifts and falls, his breath racing, but he approaches in complete silence, and after taking a beat to listen for voices on the other side, he points two fingers my way, then he gestures for me to follow.
He steps through the doorway and, turning back, waits for me to pass. When Nova babbles, groaning in pain, he claps a hand over her mouth and grits his teeth.
“Shit,” I breathe in silence, releasing her legs and replacing his hand with my own.
Satisfied, Tank circles around and closes the door at our backs.
“Are you in there, Nov?” I swallow the dry ache in my throat and peel her eyelid open to reveal a fat, dilated pupil. “We’re nearly there, baby. Hold on a minute longer.”
“This is Aster’s bunker.” Tank stalks across the thirty-square-foot room and tears a storage door open. But instead of reaching in, he frowns and moves to the next. “He usually keeps an entire arsenal down here.” Closing that door, he moves to the next. “If the world is burning and the house is under siege, this room stays stocked with enough food and firepower to last him months. He’salwaysready for invasion.” He slams the next door and tries another. “The fuck is going on?”
“Tell me there’s another exit.” I carefully lower Nova to the floor, setting her back against the wall so she has somewhere to lean, then I dash across the room and open doors. Drawers. I lookup, like I did in Nova’s room, and hope for a fuckingmanhole. “Every building needs at least two escape routes. Every bunker. Every treehouse built by an eleven-year-old comes with two exits. There isnoway in hell Aster’s last stand has only one.”
“There’s another door.” Tank strides around a sharp corner masked by the storage units, hidden to anyone without an express invitation to be here. He wraps his palm around the handle, but before opening it, he swallows and looks me up and down. “This door takes us through a tunnel that leads us off his property. Clear of the snipers, the fence, and his entire security system. But if I were Aster, I’d have sent men this way already.”
“So, we’re walking headfirst into his army?” I set my hands on my hips and drop my head. Just long enough to catch my breath. Long enough to consider another plan. “The guards will already know we’re running. That means this exit is already dead.”
“Maybe.” He pulls his lip between his teeth and hesitates. Panting. Battle-weary. “It’s what I would do. Why chase your enemy when you could just wait for them to come to you? There could be a hundred guns waiting for us on the other side.”
“Are they gonna shoot us, or bring us in for questioning?”Fuck. I don’t even know which outcome I prefer.“Because I reckon we’ve kinda blown our cover and screwed this up.”
“He wants the code. He’s desperate for it.” He taps the handle. Gently, rhythmically shaking it. Then, exhaling a heavy breath, he brings fiery eyes back to mine. “If he had that room bugged, then he knows about Arabella.”
“Do you think he did?” My stomach turns hollow, aching at the thought of Aster and his men hearing the words I spoke toNova. Those of love and loss. Devastation. Desperation. I spoke of Scarlett, too. If Nova and I die today, then that’s the end of that. At least we go together. But Scarlett’s still out there, waiting for my text to let her know all is well. “Do you think he was listening?—”
“I really fuckin’ hope not.” He taps the handle one last time, bouncing on his toes like a fighter readying to step into the ring. Then he grabs his gun and prepares. “Get ready. We get out, or we die protecting the women we love.”
I take my gun from the back of my jeans and chamber a slug. “Alright.” I roll my shoulders and drop my chin in a nod. “And sorry about blowing our cover back there. That was my bad.”
“Wasn’t the first time you’ve wanted to shoot me. Won’t be the last.” He draws a deep breath and expels it instantly. Inhales. Exhales. With a quick nod of his own, he yanks the door open with a flourish so violent it slams against the other side, then, wrapping his finger around the trigger, he charges forward.
Then stops… frowns…
In the silence, he shuffles ahead another step. Two. His shoulders grow with adrenaline, and a thick line of blood seeps through his shirt. He peeks through the door, then back again in confusion. “It’s clear. But I don’t like it.” His voice drips with suspicion. “Grab her and let’s go.”
At a pained gasp behind me, I spin and lock eyes with Richard fucking Aster, his arm circling Nova’s belly, his chest shielded by her weak, slumping body, and his left hand outstretched, a gun pointed straight between my eyes.
“Arabella’s alive?” His stare is wide. Frantic. Clinically manic. “My baby?—”
“Wants nothing to do with you.” Tank slips back through the door and trains his gun between Aster’s brows.
Don’t shoot. Don’t fucking shoot! Not while Nova stands between them.
