And ran straight into a group of waiting guards.
Chapter 22
Fury and savage desperation flooded my veins, and I snarled viciously at the men and women standing between me and Xavier. I pulled the gun from my holster and aimed it carefully. Something inside me had snapped, and I was not afraid to use it anymore.
Bash moved up to flank my back, and we stepped into the room, careful to keep at least one wall behind us as the guards moved around us with their weapons drawn.
One of them stayed back and through the buzzing in my head I heard him say into his walkie-talkie, “We’ve got her.”
I wanted to scream and rage. We were so close, we were almost safe, or as safe as we could be until real help showed up and took down these assholes. Instead, we were in more danger than ever, and I was still being mistaken for someone important.
“I’m not the one you want,” I yelled, but nobody was listening. They just looked at me with glints of intent in their traitorous eyes and waited for their moment.
Movement came from my right first. A woman with thick blonde hair pulled back in a severe braid moved in so quickly I almost didn’t react in time. When the shot rang out and her body jerked back, I just gaped in shock at the spreading blood on her dark uniform.
The other guards exploded into action, rushing us with guns and metal rods pulled. By the time my hands stopped shaking enough to tighten on the trigger again, it was wrenched out of my hands.
A fist slammed into my face, knocking me back into Bash. Pain cut through the shock and I snapped back into the moment. Rage and self-preservation ruled, and I moved, ducking another punch and coming up with one of my own to my opponent’s chin. The snap of her head felt like victory.
The kick that landed in the small of my back, taking me to my knees, a moment later did not feel like victory. It felt like shit.
I stumbled to my feet with darts of pain shooting through my midsection and threw up my fists again. We were outnumbered, painfully so, but whatever part of me that had been pushed beyond my breaking point had no ability to give up or even back down anymore. I wondered absently if this was what the berserkers had experienced during Viking raids.
Before I could realize the full insanity of my wandering thoughts, I was distracted by the sight of Bash’s head snapping back so hard I practically heard his spine groan. He recovered quickly, and staved off another punch, his long limbs working in his favor to keep his opponents at a distance.
He was beautiful, my spinning thoughts rambled again as my body fought on automatic. Duck, block, punch, I had no idea how I was keeping my own, especially against trained terrorists. Adrenaline, I assumed, and pure rage mixed with desperation. Do or die that was the saying, wasn’t it?
Three guards moved on Bash, trying to separate us more than they’d already managed. I shifted closer to him, trying to keep his back, but two others closed in on me just then, and my focus shifted.
This was it, they were moving on us, tired of playing with their prey. Pressure built inside me until it couldn’t be held back anymore. I loosed a wild scream and attacked.
Everything moved in a blur, too fast to really see or comprehend. My fist connected with flesh, rattling my bones, and fists connected with me, knocking the air from my lungs.
I’m not sure how long we fought, minutes or hours, but when my body began to lag, my arms to grow too heavy to punch anymore, tears spilled onto my cheeks as my rage was replaced by resignation.
They’d won. But, at least, we were both still alive.
I turned my head to tell Bash that it was okay, that he could stop now, and stopped breathing as a guard with a metal baton raised high, moved behind him and swung with terrifying accuracy.
His eyes flew wide as it struck and, for a split second, he looked at me and apologies swam in those emerald depths. Then they went dark and he crumpled to the floor.
Hands closed around my forearms, pulling them behind me painfully, but I could see was Bash and the bright crimson blood trickling from his ears.
“We’ve got her,” a deep voice said into a walkie-talkie just behind me and I jerked my head around, wrenching my arms.
“You’ve got the wrong person!” I screamed, even though they weren’t listening. “I’m nobody.” A whimper escaped my parted lips. “I’m nobody,” it came out as a defeated whisper.
My head bowed, too heavy to hold anymore, as they picked up Bash’s body and one really big man, slung him over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing.
Relief spilled through me. If they were bothering to carry him, they weren’t planning on killing him, yet, anyway.
No, the thoughts tumbled into my head, unwanted, incomprehensible. They thought I was someone I wasn’t and they’d need a way to make me talk. Bash was being taken as leverage.
Against me.
The guard holding my arms pulled them back tighter, bringing my wrists together, and something hard and sharp cut into my flesh. Someone shoved me and I stumbled forward, walking without thought behind Bash’s dangling form, all the fight gone out of me.
I had no idea how I was going to convince whoever I was being led to that they’d gotten the wrong person, but, for Bash’s sake, and mine, I had to try.
“I don’t know why you guys think I’m the one you’re looking for, but I’m not,” I looked around, trying to catch someone’s gaze. “I’m here on scholarship. I’m from Newfoundland for Old One’s sake!” I said it as if it negated the attention being directed towards me. Frustration gave my voice an edge. “Why won't you listen to me? You’ve got the wrong girl!”
“Shut her up, will you?” one of the guards shouted from behind me and, a moment later, I was being turned around roughly and a piece of fabric was being stuffed into my mouth. I gagged on it and tried to wrench my head away, but another guard grabbed my hair and yanked back so hard tears fell freely from my eyes. Another piece of fabric was tied around my face and I was shoved forward and ordered to “Move!”
Dread weighed me down, making every step nearly impossible. The guards shoved and pulled me along, encouraging me with threats and promises that made my skin crawl. Memories of playing along the ocean shore and reading books with mom filled my mind, sweeping me away from the cold reality I was in. I thought of Xavier, who must be dead by now, and Rory, whose bright light could be extinguished. I let the tears that came fall freely because there was nothing to fight anymore. I was alone.
We entered the double doors to the auditorium, stepping out of the bright hall lights and into the dim shadows of the huge room. The giant carrying Bash tossed him casually into a chair then stepped back to crack his neck.
I noticed all of this through a kind of cloud, as if it were all happening to someone else and I was just an onlooker.
A crash from the stage captured my attention enough for me to look and wonder. A tall man raged up there, his voice booming out of his chest and aimed towards a terrified looking woman who winced but held her ground despite the fear in her eyes.
He backhanded her, hard enough to split her lip and splatter drops of blood on her collar, but still she stood her ground. A small part of me couldn't help but be impressed at her resilience. The rest of me was too consumed with hate for this abusive asshole to remember that she was one of the people responsible for the death and destruction on campus.
His voice, thickly accented, resonated through the auditorium, and bounced off the walls built for projection. I recognized the sound of the language as Slavic but wasn’t sure if my movie background could be trusted enough to identify it. My gut wanted to go with Russian, but he was a big, angry, evil man, and I’d watched too many movies with Russian bad guys to be unbiased.