Chapter 73
“Where are the hostages?” I ask.
Sterling points at a door down the hallway, then stumbles as I push him toward it.
“Mia, come on. Be smart about this.” Then, inside my head, he says, “Don’t do this. I can’t protect you from here, and I can’t lose you.”
I freeze, my knuckles white on the door handle. My voice is a whisper. “What did you just say?”
“I said, be smart about this. I can help you.”
That’s not what I heard though.
I have to try something. “What’s your favorite color?”
His confusion is understandable, but I need to know if I just did what I think I just did. I keep my eyes on his lips and do not blink. In fact, I’m not sure I’m breathing right now.
“What?” The red of your hair.
Oh my God.
“Uh, Lucky?”
Lachlan comes to my shoulder. “What’s taking so long?”
“We need to talk.” As quick as I can, I open the door and shove Sterling through. “You’ll be safer here.” I pull it closed and focus on turning the pins in the lock. They click and settle into place as the handle rattles from the other side.
It’s Lucky’s voice I hear next.
“So, you’ll fight for her, but not for us.”
Okay, so not a fluke then. “I think I might be telepathic.”
To Lucky’s credit, he takes it in stride, merely looking behind me and asking, “What happened to saving the hostages?”
I feel heat pouring from my cheeks. “It’s like you said, no one is stopping him.” I probably shouldn’t have locked the door behind him, but he’s already escaped once, and maybe now he’ll think twice before he underestimates me. “Now we can go downstairs and finish this.”
He kisses me before I can prepare for it, a quick press of lips that lights me up from tip to toe. “Is it too early to say I love you?”
No. “That can’t be a serious question.”
“You wound me, love. Here we are, two examples of the wondrous mysteries of the universe, and you’re going to doubt the breadth of my feelings for you?”
“You’re going to write a song about this, aren’t you?”
“I feel another Grammy coming on.”
He’s so ridiculous. I’m definitely falling a little.
We run to the elevators, but pressing the call button does nothing. They must be shut down, by either the robbers or the cops, and what has my life become?
The doors slide open easily, and I get a thrill from the pride Lucky turns on me when I manage it without moving. Little does he know, that’s the easy part.
The bad part is that I’m afraid of heights, and it’s bad enough that I can’t even stick my head in to see where the elevator is. What if I lean in and it rushes by and cuts it off?
I catch myself on his arm, lightheaded. Shit.
“Are you all right there?”
Nope. Not even a little. My lungs feel like they’re being crushed slowly, and the room is tilting. No, that’s me, sliding to the ground.
“Fuck, what’s wrong? Was that too much?”
He’s right in front of me now, warm palms checking me for a fever, grounding me. I press my palm to his chest, drinking in the heavy beat of his heart and feeling my own start to slow to match its beat.
“Heights,” I choke out once I can breathe again.
He sags and places his hands on my shoulders; his relief is palpable. “Say the word, and I’ll zap us out of here.”
“No.” Using him as leverage, I push up to standing, keeping my eyes off the open elevator doors. “I just needed a second. I’ll be okay.”
“Mia, please.” The raw pain in his voice is what convinces me. He’s really worried. “Don’t power through if something’s wrong, all right? Promise me you’ll tell me, and we can get out of here. I’ll take you anywhere … anywhere you want to go, but you have to tell me.”
“Yes, of course, I promise.”
“Okay.” He exhales a long breath, shakes out his hands.
I hate seeing him rattled like this. Pulling him into a hug, I close my eyes and concentrate. Every time I’ve used my power, I’ve had the object in sight, but there’s also been this … feeling, a sense of it in the air around me. Maybe if I can reach out with my mind, I can find the—
Yes!
There’s a groan of metal on metal beside us. It’s not moving yet, but I can make out the shape of it, I think. I just need a little more …
The day I left, I cried in Pa’s arms. He held me and explained how he’d gone out that morning to buy a photo frame so he’d have something to put my first Observer byline up in.
I hadn’t even been hired yet. He was that certain I’d get the job.
Said it was only a matter of time and tenacity—ever since he had gotten Word of the Day toilet paper, it was like living with a thesaurus.
And he was right, even if my first byline didn’t look how I’d thought it would.
Some things are only possible when you put your mind to ’em. Those are the important things.
It’s just a fancy set of pulleys and a box. How hard can it be?
The groaning gets louder.
Closer.
It’s moving.
Oh my God.
It’s moving.
I can actually feel it rising, like a magnet drawing itself nearer. When it reaches our floor, I finally open my eyes, and it’s a good thing Lucky’s got a good hold on me because I feel a little wobbly now.
“Okay?”
“Good, but I probably shouldn’t try that too many times.”
He helps me onto the elevator, and I’m grateful when he doesn’t let go. Based on how far I had to pull the cab up, they’re in basement two. Gravity takes the pressure off of getting us down there, and now that I’m not fighting against it, the fog behind my eyes clears.
“What if there’s someone waiting?” I whisper.
“I only need to see where I’m going, yeah? We’ll keep to the front, out of sight, and you open the door enough that I can move us without them seeing.”
It’s a good plan, as long as there’s somewhere safe for us to move to.
The doors groan and screech as I pull them open the few inches Lucky needs to see beyond. My heart jumps into my throat when I hear the thump of something hitting the floor, accompanied by overlapping voices, but it’s distant, echoing from another room.
Okay. Distant is good. I like distant.
Nodding to Lucky, I watch as he flickers in place, gone one second, back the next. “It’s clear.”
I slide my hands in his, and we’re out.
The room is barren, a sterilized corridor, bookended by the vault and the exit. We stand between them, with no shield and no plan.
The vault door is huge, thick as a tractor tire and swung wide open. Inside is another room of white walls and tiles. Five men stand with their backs to us, their movements accompanied by a heavy thump as they load six large black duffel bags with gold bricks, one by one.
Anxiety has sharpened their personalities to a deadly point. I’d bet they’re seconds away from turning on each other.
There’s a woman’s body on the floor near the open door, and I tap softly on Lucky’s hand to get his attention, pointing to where she’s lying.
“Hostage?” he thinks.
I nod.
“Fuck. Okay.”
Lucky disappears, and I hear the rustle of clothing before it’s gone again. But he doesn’t reappear, and my veins turn to ice at how quiet it is.
No movement. No thumps. Not a single word.
Shit, shit, shit.
Then …
The click of a safety getting pulled back.
Then another.
And another.
Lucky … where the hell are you?
I need to get out of here. Put some space between me and six guns.
Or else slow them down a little.
The vault door slams closed with a force that rumbles beneath my feet. It won’t keep them away for long, but I just need it to be long enough to get to the elevator.
Lucky blinks back in as the shooting starts.
“What the hell happened?”
“They heard you, and I had to improvise.”
I start running for the elevator, Lucky at my side, when he skids to a stop.
“Wait.” Lucky slows, incredulous. “Why are we running? Take my hand.”
Oh, right. I forgot.
It actually hurts to stop, my heart pounding and my entire body telling me to move. The vault door starts to swing open, screams filling the room.
I catch sight of the man Sterling described, imposing in his helmet as he stalks confidently toward us. Then Lucky transports us back upstairs. No scary men here. Just the terrifying afterimage of one seared onto my trembling heart.
The foyer is empty, but everything is louder now, the shadows outside creeping in closer. Footsteps crashing up the stairs.
We’re about to be in the middle of a gunfight.
I start pacing. “What about the hostages?” What about Sterling?
Lucky watches the entrance. “All out. That’s what took me so long. I was arguing with one guy who wouldn’t leave.”
Wait. “What?” There’s someone still back there?
“Beats me, but I had to get back to you. I’ve got to hope Sterling sorted him out. Nothing stopping the professionals coming in now.”
“Maybe we should get out of here …” Stopping the bad guys seemed like such a good idea a few minutes ago, but the very real and imminent threat of having my face blown off makes a girl reconsider some things.
The door to the stairwell crashes open. It’s hidden in the far back corner of the room, behind the tellers. Well, that would have saved me some trouble with the elevator, but it’s not like I can do anything about it.
Who would I even complain to? The fire department? City council? The mayor?
Hi, I recently thwarted a robbery at the Reserve Bank but was disappointed with the internal design. One out of ten for inconvenient stair placement during a rescue.
I run toward Lucky but drop to the floor as bullets cut through the air. He blinks away just in time, and I manage to get behind a pillar just as dust surrounds me.
The men storm out of the stairwell, laden with their loot, and at the sight of them, there’s a roar of shouting outside. A voice starts yelling commands via a megaphone.
They don’t let the sentence end before they’re shooting again. I’m terrified Lucky is going to get caught in the cross fire if he tries to get to me.
I use the bags they were holding, throwing them at them to distract them, while Lucky blinks in and gets a few punches in. One catches him in the face with a punch, and I see red.