16. Addie #2
Peering through the slits in the square-shaped air conditioning vent, the scene below was enough to stall my wayward heart.
So much for calm under pressure, Addie.
Ethan lay almost directly beneath me. His right eye was swollen completely shut, the left faring only marginally better. The rest of his face was a patchwork of blood and darkening bruises, and I clenched my teeth at the sight of him.
But he was breathing. And that was the only reason Sebastos remained so.
A helmeted somebody stood over him, with a gun pointed down at his face. Apparently Seb and his team were more than happy to literally take out the competition, consequences be damned.
“Somebody better find that bitch quickly OR I’LL START SHOOTING PEOPLE!” Sebastos roared, finally stomping into view.
He paced back and forth, in and out of my line of sight, fingers twitching by his sides as he ranted at someone across the room.
“I swear, Lockwood, if you don’t give up that fucking keyword, I’ll find her and make you watch as I torture her for your secrets.
You forget… I saw how you looked at her when she answered those stupid hacking questions…
how she made the rest of us look like idiots. ”
“You are an idiot,” Lockwood slurred.
Sebastos leaped out of sight to deliver a cracking blow.
“Hey! Sit back down, big guy!” someone else—Eric, I thought—yelled.
So, Beckett was here, too. Considering that the room and the people within it were in shambles, I figured someone must have him locked down well enough to avoid his justified wrath.
“Or I’ll give you a matching wound,” that same voice growled.
Definitely Eric.
I smirked, knowing it was my fault that he, at least, was bleeding. And if the crescendo of fury in my veins was any indication, Sebastos was next. But first, I needed to know who and what I was up against.
With incredibly limited supplies and even less time, I whirled through all options, finally landing on that same shiny dagger in my grip. Poking the tip through the slotted vent, I angled it back and forth until the other side of the room reflected back.
Evander was a mess—bleeding, broken, and tied to a chair. His usually preppy hair hung low over his face, slick with crimson.
Beside him was Beckett, seated on his ass on the floor. His hands were also bound, but his legs remained free—potentially a boon Sebastos had overlooked.
In the far corner lay the rest of my teammates, none of whom appeared conscious or even alive.
And in between them and me stood the devil himself.
Seb’s face was a portrait of unhinged rage—and the longer I remained unfound, the wilder his malice would get. He pulled something out of his pocket and dragged it to his lips. A heartbeat later, his whisper sent a wave of nausea rolling through me in a way I’d never experienced before.
“Come out, come out, little bird.”
Unbeknownst to him, I watched as he prowled across the room, towering over a dazed Ethan. He slid Eth’s identical blade from his vest, dragged it up his chest in a sick echo of a lover’s caress, to rest at his throat.
“Come play with me, Adelaide, or all your friends will die… starting with Taylor.”
Seb pressed down on the blade, cutting a shallow line into Ethan’s throat, holding the mic to his mouth—ensuring I heard the whimper of my last remaining friend through my earpiece.
My hands shook, and I stifled a gasp, still unwilling to give myself away.
What that said about me, I didn’t care to analyse.
I peered through the vent with morbid curiosity, terrified to know how far Seb would go to get to me. I glanced at the blade revealing the other half of the room, and met the steely green gaze of Hunter Beckett.
He was staring right at me, though in this darkened little cavity, I had no idea how much of me he could actually see.
Ethan whimpered into the mic again, just as Beckett’s gaze flicked over to his captor, then back to my dagger. In a move none of us saw coming, Beckett launched to his feet and shoved Sebastos to the ground in one smooth motion—without his arms free to properly land or dispatch Seb.
It was a futile attempt. But it bought me the time I needed.
Seb roared, shifting his grip on Ethan’s blade, and cut across Beckett’s torso in a sharp, underhanded slash.
“You think you can take me?” he shouted. “You think you can beat me?!”
Sebastos leaned over the instructor and grabbed a handful of Beckett’s hair. He dragged him into a seated position with a sharp wrench, inciting a grunt of pain and an acid-filled glare.
“You have no idea, Sir,” Sebastos spat.
Beckett tipped his head back slightly as his captor withdrew to turn the blade on Evander instead.
“Give me that keyword or your friend here dies.”
Beckett’s fingers wriggled, his palm facing the ceiling—directly beneath me.
Surely he doesn’t mean…
They wriggled again, more urgently, as Sebastos dragged the tip of his knife over the old scar in Evander’s brow, reopening it.
Fuck. Okay. Let’s do this.
I pulled my own dagger out of the vent, flipped it over so the handle now pointed to the floor, and dropped it—right into Beckett’s waiting palm.
Catching it soundlessly, giving no indication to the sabotage I was now a willing part of, Beckett sliced through the cable ties binding his wrists, using the bark of pain his friend provided as cover.
In the span of ten seconds, Beckett was armed, free, and full of a vengeance I could only begin to guess at.
But so was I.
Unwilling to be upstaged by the ogre, I figured now was probably my only chance to act.
I wiggled a section of the vent panels free, exposing a square of free space to work with.
Before anyone noticed the absence of said panel, I pulled the Glock from its holster on my belt and pointed the barrel through the opening—aiming right at Sebastos motherfucking Varco.
This one’s for you, Fleur. I squeezed the trigger and ignited a retaliatory symphony of gunfire and cuss words.
Seb raged, telling me at least one of the bullets had found a home beneath his slimy skin. “In the roof!” he roared. “She’s in the fucking roof!”
A series of bullets pierced the ceiling tiles—three exiting the section I’d recently vacated.
I didn’t stick around to see what he’d do after being shot.
There was no space to run, no space to hide, but I crawled across the panels as fast as I could, dodging a melee of hot lead projectiles—sure that my luck would end eventually.
Almost immediately, it did.
It ended with the sting of a hot poker grazing my hip. I stumbled at the shock, crashed through the plasterboard, and landed flat on my back a floor below.
Gasping for breath, I struggled to sit, mentally cursing my stupid fucking lungs for stalling on me—because I was in danger now.
Seb crossed the room with a mad grin etched across his repugnant face.
He held his gun in one hand, Ethan’s blade in the other, looking as though he had devious plans for both.
Each step thudded with the added weight of my imminent demise—though the left was significantly more satisfying, accompanied by the wet squelch of blood-filled shoes and the neat visual of it pulsing out of a hole in his thigh.
I may not have been able to breathe—but the Academy had prepared us for that too. As the edges of my vision blurred and darkened, I rolled into that crouched sexy-superhero-landing pose, scowl firmly in place.
With my dagger in the hands of Beckett and my gun somewhere in the shattered ceiling tile, I was left with nothing but my bare hands. Perhaps that was better… knowing I took care of Fleur’s killer with broken fingernails and feminine rage.
Yes, I decided. Infinitely better.
Sebastos, assuming he had the upper hand, prowled closer.
Just a little closer.
I feigned fear, pretended I’d all but given up.
And he, ever the presumptive dickwad, took those final two steps into my stratosphere.
I didn’t wait—spared no thought for the seven other armed assailants in the room—just swept my leg out in a neat arc across the floor.
It prompted Seb to awkwardly jump over it, not accounting for the fact that his left was lame.
He hit the floor beside me in a jarring thump, yet still managed to aim his gun in my direction.
“Not so fast, princess,” he snarled, finger itching to pull the trigger.
I raised my hands in surrender, scowling at the Commander’s son—and at the Commander himself, who was doubtlessly watching this all unfold with rapt attention and zero inclination to stop it. For a second, I wondered what Pearce made of it all.
Sebastos rose to his feet clumsily, yet not so clumsily as to give me a clear opening to disarm him. He circled me—slowly, menacingly, like a shark, lending credence to those dark, dead, bullshark eyes of his.
When he was behind me, he stepped closer, pressing his front to my back. In the same motion, he dragged the muzzle of the gun over my shoulder, along my collarbone, and up the side of my neck, angling it at last towards the underside of my chin.
Sebastos pressed closer still. His sour breath brushed past my face, tickling the shell of my ear and triggering my upchuck reflex as he whispered, “Don’t do anything silly, little bird. I want to take my time with you.”
I had no idea if he meant defilement or murder, and the bulge hardening against my lower back failed to give me clarity. He was a sick, sadistic son of a bitch who evidently got off on both.
I gritted my teeth, silencing all the violent retorts begging to drop out, knowing he was but one overreaction away from blowing my brains out.
And they say women are the emotional ones.
Movement snagged my attention—the subtle shift of a person coming to.