Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1)(58)

“I haven’t survived these past few months by doing what I was told,” she said.

She barely caught his appreciative grin just before he grabbed her hand and pulled her into a stumbling run. “Let’s move.”

“Yeah,” she coughed out.

They spotted a back door that opened onto a loading bay and ran inside. An exit sign pointed them toward a stairwell, which led down into a basement corridor with a low ceiling hidden by insulated pipes.

Caro barely kept pace with his long, purposeful strides, held up by the arm around her waist. It was like being swept along by a powerful storm wind. One which knew exactly where it was going.

They came to the battered doors of a freight elevator. Noah jabbed the button and dragged her into his arms while they waited, hugging her fiercely. His heart thundered against her ear. He threw off so much heat. It was life-giving.

She tried not to see it, but now that they weren’t in frantic motion, the loop in her head started to play. Bea, catapulted into the air. Bea crumpled, bleeding and silent. She pressed her face to his chest.

His arms tightened. “You OK?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said fiercely against his jacket.

He grunted, unconvinced, but the doors were sliding open. Into the elevator. Up another level. She followed where he led and tried not to stumble. At some point, they were outside again, running through an icy drizzle that gave her goosebumps.

He came to an abrupt halt, and she heard the thunk of the car locks opening. He opened the Porsche’s door and helped her in. “Seat belt,” he directed.

She fumbled with it clumsily as he got into the drivers’ side.

He clicked his own seatbelt into place as he he started the motor. She noticed the dark wet splatter on his jacket sleeve as the car surged into the street. “Noah, you’re bleeding!”

“Not my blood,” he assured her.

She sagged back, relieved. “How the hell did you do that?”

His elusive smile showed. “No big deal. There were only three of them.”

“Only three . . . ?” Her voice cracked, failed her. Only three, her ass.

After a moment, she tried again. “So, were you some kind of commando once? Is that where you got the scars?”

“You don’t get to ask questions right now. I’m taking you home. And you’re coming clean with me.”

“I don’t think so.” Caro’s voice gained strength. “Slow down. I’m getting out of the car now.”

“Not at this speed. I want to know who’s messing with you, and why.”

She sat there, too exhausted to protest. Astonished, too. She’d been mooning helplessly at this guy nonstop since the moment he’d entered her field of vision, but she’d realized in a sudden, spine-tingling rush, that she’d never really seen him at all.

Not until now.



*



“Escaped?” Mark snarled into the phone. “How in the f*ck did she do that?”

Carrerra hemmed and hawed. “I sent in my three best operatives. But the guy with her had serious combat skills. He took them by surprise.”

“But you didn’t go.”

“No.”

“Three trained, armed professionals, and she got away. Again.” Mark’s AVP was starting its nasty buzzing drum roll inside him. “Where are you now?”

“The hospital,” Carrerra admitted. “Two of my team have broken knees. Ripped ligaments. All three have broken jaws. They’re being checked for brain bleed—”

“As if I gave a shit. As if they had any brains. Why aren’t you out looking for her right now?”

“I’m about to—”

“To leave the f*cking hospital? Good move.” Mark bit the words out with lethal softness. “Do it. This minute. Find Caroline Bishop.”

“I’m on it.”

“Don’t f*ck up a second time.” Mark slid the phone into his pocket.

It took a few minutes of concentrating just to drag his raging AVP under control and remember what he was doing. Product testing.

He’d found the perfect place for it. The abandoned gravel pit off the highway was protected on three sides like an amphitheater. No people for miles around. He’d checked for thermals, listened with his augmented hearing for approaching cars. He was eager to get to Seattle and collect Caroline, but he had to be realistic. When he activated the rest of the slave soldiers, they would outnumber him twelve hundred to one.

He had to develop his control technique very quickly.

Marc wrenched open the nailed crate and lifted out the multi-mode slave soldier control unit. Lydia Bachmann had babbled on about the amazing new special weapons back when she was still hoping that she might survive the encounter.

Hadn’t taken long for her to realize that she was so f*cking finished.

The equipment wasn’t elegant in its design. Just a large, clunky helmet. The freq wad was inserted into a larger amplifying console. Commands synched wirelessly with implants inside the slave soldier’s brains and could be sent to multiple subjects at once.

Plus, there were many modes. Verbal commands relied on the slave soldiers’ programming and brain stim, but wireless commands from the console went straight to their cerebral implants. There was also an FMC mod, fine motor control, that gave the controller complete command over the slave soldier’s nervous system, but that required more equipment and was more complicated to learn. Later for that. There would be time.