The Gender War (The Gender Game #4)(49)

18





Viggo





I was buried in the southeast corner of the house, in a security room with reinforced steel doors and no windows. A panic room, Ashabee called it. With no way of telling what it looked like outside, it felt like we’d been in here for hours. We probably had.

Three monitors filled the desk inside, each reflecting four different views around the house and grounds—including the front gate. There were so many cameras that every ten seconds or so, four new views would appear. Each angle of the camera had been carefully mapped out, giving an almost three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view around the house, a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree view of the area around the gate, and another full view of the entrance with the cameras pointed at the wall from the inside.

Ms. Dale and Henrik were standing in front of the desk where I was sitting, rapidly exchanging ideas (or arguing against them, in some cases) on the best way to proceed. I wished I could say I was completely engaged in the discussion, but I wasn’t—my brain had stopped working over an hour ago. My head had been pounding since shortly after we arrived. I attributed it to the company.

Owen rapped on the door, pushing it open, and I dragged my gaze over to him as Ms. Dale and Henrik fell silent. “I just wanted to let you know that Violet’s passed out upstairs,” he said softly. “Quinn looked at her wound and… well… it took a lot out of her. Also… Quinn’s here to look at Ashabee’s leg. And that cut on your back, Viggo.”

Ashabee leaned forward from his reclined position on the panic room’s couch, using his elbows to heave himself up farther. Jeff had tightened a belt above Ashabee’s wound to help stop the bleeding and wrapped his leg up in towels, but it looked pretty makeshift. “About bloody time,” Ashabee grumbled.

Quinn stepped out from behind Owen and into the room, holding a med kit in his hand. “How’s Violet?” I asked quickly. “Is her hand… Is it going to be okay?” I had wanted to inspect it earlier.

Quinn smiled, but he looked tired. “Her hand’s going to be just fine, but it might take a while to heal up. The cut was very clean, and it didn’t damage any bones or sever any tendons. If you could just convince her to take it easy… Owen and I had to force her to lie down for a minute and eat something before she tried to run away from us again.”

I smiled ruefully. That sounded like my Violet. “Thanks, Quinn,” I said, genuinely grateful for his concern and his expertise. “I’ll try.”

“You little twerp,” bellowed Ashabee from his couch. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting here with a bullet in my leg?”

I sighed and dropped my face into my hands, trying to press my fingers hard enough into my eyes to scrub out the dry, burning sensation that accompanied sleep deprivation. By now my headache was a full-on throbbing, bearing down on me like a ton of bricks, and my skull was threatening to snap.

As was my patience.

I began giving orders. “Quinn—see to Ashabee. If he gives you a hard time, don’t give him any painkillers.” Ashabee squawked indignantly, but I ignored it. “Ms. Dale, Henrik—we need a roster drawn up for who is guarding the king.” Then I frowned, a thought occurring to me. “Who’s with him now?”

“Jay,” Ms. Dale responded. “Tim felt he could handle the staff without him, so I tapped him to do it for an hour or so.” She checked her watch and frowned. “That was two hours ago,” she added.

I grimaced, and nodded. “All right—pass it off to whomever seems the freshest. I know we’re running on empty, people, but we have to hang on for a little bit longer.”

“I’ll go relieve Jay,” Owen offered, and I nodded to dismiss him, mentally ticking that off my checklist.

“You two, get some sleep,” I ordered Ms. Dale and Henrik, who remained. “One of you can take the room nearest to Violet, just in case.” Ms. Dale’s mouth tightened and I sensed her oncoming argument, but I interjected before she could speak. “While I appreciate your concern for me—something that is wholly remarkable in its own way—I need you both up in four hours to relieve Owen and Tim.”

“Not Tim, Quinn,” Quinn said from where he was kneeling by Ashabee’s leg, inspecting the wound. “I’ll relieve Tim, and they can replace me in four hours.”

I exhaled, relieved that Quinn was willing to take the hit, but also feeling guilty. Should I really let him displace me from where I had intended to go once I had everything in order? Under normal circumstances, I would protest, but if the boy thought he could do it, then I wasn’t going to stand in his way. “Thank you, Quinn,” I said, and he inclined his head, never turning his focus away from Ashabee’s leg.

“Good—go when you’re ready. Now, Ashabee, I need you to walk me through the security system,” I said.

“Is this the appropriate time?” he spat, his hands rhythmically clenching and unclenching against the couch pillows in pain.

“It’s the only time,” I said. “And… it’ll have the added benefit of distracting you from what Quinn is doing.”

“May I be of assistance, Viggo?” came Jeff’s oddly formal, dry voice from the threshold. I turned back, surprised to see that Ms. Dale, Henrik, and Owen had silently left the room already—they must have been more exhausted than I thought. I gazed at Jeff. Most importantly, I focused on the lack of bags under his eyes, and wished that I could trust him, if only for four hours.