Chapter 25 #2
Fuck. Eli. I’d left his bed last night, angry. So fucking angry. He’d kissed me, and I just wanted to touch him, to feel him against me. Wanted his arms around me. All it had done was remind me how good we were together and how fucked up everything was.
I’d wasted what we could have had because I wasn’t paying attention.
I didn’t realize it wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t just that I liked being with him, felt safe with him, thought I could trust him.
That we laughed together, could talk for hours.
It wasn’t any one of those things—it was all of it together.
Who the hell thought I’d fall in love in a handful of days, in the most chaotic, crazy time of my life? I hadn’t seen it coming because it didn’t make any fucking sense.
Except that it was Eli. And he was everything. He’d fucked up, but so had I.
And now I’d wasted it—our time together, what we could have had. It was all going to end far too fast, and I never got to say goodbye.
My tears slid down my cheek, soaking into the bottom of the blindfold. I didn’t want to go out crying, but I didn’t think I could stop. My heart hurt as much as my burning nerves.
The beep sounded from my chest again.
“Eight minutes, thirty seconds,” he said conversationally. “You’re sure you’re not going to tell me anything? If you do, I’ll knock you out before I go. You’ll never feel it happen.”
I gritted my teeth, ready for the burn of the taser again. The only thing I had left was my ability to stay quiet, to keep Eli safe from this monster. To show Eli that I loved him, even if he’d never know.
I had nothing to fucking say. Not to this guy.
When the next shock came, I shook, fighting unconsciousness. I only had a few minutes left. I didn’t want to spend them out cold. I didn’t want the ease he was offering—fading into black, never to wake again. Fuck that. I was fighting every second until this damn bomb went off and ended it for me.
“Tell me where Silas is,” he said, the charm gone from his voice. This was the real man, ice-cold and unyielding.
I swung my head slowly from side to side, tears coming harder, faster, until my body shook from the overload of the taser on my nerves, from fear.
I didn’t know anything, and it didn’t matter. I had minutes left to live.
I twisted at my hands, leaning into whatever was binding me to the chair, hoping I could get some leverage—something. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—acknowledge how hopeless this was. The end was rushing toward me. I couldn’t dodge; only meet it head-on.
I heard rumbling, pounding, and then a clank—a door opening.
I couldn’t see what was going on.
“Back up.” Was that Eli, or was I just hallucinating through the pain?
“That was fast,” the bomber said conversationally. “Put your fucking hands up. Back against the wall.”
“I don’t think so.”
That was definitely Eli. My heart froze in terror. There wasn’t time.
“Run, Eli,” I screamed, my voice so much weaker than it should have been.
“Sylvie says you haven’t found Silas.” The bomber’s voice was curious and unafraid. Eli didn’t respond, and he went on. “Kind of funny, as tight as your team is supposed to be, that I’ve gotten further running him to ground than you. Don’t you want to hear what I know?”
I knew Eli did.
“Don’t move,” he said.
“I think I will,” the bomber said, his tone contemplative, as if considering his options.
“You’re one of the few people who could disarm this bomb before it kills her.
You can either save Sylvie, or you can catch me.
I don’t think you have time to do both. I’ve heard you’re the best. You’ll have to be, especially considering?—”
“Considering what?” Eli snapped.
He didn’t finish the sentence, and without my eyes, all I had were my ears. I couldn’t see what the fuck he was talking about. A metallic clatter sounded on the far side of the room.
A loud bang filled the room. A gunshot? It couldn’t be the bomb going off, because I wasn’t dead. The acrid smell of smoke filled the room. There was pounding, and I was moving.
“Hang on, baby,” Eli said. “I’m getting you out of here.”
“Where’d he go?” I choked out.
“Got away. Just sit still. I’ve got this.
” Eli was tugging gently at the straps binding me, then stopped abruptly and sucked in a breath.
“Sylvie, I need you to stay very still. The bomb is wired into the straps.” He tugged at them, murmuring, “Goddamn, he is good.” There was a thread of admiration in Eli’s words, twined with cold fear.
More pounding, and then another voice I knew. “Report,” Maddox ordered. “Where the fuck did this smoke come from?”
“The bomber tossed a smoke canister for cover and took off up the stairs behind you a minute ago,” Eli said.
“Sylvie?” Maddox asked.
“There’s a bomb strapped to her chest. I’m on it.”
Feet pounded on concrete, and Eli kept working, mumbling to himself. Numbers. Counting wires? I had no clue.
I wanted to ask him to take the blindfold off, but the thing on my chest beeped again. Another thirty seconds gone.
I wanted to see him one more time before I talked him into leaving. Eli wasn’t going down with me.
“How much time?” I asked. Fuzzy-headed from fear and the taser, I couldn’t keep track.
“Enough,” Eli said, pulling at one of the straps. There was a click and a satisfied rumble in his throat.
“Eli,” I urged, “you need to get out.”
“I’m not leaving you here,” he said. “Not a chance.”
“Eli, no, if you can’t get it?—”
“Hey, don’t you remember?” I heard the strain as he forced confidence into his voice. “I’m the best. I’m going to get it, and we’re going to walk out of here, okay?”
“But Eli, if you can’t—you have to go. Promise me you’ll go.”
“Stop distracting me. I’m not leaving you, so shut up and let me disarm this bomb.”
I shut up. I couldn’t stand the idea of Eli dying beside me. But maybe if I kept my mouth closed, he could get this thing disarmed, and nobody would have to die.
“Hold on, baby,” he said again. “Got one.” He tugged at something else. “Got another. Got—oh fuck.”
“What?” I spit out, my mouth dry.
“There’s a secondary device. If Mad hasn’t caught him, he’d better get his ass back here. I don’t have time to hit both.”
For the first time, I heard stark fear underpinning Eli’s words.
“How much time?” I asked, my voice harsh in my ears.
Eli didn’t answer. “Got one more,” he said instead, his hands working at a strap that crossed my ribs to the left.
“I couldn’t find him,” Maddox said over the sound of his feet pounding down the stairs. “Sylvie clear yet?”
“Working on it,” Eli said.
“You got no time left, man.” Maddox’s voice held a heavy warning. “Two forty-five. We have to think about?—”
Eli cut him off. “There’s a secondary device up in the corner.”
I couldn’t see what they were talking about, but Maddox spotted it immediately.
“Fuck me,” he said. “I’ll see if I can get to it.”
I heard something being dragged, a clatter of wood and metal, then creaking as I imagined Maddox climbing up.
“One more,” Eli said under his breath. “Almost there, Syl. Then we’re going to run like hell, okay?”
I wasn’t sure I could stand, much less run. But I said, “Okay.”
“Eli, this is a fucking work of evil genius,” Maddox’s voice drifted down from across the room. “He’s got the wires buried in the wall and a timer that matches the one on Sylvie.”
“Get out,” Eli barked. “Now.”
“I’m not bailing on you,” Maddox said.
“I’ve got a minute forty-five left,” Eli said. “I’ll get Sylvie out on my own. You go. We don’t have time for anything else.”
“I don’t like this,” Maddox said, the hesitation in his voice crystal clear.
“Doesn’t matter,” Eli said. “You know what you have to do. Get the fuck out of here. We’ll either be out in a minute seventeen, or you’ll have to make some calls.”
“Fuck, fuck.” Maddox’s voice retreated. “You’ve got this,” he called to Eli. “See you up top in a few.”
“Eli, go with him. I don’t want you to die with me.”
“You’re not dying, Sylvie. And I’m not leaving you.”
My chest beeped again. Did that mean there was a minute left, or thirty seconds left?
“Eli, I love you.” I heard my voice, watery with tears. My cheeks were wet with them as I begged. “Please, Eli, you have to go. Don’t do this. You have to go.”
“I’m not going.” And then: “Got it.”
There was a click. One last beep, and then the straps were gone, and I slouched forward. He slid an arm around my back, another under my knees, and stood, bolting for the stairs.
“Hang on, baby,” he said as he ran.
My shoulder slammed into the doorframe, but we kept moving, his leaps up the stairs like flying.
Then the building shook, and a wave of pressure hit us, knocking Eli to his knees. I came down hard on the concrete steps, the back of my head striking the edge in a painful bounce. The other bomb.
The treads of the stairs dug into my back, Eli’s length spread over mine, his weight pinning me.
The air went acrid and hot.
I had a second to hope Maddox had gotten clear. Another to wish we were out along with him.
My lungs burned, the building creaked, and with a rumble, the light I could sense around us was snuffed out, and Eli groaned in pain.