Page 69

Y ellow…yellow…red.

What? I scanned the card again.

Yellow…yellow…red.

This couldn’t be happening. I scanned it again, and again, and again. Each time, the device flashed its lights at me. Each time, those same little lights glowed.

Yellow…yellow…red.

I knew it was stupid. I knew that no matter how many times I shoved that card in front of the device, I was going to get the same result.

Those two little yellow lights and then the glaring red one.

But I didn’t care. I just kept scanning the same stupid card.

And when the realization hit me that the card was never going to work, I reached for the other ones I had already tried and began flashing those at the key fob.

But no matter how many times I tried, and no matter which card I shoved in the face of that effing device, all I kept seeing was yellow… yellow…red .

And then I broke. The tears I had been holding since we left the base were finally released.

Because here I was, only yards away from my brother, with nothing but a door between us.

I had flown across the nation, ridden a measly boat over threatening seas, climbed 250 feet up the side of a sheer cliff, and infiltrated the most notorious prison in Telvia, only to be stopped by a damn fucking door!

I slammed my fist into it with a scream, feeling pain bolt up my wrist, arm, and into my shoulder. But I didn’t care.

“ Mara ,” someone whisper-yelled at me.

I slammed my fist into the door again, relishing the way the pain traveled up my arm.

And then again…and again. And no one dared to stop me.

No one dared to tell me no. And I punched that fucking door as the tears streamed down my face until my knuckles split open, and that stupid white door was defaced with the red smear of my blood.

Because I had come so far, sacrificed so much, only to be stopped by one single door.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, firm and heavy, but gentle.

I didn’t know who it was, and I didn’t care.

The simple gesture caused a sigh of despair to leave me as my shoulders slumped and defeat washed over me.

I closed my eyes, feeling the sorrow building within, because I was out of ideas.

I had dragged all these people here, only to be left empty-handed.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. And it was true.

I was sorry. I was sorry for the sacrifice I made them all take.

The risks they all took to rescue a man they didn’t want saved.

I was sorry because there was no guarantee we were going to make it out of here alive.

And in the end, we failed. We failed for nothing .

I felt a few more tears slip down my cheeks.

“We failed…” the words fell from my lips in a whisper.

I felt the weight of those two words, felt as they sunk deep into my soul, weighing me down.

“Not today, we’re not,” I heard Wes say.

I looked up and watched as he marched back into the observation room.

We all followed him, but only just stepped inside when Wes lifted one of the chairs and sent it flying into the window.

The thing exploded, shattering into a million shards of glass that scattered everywhere. And suddenly, we were back in the game.

“Shit!” Blondie shouted. “If they didn’t hear us before, they definitely heard us now.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Wes said.

“We better move it,” Matias chimed in.

But his words were wasted on me because I was already climbing through the window, hearing the crunch of the glass beneath my booted foot as I stepped onto the pristine white floor.

And I didn’t wait for anyone. I was across the room, coming to my brother’s left side, and looking at his gaunt face, my hand cupping his cheek.

His eyes were closed, and I held my breath as I called to him.

“Jacob,” I whispered. “Jacob, wake up. You’ve got to get up.” I placed my hand on his chest and began to shake him. “Jacob, please!”

“He’s in stasis,” Wes said.

I turned to find him standing at the foot of the table, holding up a tablet he found. “What? What do you mean—”

“He’s in some sort of coma,” he clarified. Matias came up to stand next to him, looking at the tablet. I noticed a slight shift in Wes’s posture, tensing of his muscles.

“It says that he’s been like this since the procedure earlier today.”

I turned back to look at Jacob and took a moment to really see him.

His head was wrapped in white gauze, his blond hair visible from the top, discolored with dry blood.

His face looked ashen, like he had been left without his nourishment pills for days.

I noticed old, yellowed bruising on his cheek, and noticed how much thinner he appeared under the fabric of the gray scrubs he was wearing.

“Uh, not to alarm anyone,” Harper interjected, “but we’ve got to get the hell out of here ASAP. And that man isn’t going anywhere. There’s no way we can carry him, and there’s sure as hell no way we’re going to get him back down the cliff.”

I turned on Jim. “We’re not leaving him! Look at him! Look at what they’re doing to him!”

“I am looking at him, Mara,” he shouted back at me. “He’s in a coma. There’s no way we’re getting him out of here! Not like this.”

“Move aside, folks,” Blondie said as she shoved past me, a nasty-looking syringe in her hand.

“Whoa! What is that? Where did you even find that thing?” Jim shot out.

“Turns out, surgical rooms like this have cabinets with all the best drugs in them,” she answered slyly with a toss of her head.

I followed her gaze to the corner of the room and noticed the tall, white cabinet, doors wide open, filled with bottles and vials.

I turned back to face her only to see her hand high in the air above her head.

“Wait! What are you doing?” My question came out fast, but not as fast as Calista’s hand. I watched with mortal dread as the syringe in her clenched fist came slamming down…right into Jacob’s heart.

That’s when I screamed.