Page 3

T he blaring sound of the alarm rang throughout the entire building. Time was up, and now they knew we were here.

I looked up at him. “Go! I’ll figure my own way out.”

We glared at each other, Wes wearing his characteristic scowl that I had come to learn was his signature look. His eyes flickered as I held my breath.

“Fuck,” he spat out as he walked away from me. He marched to a bookshelf filled with files and trinkets and knocked the entire thing over.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He dragged the furniture in front of the office door. “What does it look like?” His voice came out low and gruff. There was no doubt about it, he was pissed as hell. Once he had the bookshelf in place, he took several steps away from the door and aimed his stunner.

Understanding clicked into place, and I shifted my attention back to the computer, grabbing the mouse and clicking as many files as I could, dragging them to the thumb drive. I only needed one more minute.

Almost there…almost there…done!

As if on cue, the door to the office whammed loudly, causing me to jump. Then another bang, as though a battering ram was being used, the force causing the walls to rattle and the door to splinter slightly.

“Crap!” The word flew out of me. I grabbed the thumb drive and quickly tucked it into my pocket. “That’s our way out.”

“ Was our way out. We’re fucked.” Wes took measured steps backwards.

WHAM!

The door rattled.

“The vent?”

“No good.” He lifted his tab and started typing.

“I’m requesting an emergency evac. But we’ve got to get out of here.

” I looked around the office, but apart from the door and the air-conditioning vent, I didn’t see another way out.

Wes looked around as another bang hit the door.

Then his gaze stopped on the window behind us.

He walked toward it and stared down before turning and grabbing the chair by the desk. “Cover your eyes.”

“What?” Before I could finish asking my question, he lifted the chair over his head and slammed it against the window, causing it to spider out with cracks and fracture lines.

Then he pulled the chair back and slammed it against the window again, effectively sending shards of glass everywhere. “Oh my god! What the hell?”

He threw the chair aside and glanced out the window. “We’re going to have to jump.”

“Are you crazy?” My voice grew shrill.

“Crazy is what I was when I agreed to go on this fucking mission.” He faced the desk and grabbed the corners, shaking it forcibly, but it didn’t budge. “Give me your rope.”

Another wham sounded at the door as I uncinched my rope and handed it to him. He was nuts if he thought I was going to jump. “We’re twenty stories high. There’s no way I’m jumping out that window.”

He moved with lightning speed and precision, taking one end of the rope and tying it to the leg of the desk before he threw the rest of it out the window. “We’re not jumping. Get on my back.”

“Oh, hell no—”

“Shut up and get on my back now !”

I hesitated for a moment, staring at him as he waited, the scowl firmly in place.

Oh hell … I let out an exasperated sigh before rushing toward him.

He crouched down, motioning me to climb up.

I did. He positioned us over the opening of the window, grabbing the length of rope and looping it through the carabiner attached to his tactical belt.

I made the stupid mistake of looking down. And it was a long way down.

“Shit,” I muttered.

“Hang on.”

I gripped tighter and closed my eyes as Wes spun around and slipped outside the window, his muscles shifting under me.

I heard another wham at the door, causing me to look up.

It was still holding, but they were going to bust through at any moment.

Wes began propelling us down, my heart sinking into a pit as my hair drifted toward the sky in waves of weightlessness.

Every time he pushed off the building, I felt my heart flutter and my stomach bottom out.

I closed my eyes a little tighter, and I hung on for dear life as air blew past my face.

The summer heat wrapped around us as Wes continued to propel down, suffocating me.

I took the chance and opened my eyes, leaning over to see how much further we had to go.

We were almost there, but we still had several stories left, and—

Oh shit.

“Wes, we’re going to run out of rope,” I shouted into the night air.

“What?”

“There’s not enough rope!”

His movements paused as he looked down. “Fuck.”

I looked down again, my eyes seeing the last few yards of rope dangling below us, and then the cavernous depth that remained between us and the ground. “What are we going to do? We’re still too high!”

He shifted under me as he looked down again. I could feel his body shaking as the muscles beneath me rippled and strained. “We’re going to have to jump—”

“ What? We’re thirty feet high! We’ll never survive the fall.”

“I know that, Mara,” he snapped back through gritted teeth.

“Oh my god…” I looked around desperately. My heart was pounding, threatening to explode from the fear.

“I’m going to slide down the last few yards of rope, okay? I’m going to get us as close to the ground as I can. Then I want you to climb down my body until you’re at my feet and then hang from there.”

He was crazy. This was crazy. “I don’t know, Wes—”

“Just listen to me!” he gasped out. He took several deep breaths before continuing.

“Hang from my feet. That’ll get you closer to the ground.

When you let go, make sure you land on the balls of your feet, not your heels.

Keep your knees bent and stay loose. When you land, allow your legs to bend and roll into the landing. ”

My mind was swimming with his instructions. Sure, I had been training all summer, but never in my life did I train for a free fall from a building. This was insane! “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Oh my god.”

“Get going.”

I looked over my shoulder at the distance below and felt my stomach bottom out, nausea filling me. I closed my eyes, trying to steady the dizziness that was overwhelming me.

“Mara…” I turned my head to face Wes, but all I could really see was the side of his face as he tried to look at me.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said gently.

Wes was never gentle. Rarely had I heard him speak in a way that wasn’t a growl or condescending.

But here he was, speaking softly, slowly, encouragingly.

“We’re not going to die. I’m going to get us out of this, I promise. But you have to trust me, okay?”

My stomach twisted as warmth flashed through me.

Did I trust him? I didn’t know. It wasn’t like Wes and I were close or anything.

Sure, we had some awkward moments, and yes, Wes had saved my life before…

twice in fact. But trust was such a strong word, and our relationship was so incredibly complicated, made worse because Matias and I were in a weird place too.

My heart clenched, tightening my chest and creating a lump at the back of my throat.

Matias . Sorrow filled me…and anger. But I couldn’t do this right now.

I couldn’t unpack all that crap while I was dangling from a rope, clinging to another guy—who was freaking gorgeous, by the way—while being suspended thirty feet off the ground. Uh, no …I didn’t think so.

“Mara?”

My attention snapped back into place, bringing me into the here and now. And without even thinking about it, the words fell off my lips. “I trust you.”

Bang!

The sound scared me, causing me to loosen my grip. I screamed as I slid down Wes’s back by accident, and then snatched back on to him.

“Mara! Are you okay?”

I hung onto his waist, glancing up at the gaping hole in the building, and my jaw slackened.

Oh no.

My heart sputtered, because there, in the window, were three Telvian guards looking down at us. And they all had rifles aimed right at us.