Rogue (Dead Man's Ink, #2)(36)
“I was thinking that the crazy bitch had a gun pressed against the base of Sophia’s skull and I wouldn’t be able to take her out without something really terrible happening. What would you have done if I’d taken the shot and Soph had been killed, you f*cking *?” Cade shoves him. I’ve never seen anyone do something so risky. If anyone’s going to get away with it, it’s Cade, but Rebel doesn’t look very happy right now. He looks like he’s about to go supernova. I hold my breath, waiting for him to do something crazy, for him to smash his fist into his best friends face or pull his gun on him, but he doesn’t. He glares at Cade for another few seconds, and then turns away from him, facing me again.
Maria Rosa writhes on the ground, swearing angrily in Spanish. She’s bleeding pretty heavily, her blood mixing into the dirt with Rico’s. Rebel ignores her, stepping over her body like she’s a mild inconvenience, unworthy of his attention. He stands in front of me, his shoulders hitching up and down, a frantic energy still pouring off him in waves. “Come with me,” he says.
He holds out his hand and I’m too stunned by the events of the past few minutes to object or refuse him. I take it, my legs feeling unstable as he guides me across the compound toward the clubhouse. As we pass Cade, Rebel growls under his breath. “Get a prospect to clear that shit up, man. And get her and Dela Vega out of sight, will you? Make sure they’re…comfortable.”
A shiver runs up my spine at the tone in his voice. When he says comfortable, I know he means something else entirely. He opens the door to the clubhouse, muttering under his breath when he surveys the place and finds it void of all life. We weave between tables and abandoned chairs, making our way toward the bar at the back of the room. Once there, Rebel opens another door into a back room. The small, dusty space is filled with torn-open boxes containing bottled beer, empty milk crates and cleaning equipment. The shelves on the right hand wall are a jumbled mess of spirits and…and guns. Guns, just sitting there like casual objects that don’t hurt, maim, kill. Rebel lets go of my hand and picks up a small, silver handgun, sliding it into the waistband of his jeans at the base of his spine. “Come here,” he tells me, gesturing me close. I move to his side, not sure what he could possibly want to show me in here aside from the weaponry and liquor. “Look,” he says. “Pay attention. There’s a small catch up here, right in the corner.” His hand moves to the very top corner of the wall by the shelves. Sure enough, I see what he’s referring to—a small, black switch in the shadows. I would never have noticed it if he hadn’t pointed it out.
“See if you can reach it,” he tells me.
He’s much taller than me, but I’m still tall. I have to stand on my tiptoes but I can just about graze the smooth metal with my fingertips.
“Press it,” he says.
When I was kid, my favorite thing to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon once we got home from church was to watch Indiana Jones with my father. I have awful images of some terrible booby trap springing into action if I do what I’m told and hit this switch, but I know that’s ridiculous. Rebel wouldn’t be telling me to do it if it would be bad for me. My nerve endings still crackle when I press my fingers against the catch, though. A loud clicking noise cuts through the tense silence, making me jump. I jump even more when the wall—what I thought was the wall—swings back to reveal yet another door. This one is made of steel, looks reinforced, and has no visible handle or keyhole. To the left, a narrow keypad sits on the wall, glowing softly in the darkness.
“Watch,” Rebel tells me. “The code is One Seven Six Three.” He punches the code into the keypad as I observe, my arms wrapped around my body. I’m starting to feel really shaky. Maria Rosa’s arrival and Raphael’s presence is catching up with me. I feel like the world is crashing down on my head and I have no means of stopping it, of holding back the tide.
The keypad is silent as Rebel presses the keys. He hits the green enter button and the door chunks and releases. Rebel doesn’t allow it to open properly, though. He closes it and holds his hand palm-up to the keypad, giving me a tight-lipped smile that holds absolutely no humor. “Now you,” he says. “Show me you remember the code. I need to know you can open this door.”
He’s incredibly intense. He’s clearly so stressed he’s not really functioning, and yet at the same time there’s an eerie calm resting over him. It’s way more frightening than if he were simply raging mad. I slowly punch in the access code to the door and hit the green button afterward, just as he did, and the door swings open.
“Okay. Good. Follow me.” Rebel moves through the door into the pitch-black darkness beyond. I hesitate a second, but then follow behind him, unwilling to push him even a little while he’s in this state. The heavy steel door closes behind us, and suddenly I feel like I’m trapped in a tomb. A dark, impenetrable tomb that I have no way out of. My chest tightens ever so slightly, the first strains of panic setting in, my heartbeat noticeably quickening.
“Rebel?”
His arms are immediately around me, his chest up against mine, his lips pressing against my forehead. He holds me in the dark and breathes. I can feel the impossible speed of his own heart beating against mine, and I know he’s having trouble holding himself together. So strange. He always seems so unflappable, like a bomb could go off right next to his head and he’d still be able to think straight.