Slow Burn Page 22

  Knox spread his hands. "Well, we have to get to them before they get to us."

  "How are we going to do that?" said Griffin.

  "I don't know yet," said Knox.

  Griffin shook his head. "Too dangerous."

  "You got a better idea?"

  Griffin didn't say anything.

  "You said they'd want to question me," I said. "They wouldn't kill me right away, right? What if I could get free somehow?"

  "Look," said Knox. "There's two targets, and there's two of us. If Leigh can get herself to safety, then all you've got to worry about is killing one person. Say you take Caldwell, and I'll take French."

  Griffin massaged the bridge of his nose. "I don't like this." He looked at me. "How the heck are you going to get free?"

  "You kept my pack, right?" said Knox. "I've got some of the schlafend capsules in there."

  Griffin sighed heavily. "Maybe. Maybe it could work."

  * * *

  "Let's go over this again," said Griffin. He sat across the room from me at the hotel room's desk.

  "Do we have to?" I said. I was sitting on the bed, wearing one of Griffin's t-shirts. It was late, and, in my opinion, it was time for us to be under the covers with the lights out.

  "Yes," said Griffin. "You keep getting things wrong."

  "I'm trying," I whined. "Maybe I'm distracted. I mean, there you are, sitting over there, all gorgeous and touchable, and I can't think about anything else. I think if you came over here and helped me get that out of my system, maybe then I'd be able to concentrate on going over plans."

  He looked me over. "Tempting, doll. Very tempting." He raised a finger. "But this is important. You have to get this right. It could cost both of us our lives."

  I got up on my knees. "Come on, Griffin, when have I ever been good with not doing fun stuff just because it could endanger my life? You remember when you first met me, and everything I did for coke? Well, I am about twenty zillion times more addicted to your body."

  He smiled, shaking his head. "No. Not until we go over this a few more times."

  I began to lift the t-shirt, slowly uncovering my thighs, then the bottom of my underwear.

  He got up and was across the room in a flash, stopping my hands. "Wait."

  I grinned. I had him close. I kissed his nose.

  He pushed me down on the bed, pinning my legs with his legs, holding my arms over my head. He shook his head. His voice had gotten raspy. "Doll, behave yourself."

  "Make me," I said.

  "What do you do when we first get inside?" he said.

  I struggled against his hands. "Run."

  "No." He lowered his face close to mine. "Try harder."

  "I'll be taken away by someone who'll want to ask me questions," I said. "You're giving me a capsule that will knock someone out. I crush it between my fingers and cover their mouth with it. They'll be out in minutes." I couldn't remember what the capsules were called. Knox had said it, but it was hard to pronounce.

  He raised his eyebrows. "Oh. Very good. You get a reward." He lowered his lips to mine and assaulted my mouth, wrenching a low moan from the back of my throat. He pulled away, even though I was still straining for him. "Uh-uh. That was your reward. You won't get anything else until you get it right again."

  I grinned. "Ooh. I like this game."

  "Proper motivation for you?"

  "Definitely."

  "So," he said. "What do you do next?"

  "Find you," I said.

  "How are you going to do that?"

  "Climb into the duct system," I said. "Get down a floor from where they're questioning me."

  "Exactly right," he said. One of his hands released my arm and snaked across my skin to cup my breast.

  I groaned. "And then we go through the ducts together to Caldwell's office."

  "Right," he said, freeing my other arm and putting his hand on my other breast.

  I writhed against his touch. He teased my nipples hard.

  "Then what?" he grunted.

  "Then you kill Caldwell," I said.

  "Right," he said, kissing me again, rough and desperate against my mouth. "And then?"

  "Um," I panted, struggling to remember.

  He thrust his hands under the shirt I wore and slid my underwear off. "Come on, doll, if you don't know this, we're both going to be disappointed."

  "We find Knox," I said, "who's been taking care of French."

  "Good," he said, and his fingers stroked my clitoris.

  I whimpered in delight. "Oh, Griffin."

  He was fumbling at his zipper with his other hand, opening his pants.

  "Then we get out, right?" I said. "They're all dead and we get out?"

  "Yes," he said. "That's right. Very good, doll." And he entered me in one smooth stroke.

  I groaned into his mouth as he kissed me.

  "Very, very good," he breathed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Knox checked our bound wrists again. We were standing along the side of the road. The car we were using was pulled over on the shoulder. The trunk was open.

  "Knox," said Griffin. "We're tied up."

  "Right," he said. His face was white. "You think they're going to suspect me?"

  "They better not,' said Griffin. "Our plan for French hinges on you being free."

  Knox took a deep breath. "They're going to believe me."

  "Of course they will. You can pull this off," said Griffin.

  Knox nodded, closing his eyes. He was quiet for a minute, and then he opened his eyes. When he did, he looked more confident, as if he'd somehow banished his nervousness. "Get in the trunk then."

  I wasn't looking forward to this part.

  "You go first," said Griffin. "I can absorb the force of the door closing on us."

  I climbed into the trunk and Griffin got in on top of me. He covered my body with his own. Knox slammed the trunk closed.

  It was dark inside. It smelled like gasoline. There wasn't a lot of room. Both my weight and Griffin's were settled on my bound hands, and that hurt quite a bit. Then the car started, and we were jostled around in the back for what felt like forever.

  Griffin asked me if I was okay a few times, and I said I was. That wasn't strictly true, but if I said I wasn't, then there wasn't anything he could do for me, was there? I gritted my teeth and did my best to bear it.

  Eventually, the car pulled to a stop.

  The trunk opened, and Knox was standing over us, a gun trained on us.

  We had to get out of the trunk on our own, which wasn't particularly easy with our hands tied behind our backs. Griffin managed to do it, but Knox had to help me out a little bit.

  I peered at our surroundings. We were in the middle of the woods. There was a clearing where several cars were parked, but other than that, nothing but trees. This was Op Wraith?

  I heard a whirring sound, and I looked up. There were cameras in the trees. I could see their red blinking lights. They swiveled back and forth. So. They were watching us already.

  Knox put his gun in my back. "Move," he said.

  I took unsteady steps forward, unsure of where I was going.

  "Stop," said Knox. I did, and he moved in front of me, picking up what appeared to be a random square of forest floor, covered in leaves. But when he moved it aside, I realized it was man made, and it had been put there to disguise a set of metal doors in the ground. Knox knelt down and entered a code on a keypad. The doors swung downwards, revealing a staircase into the ground.

  We descended down into the depths, underneath the forest. The doors closed above us, but it wasn't dark down here. The walls were poured concrete, sturdy and industrial, and they gleamed under fluorescent light fixtures.

  At the end of a narrow hallway, we were greeted by a man with a gun. He was just as muscular as Knox and Griffin. He cocked his head to the side. "Knox? We figured you for dead."

  "I'm alive, as you can see," said Knox. "I'm completing my mission. You might want to radio Ca
ldwell."

  "Who's this?" said the guard, reaching out to caress my cheek.

  I jerked my head back.

  Griffin clenched his teeth.

  "That's classified," said Knox. "Need to know."

  "She's pretty," said the guard. "Hope you got yourself a taste." Griffin surged at him, and the guard laughed as he sidestepped. "Well, if it isn't Griffin. Why isn't this asshole dead already?"

  "Classified," said Knox. "You gonna let us in or not?"

  "Oh, sure. Fine, fine," said the guard, pressing a button on the wall.

  The doors behind him swung inward. We went through them.

  As soon as we were away, Knox shoved Griffin up against the wall, face first. He spoke in a furious whisper, presumably so that any cameras or sound equipment wouldn't pick up his words. "What the fuck was that, huh? You trying to screw everything up?"

  Griffin's jaw twitched. "He said-"

  "I heard him. Control yourself." Knox let Griffin up. We all continued to walk down the next hallway, identical to the last. Bright, bland, institutional.

  At the end of the hall was an elevator. We climbed inside, and we went down.

  Finally, the elevator settled, stopped, and the door opened.

  Someone was waiting for us there. He stood in a white lab coat, his face eager. "Leigh?"

  I choked, suddenly unsteady on my feet.

  "It is you," he said. "I saw you on the cameras, and I couldn't believe it. I didn't think we'd ever find you."

  I was shaking all over. "Dad?"

  * * *

  I was in a small, white room, the lights brilliant overhead. I sat on one side of the table, my father on the other. He'd untied my hands. He was very excited.

  "You're supposed to be dead," I said.

  "I am?"

  "Griffin said that they captured you and that they'd kill you," I said.

  "Oh, when I was on the run, I did think they wanted me dead," said my father. "Burt Caldwell, the man in charge down here, he's a difficult man sometimes. He's quite committed to his ideas. And I had upset things for him. He was angry. I assumed he would have me killed." He leaned across the table, his eyes shining. "But I misjudged him. He allowed me to live, and he's willing to allow you to live as well."

  "I don't understand," I said. "If you've been alive all this time, then why have I had to keep running?"

  "Well, it took some time to negotiate the deal." He studied the table. "When they informed me that they had found you in Thomas, I suppose I was a bit easier to work with."

  I didn't know if I liked the sound of that. "Dad, did they hurt you? When you say negotiate, do you mean torture?"

  He reached across the table to pat my hand. "Of course not, sweetheart. I'm fine. I'm taking care of you. I wouldn't let anything happen to you."

  "Look, you don't have to work with these people anymore. We have a plan, and we're here to dismantle this entire operation."

  He leaned back in his chair and laughed. "Oh, I assure you, that's not going to happen. Operation Wraith is solid. There's no way you could hurt it. Besides, there's no reason to do that. Not when you and I are going to be working together now."

  "What?"

  "That's the deal," he said. "You've got the serum, so you're uniquely qualified for a position here. We'll be close, and we can spend more time together. I think it will be quite nice. I've missed you."

  "A position...?" Then it dawned on me. "They're going to make me an assassin."

  "Indeed," said my dad. "And you're going to do such a good job, sweetheart."

  A gnawing horror was growing in my stomach. "Dad, no. Don't do this. You could help us. We could tear this whole place down. You'd be free."

  "I'm telling you, that would be impossible."

  "But Griffin-"

  "Oh, let's not talk about him. I was watching the cameras and I saw that outburst he had on the way in, after the guard at the door made a comment about you." He made a face. "That was totally inappropriate, of course, sweetheart. I'll have a talk with that guard. But I have to say, I was flabbergasted that Griffin reacted that way. It was almost as if he thought the two of you-but that would be ridiculous."

  "What are you talking about?" I said.

  "Nothing," he said. "I'm quite familiar with Griffin Fawkes. He's not capable of seducing you."

  "What?" I was confused. "Like you'd care, Dad."

  "Of course I care. You're my daughter. I don't want a thug like that thinking he has the right to corrupt you."

  "Corrupt me?" I sighed. "You don't even know me, do you? You don't know anything about me."

  "Well, that's why it will be nice when we're working together, because we'll really get the chance to bond." He smiled at me.

  I didn't smile back. "Griffin saved me, Dad. Before Griffin, I was on drugs. I was promiscuous. I was getting in car accidents. And I didn't even care about myself. Then he showed up, and everything-"

  "Promiscuous?" He raised his eyebrows.

  I looked at the table. Had I just said that to my own father? Yeah. I had. I lifted my gaze to his, defiant. "Yeah. Maybe you would have noticed if you were ever around."

  "You're exaggerating, Leigh." He waved away what I'd said. "You spent your time with kids from good families, whatever was going on. That Griffin character, on the other hand, is a hoodlum. You may not know this about him, but he was in prison for armed robbery, and I hardly think he's a good influence on you."

  "Hoodlum?"

  "I know you've spent some time with him, and you've probably grown a bit attached," said my dad. "Heck, I liked him too. But he's really a liability, and you have to understand that. It's just business. And I don't like to think of the way he's warped your mind."

  "Where is he?"

  "Don't worry about it. The sooner you get him out of your mind, the better. We'll be starting your training soon. I suppose you'll want to see your new room."

  "I don't want to be an assassin."

  He sighed. "Listen, Leigh, please don't be difficult. Caldwell doesn't like difficult. I've done my best to protect you, but my influence only reaches so far."

  "What did they do to you?" I said. "The last time I talked to you, you said Dewhurst-McFarland employed evil, greedy people. You said you were glad to be free of them."

  "And free of all my money? And free of my job? Free of the respect my position accords?" He shook his head. "Sweetheart, I was putting a good face on a bad situation. And that's what you need to do about that Griffin boy. He's probably going to be killed, so it would be best if you put him out of your head and moved on to better opportunities."

  I stood up, my chair clattering back behind me. "What? You can't kill Griffin. I love him."

  "Love him?" My father shook his head. "No, that's not possible. He's not the slightest bit capable of that kind of interaction. I helped him escape precisely because I thought I could trust him with you. That he'd keep his hands off of you."

  I reached across the table and grabbed my father by the tie. "You can't kill Griffin. If you can save me, you can save him too."

  "Let go of me," he sputtered. "I most certainly won't save him. After what he did to an innocent girl like you-"

  I pulled the tie tighter. "I was hardly innocent, Dad."

  I was choking him. His face started to turn red. "Leigh, he's better off dead."

  I remembered the plan, then. Griffin and I had gone over it so many times. I'd be taken away for questioning. I would use the capsule Griffin had given me to knock out my captor. I hadn't expected my captor to be my father, but here he was. Griffin's life was in danger. I had to save him.

  I had the capsule. I crushed it in my fingers and covered my father's nose and mouth with it.

  His struggles began to fade. Within minutes, he was completely passed out, a puddle on the ground.

  I ran for the door to the room. It was locked. How was I supposed to get out of here? I looked back at my father's inert form. How long would he be out?

  I wrung my ha
nds. I didn't know what to do. What was the next step? The plan. Griffin had grilled me and grilled me.

  I took a deep breath. Right. The plan was to get in the duct work. I looked at the wall, running my gaze over foot after foot of blank concrete.

  Then I spied a grate. I needed to get in there. But I couldn't reach it by myself. I was tall, but not tall enough.

  I glanced around. The table!

  I pushed the table up to the wall, stood on top of it, removed the grate, and crawled inside.

  * * *

  I managed to get a floor down, like Griffin had told me. The plan was for Griffin to meet me here in the ducts, but if they were trying to kill him, then I didn't know if he'd make it.

  And he wasn't there.

  Of course, we'd always assumed that Griffin would be taken away to be killed, hadn't we? Maybe I hadn't paid attention to that part. How was he supposed to get away and meet me?

  I hadn't thought of Griffin as vulnerable, I realized. Out there, in the regular world, Griffin was so lethal and sure of himself. No one had hurt him yet. I assumed that no one could hurt him. But that was stupid, I realized. Griffin could be hurt. He could be killed. These were the people who had made him what he was, and they knew all his weaknesses.

  He must have told me to come to this level for a reason. Possibly, he knew he'd be brought here. I began to crawl through the ducts, finding grates and looking into each of the rooms.

  They were all identical-small white rooms with a single metal chair in the middle of them. The chair had arms, with metal bindings that hung open over the arms and legs. I could see that the bindings would snap closed over a person's upper arms, forearms, legs, and feet. If someone was strapped into the thing, he wouldn't be able to move much.

  I kept crawling and looking. Empty rooms.

  Finally, I came to one that wasn't empty. There was someone in the chair.

  But his head was slumped over, and his neck was bloody. He was dead.

  He wasn't Griffin, though. His hair was the wrong color.

  I kept going.

  Another empty room.

  Then I heard voices. "I'm telling you, I have a large batch of the serum hidden out there. If I don't check in, there are people who've been instructed to send it to news agencies all over the world. You'll all be exposed."

  That was Griffin's voice. He was making a big bluff to keep himself alive. Smart Griffin!

  I hurried down the duct until I found the room where he was being kept. He was bound in the chair, metal bonds digging into his skin. I peered through the grate at him. He seemed to be in pain. The chair was cutting into his skin. The bonds were sharp. He was bleeding. I covered my mouth with my hand, stifling the cry I wanted to let out.