The Long Game (The Fixer #2)(62)

“We’re all liars sometimes, Kendrick,” Henry said.

I surged upward, pushing off from the wall and closing the space between my lips and his. For a split second, he stiffened, and then his hands dug into my hair, and he was kissing me back.

I would have pegged Henry Marquette for a gentlemanly kisser—restrained, a little too proper, a little too controlled.

I would have been wrong.

Henry Marquette kissed the way I fought—fiercely. No fears. No hesitations. No regrets. Just Henry and me and a hunger I’d never recognized in either one of us. For this.

For us.

I broke away first, my lips lingering near his for a second or two. Breathing raggedly, I forced myself to get it together. We didn’t have time for this.

“We can’t turn ourselves in, and we can’t stay here.” I took a step back and turned my attention back to the tablet in my hand. I didn’t look at Henry, couldn’t look at him. Instead, I scrolled through the video feeds. “I was going to try to get to the security offices, to see if there was a way of getting a message out.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You are aware, I assume,” Henry said, “that this is the single worst idea in the history of the world?”

Do you have a better suggestion? I let a raised eyebrow do the talking for me.

Henry stared at me. I could see the wheels turning. He was thinking something, feeling something, but the exact meaning of the tension in his jaw, the way he was looking at me—that, I couldn’t diagnose.

“The tunnel.” Henry’s voice was—if possible—quieter than it had been up until that moment.

“The one Di had us use to break into the Aquatics Center?” I said. “I thought of that, but there’s no way we can make it out of the main building. There are snipers on the roof and armed guards at every exit.”

Henry shook his head. “That’s not the only entrance to the tunnel.”

My mouth went dry. Suddenly, I was back in the library, watching Anna and her Secret Service agent. I hadn’t asked myself why the agent had chosen the library for his standoff with the guards.

He told Dr. Clark that he had to get Anna out.

I grabbed Henry’s arm, the way he’d grabbed mine in the hall. The part of my brain that was driven by instincts—by an ancient and unmentionable fear of predators, of darkness, of death—kicked into high gear. I ignored the vicious and incessant beating of my own heart. I ignored the lead that lined my stomach when I thought about the fact that I was risking Henry’s life, as well as my own.

“I think I know where to look for the entrance to the tunnel in this building,” I told Henry. I checked the tablet feeds, then nodded toward the stairs. I forced myself to let go of his arm, forced myself not to touch him, not to think about touching him. “Move.”





CHAPTER 52

We made it three-quarters of the way to the library before a man with an assault rifle caught us, head-on.

“Down on the ground!”

I recognized the man as the one who’d hit Anna Hayden over the head, the one who’d implied that he was taking orders from Dr. Clark for now.

Mercenary. Unpredictable.

I dropped to the ground. The guard rounded on Henry.

“You!” he said, jabbing the gun in Henry’s direction.

Henry held his hands up. He slowly lowered himself to his knees. I saw a flicker in the gunman’s eyes. He stepped toward Henry.

“Marquette,” I blurted out Henry’s last name. “He’s Henry Marquette. I’m Tess Kendrick Keyes.”

Henry stared down the gun—and the man who held it. When he spoke, each word was deliberate and crisp. “You want us alive.”

Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot him. Please, don’t—

After an elongated moment, the guard lowered the gun ten or fifteen degrees—just enough to start my heart beating again in my chest, not enough to stop me from picturing him changing his mind and pulling the trigger.

The guard shifted his gaze from Henry to me. He removed one hand from his gun and lifted it to his ear. I realized that he was talking to someone, sending a message. “I’ve got eyes on—”

One second, Henry was beside me, and the next, he lunged for the man’s gun.

No.

Henry’s hands closed around the barrel of the gun and he slammed it back into the gunman’s face, throwing his whole body after the blow. The two of them went down. The gun went off.

No.

I leapt forward, nothing in my mind except getting to Henry. If I could get to him, he would be okay. If I could touch him, I could save him. I could make him fine.

Please, God, let him be fine.

“Tess.” Henry stood up off the guard. I looked for blood, looked for a hole in his shoulder or chest. “Kendrick.” Henry’s voice was sharper this time. “We need to go. Now.”

He’s okay. Henry’s okay. As we took off running for the library, I fought the urge to glance back over my shoulder. No blood, I thought. There was no blood. Not on Henry. Not on the gunman.

“He’s unconscious,” Henry said as we hit the library door. “He won’t stay that way.”

Maybe one of us should have grabbed the gun—but I didn’t know how to shoot it. I doubted Henry did, either.