Unbreakable (City Lights, #2)(32)
A harsh knock came at the door and a muffled, “Time’s up.”
Cory moved to me quickly, held my face to gaze at me intently. “Tomorrow…I want you to be careful.”
Fear spurred my heart to quicker pace. “There is something happening tomorrow. I knew it. What’s is it? Tell me.”
“Just promise me you’ll keep yourself as safe as you can. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get to you, but I will, I swear it. Okay?”
“Cory, I don’t know what you’re asking me—”
From outside, “I said, time’s up.”
Cory kissed me again, fiercely, and I’ll never forget the look on his face, or the determination burning in his eyes.
It felt like goodbye.
“Cory, no…”
“You’re going to be okay. Just remember that.”
Then Wolfman opened the door and I withdrew from Cory’s arms, a horrible sense of loss washing over me. I moved to the door, then turned to say the only thing I could say, all I was willing to say, because I would not say goodbye. I would not.
“I’ll miss sleeping against your shoulder tonight.”
Cory nodded, that crooked smiled ghosting over his lips. “Me too.”
#
“I need to use the bathroom,” I whispered to Wolfman in the hallway after he’d closed and locked the door.
“I’ll bet,” he muttered dryly, and jerked his chin to the employee restroom across the hall. “Two minutes and that’s it. Then back to your place. No more conjugal visits.”
Safely alone, I gripped the sink with both hands, head bowed, trying desperately to find a measure of peace amid the turmoil that churned like a squall, tossing me around until I was dizzy.
I felt alive, awake, my senses both satisfied and clamoring for more of the touch that had been so long denied me. A pleasant ache throbbed between my legs and I wanted Cory’s mouth there to kiss and soothe, and then stoke the fire anew.
My body was coming back to life, thawing from the longest winter, but at the same time, the thrill of it was tainted by my betrayal. I raised my head. The woman in the mirror looked stricken, guilt-wracked, but her eyes held a spark I hadn’t seen in years.
“You traded Drew’s ring for ten minutes with a total stranger. You cheated on Drew. You cheated…”
It was true but did it matter? Drew hadn’t touched me in months and he seemed so far away. It felt like a lifetime since I’d seen him or anyone else outside the bank. But Cory was right here, protecting me, holding me, making me feel alive in a place where we were surrounded by death. I splashed cold water on my face, over my lips, which were red and swollen from Cory’s kisses.
“Drew doesn’t need to know,” I declared to my reflection. “This isn’t life, anyway. It’s a step out of time. A parenthesis. What happens here doesn’t count. And when it’s over…”
After that, there were no more words. Only the deafening silence of the unknown. Something was going to happen tomorrow, it all ended tomorrow, though I couldn’t see how. I might live to return to Drew or I might die with Cory and there was no arguing my way out of it. No jury to persuade. No control.
I touched my lips. I had one night, at least. No matter what happens, I had one night of fire…
I returned to the meeting room where the other five still slept. Without Cory’s shoulder to lean against, sleep eluded me and I waited out the night, watching sourceless gray light saturate the room until my eyes drooped.
I must have dozed because I dreamt of gunshots and screaming, only to jerk awake and find I wasn’t dreaming at all.
Chapter Thirteen
Alex
The door banged open, jerking the hostages awake, and Wolfman stormed in. His kind eyes were filled with fear. But then he slipped his werewolf mask down, almost as if to protect himself, and his eyes hardened beneath.
“Get up. Everyone. Move out.”
We all got to our feet slowly until he screamed at us to move, and then even Roy hustled out the door. Carol came last and I reached behind to grasp her hand.
We were ushered through the long hallway and then turned into the lobby and I was suddenly blinded. When I could see again, the full impact of the robbery was finally before us.
The bank lobby was flooded with light. Its two walls of front windows streamed with stark white beams blasting in from banks of tall floodlights. Squad cars and armored S.W.A.T. vans ringed the corner, and dark shapes squatted behind and between them. A high window—that showed dawn’s wan gray light—was busted in. A puddle of glass glittered on the marble floor below it. Another light, this one from a roving helicopter, roamed the lobby, landing on hostages as we were all gathered and made to sit in front of the teller banks in two rows. Behind the tellers, the monster squad—masks down—crouched low, their weapons level with the counter, trained on our backs.
I ended up close to the aisle, across from which were the desks where people, in another lifetime, had come to discuss mortgages and loans. I glanced around frantically, but couldn’t see Cory anywhere. He wasn’t among us. I prayed he was still locked in that room and that they’d forgotten about him. Or maybe Wolfman had neglected to have him join us. Either way, I was glad.
But mind-numbing terror was winning out over any other emotion as Dracula, his face bare, strolled in front of the frightened hostages in the full glare of the police lights. He looked worse for wear, I thought. Bags hung heavy beneath his dead eyes and his dull brown hair was mussed and greasy. When he spoke, his flat voice was hoarse and I supposed he’d been on the phone negotiating for much of the three days.