Page 20 of The Vigilante's Lover

Thank God I got the shoes off Katya. I can’t wait to tell Jax how. He’ll be so proud of me, I think. Maybe it’ll prove I’m worthy of staying with him.

Jax drags me down the hall at a breakneck pace. We approach another door and he sticks a bit of tape to it, or something, then pounds on the steel when it refuses to open. I lift my bracelet and the panels smoothly slide apart.

He stares at me a moment, dumbfounded. “That shouldn’t work during a lockdown.”

I give a little shrug. “I’m special.”

Jax takes his tape again and we head down another hallway, this one unfinished with bare concrete.

We come to another door, older, with an actual handle. There is no scanning device above it. I shake my bracelet at it, but nothing happens.

Jax grins. “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

I have no idea what he means, but he turns and delivers three swift kicks to the handle. The metal groans and dents in.

He braces both hands on the lever and jerks it swiftly down. Something snaps inside, and the door opens.

“Low tech,” he says.

The lights are dim in this hall, and I can hear the drip of water.

“This way,” Jax says. We run along the concrete walls until we come to a rusting ladder. He glances down at my shoes. “Lucky break.”

I want to tell him luck had nothing to do with it, but he’s already halfway up the ladder. It disappears into a dark circular space. I’m hesitant to follow.

“Come on,” he calls down. “Don’t make me come for you.”

I hear a crashing sound down the hall and figure they’re on to our location even without their fancy gadgets. I stick my foot on the bottom rung and heave myself up.

The tunnel we’re climbing is dank and musty smelling. Jax is waiting a few feet up. “Don’t get us caught,” he hisses.

“Just cloak us or something,” I hiss back.

“We’re escaping the old-fashioned way,” he says and starts climbing again.

“So they took your toys,” I say.

“Something like that.”

Once we’ve climbed a little way, it’s fully dark. “How are you even going to see to get out of here?” I ask. I’m not loving trying to feel my way in the pitch black on a slippery ladder with a long fall if I miss.

My hand brushes against his shoe. He’s stopped.

“They can shoot up this ladder, you know,” I whisper.

“We’re at the hatch,” he says.

He moves around a little, then I see a strange rectangle of light with a few images on it. It’s his sticky tape he’s been putting on all the doors. I guess he got to keep one toy.

“Go back down about six rungs,” he says.

Going down is way worse than going up. I fish around with my foot to find each bar, terrified I will lose my grip.

“Any day now,” he says, his voice low and angry.

Above us, an electrical flash momentarily blinds me.

“What was that?” I squeal.

“Trying to break the latch seal,” he says. I hear his shoes clanging on the metal as he goes back to the top. The device still emits a bit of light, enough to see shadows.

Jax grunts, pushing up on the hatch. After a moment, a rim of light appears around the edge, then it widens.

I see sky.

“Oh, my God!” I say. “We’re out!”

“Take care,” Jax says. “They may be ready for us.”

I clutch at the ladder. I’m so glad I’m away from those people and back with Jax, I could cry.

Jax crouches on the ladder, then springs up and out in one powerful movement, like a lion.

I pause, waiting for the sounds of fighting or gunfire. Nothing.

He peers back down. “Come on. We’re clear, but they have our heat signatures again, so they’ll be here any minute.”

I hurry up the ladder. The feel of dirt and rocks beneath my fingers as I stumble out is amazing. We’re back in the woods. I want to kiss the ground.

“They can’t get a visual in the trees, so keep moving.” Jax grips my arm as we race ahead.

“But they can follow our heat,” I say.

Jax races toward a huge boulder. I don’t know why he’s dragging me that way. It’s wide open, without any trees to hide us.

“Not for long,” he says. Without warning, he scoops me into his arms and races across the stone surface.

Then we’re falling.

I clutch at him. The air is cold on my face as we hurtle down. I try to open my eyes and look at him. What has he done?

Then we’re underwater.

I break away, fighting for the surface in my heavy sweater dress. I’m dragged down by the weight of it. I haven’t been swimming in years, not since my parents died. After their boating accident, I didn’t go into the water anymore. I thrash around, panicked.

Strong arms come around me.

My face bobs above the water. Jax holds me against his chest, kicking us closer to the shore, working with the current.

“You should learn to swim,” he says.

“You should ask before throwing women off cliffs,” I snap back.

“We need to stay in the water as long as possible,” he says.

“Do you even know where the car is from here?” I ask.

“Of course I do.”

We float along another minute. I try to catch my breath. Above us, the sky is bright blue. Birds flit over the river, as if the people below them are simply going for a swim after a romantic picnic.

I’m freezing, my teeth chattering, and the dress is so heavy I almost want to take it off.

“Nearly there,” Jax says.

He guides us toward the riverbank.

I pull away from him. “I can swim,” I say. “Just not when I’m surprised.”

“Doesn’t matter now.”

I understand what he means when my feet hit bottom. The edge of the river is littered with leaves and bramble. I fight my way through it to get to solid ground.

Jax stops me with his hands.

“We should stay cold enough to escape detection as we get to the car, but they may have already confiscated it. Be prepared to be captured. I have no communication devices. We’re out here on our own skills.

” His blue-gray eyes pierce mine. “If you have any special training, now would be a good time to tell me what you can do.”

I don’t know what to say. “I can make sailing knots.”

His face flickers for a moment with some unreadable emotion. “Fine. We’ll see how it goes.”

He takes off at a loose run.

I grab the dripping base of my skirt and hitch it up over my knees so I can keep up. “We’ll see how it goes?” I ask. “That’s all you’ve got? The big tough Vigilante with all those fancy gadgets?”

“That’s all I’ve got,” he says, his voice cold.

I want to jump on his back and pummel him, but the situation is too dire. If they take us back to the silo, what then? Will I still be special? Or a fugitive like him? The crystals still tinkle on my wrist.

Jax hears them and halts. “Damn it,” he says. He snatches the bracelet and splits it apart. The crystals fall all over the leaves.

Of course. They can track me with it.

He takes off at a sprint now and it’s all I can do to keep him in sight ahead of me. When I think I can’t go another step, I see the car ahead. Thank God.

Except, the tire is still flat.

Jax stands by a tree off to one side.

I come up next to him, sucking in air. “They took your keys, didn’t they?”

“I’m not that foolish.” He emits a high-pitched whistle.

“Do they come when you call them?” I ask.

The key chain falls from the tree neatly into his hand. “Something like that,” he says. “Now get in.”

I wrench open the passenger door.

Jax jumps inside and has the car in motion before I can pull the handle closed. All his dash monitors are issuing warning beeps. The grid with the dots pulses red in every direction.

“Have they found us?” I ask.

“They’re about to.”

Jax slams on the gas and drives us out of the trees. We hit the gravel in a full skid. He yanks on the wheel and we head to the highway.

“They’re totally going to follow us,” I say.

“Yes, they are,” he says.

“But you have a plan?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says.

Now that we’re in the car, I feel a crazy sense of elation. I can’t help it, but let out a little squeal.

“What?” Jax asks.

“This is so exciting!”

I’ve never been so crazy hyper before. I don’t care anymore how I got into this world, that Jax tied me up and dragged me into it. It feels right. I belong here. This is the best I’ve ever felt in my life.

“They were going to send me home,” I tell Jax. “Like I could go back there after all this!”

Jax careens down the road. The red blips concentrate on a spot well behind us. I’m betting that’s where my bracelet is. I squeal again. We fooled them!

“Would you stop with that damn noise?” Jax growls.

“I’m too excited!” I punch him on the arm. “What are we doing next? Where are we going? Did you find out where Klaus is? I want to meet him!”

With that, Jax jerks off the road and we’re back in the woods again.