Page 49 of The Flame

I checked my watch. “We’re against the clock here. Five minutes to get all of you outside. But there’s a three hour walk ahead of us. You need shoes.”

I dropped to my knees to look under the bed.

“Here,” Daniel said. He’d yanked open the cabinet beside the cot and was already sliding his feet into his shoes.

We were down to four minutes when we entered the room I’d bypassed. The man was fast asleep. While I fumbled with his cuffs, Daniel shook him by the shoulders.

His eyes opened heavily. “What?”

Daniel gave him another shake. “Come on, we’re leaving. There’s no time to explain.”

The man’s eyes fluttered closed again. Either the evening sedative was stronger, or maybe it was a cumulative effect, and clearly he hadn’t been smart enough to spit it out. Then again, he hadn’t known about our little rescue operation.

I had both cuffs unlocked now.

Daniel cursed beneath his breath, and slapped the man’s cheek. Hard. “Hey, Gerald!”

Gerald stirred and lifted his head from the pillow.

I checked my watch.

Daniel saw. “Go. I’ll put his shoes on.”

I left them to it and hurried out. This stupid countdown was wrecking me. We should have allocated ourselves more time, but that would have been a danger within itself. It only took one person to come looking for the night nurse, one unanswered intercom call, one random enquiry...

The next room was Otter—or more accurately, the Otter heir. I didn’t know his first name, and from what I’d seen, he’d shown all the signs of turning out as vile as his father.

He was the oldest of the heirs, with a full beard and winged brows that gave him a permanent scowl. Not that he needed the brows for that.

He snarled at me when I slipped inside his room. “You’ve got some nerve, showing your face here,girl. You promised to get us out of that cell.”

You can’t leave him behind.

You can’t leave him behind.

“I’m getting you out now.” I worked one cuff loose, my hands steady, the tremor gone. We were almost there. This was almost done. I moved to the other cuff. “Put your shoes on and meet us at the end of the corridor, by the emergency exit. You won’t be able to open it, but don’t even try, or you could set off the alarm and then it’s all over.”

I unsnapped the cuff and stalked out without a backward glance. The man made the hairs on my body stand on end.

Daniel joined me and a short while later, with thirty seconds to spare, everyone was assembled by the emergency exit. Gerald was propped up between Otter and another older heir, Mark. The fifth heir was a friend of Daniel’s, a cheeky-looking, dark-haired guy called Kemirick.

Thankfully only Gerald seemed totally out of it. I wondered if he’d been particularly difficult at some point and earned himself an extra sedative dose.

I held my security card ready. “As soon as I scan this, the fire alarm will sound, so we have to hurry. Roman’s right outside. Jump onto the back of his truck. No questions, no stalling, or you’ll get left behind. Understood?”

No one answered.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” I swiped my card. The scanner blinked from red to green, but no alarm sounded. That’s not the way Axel had explained it.

My mouth went dry.

“What’s the hold up?” Otter, of course.

Ignoring him, I depressed the bar and shoved, and finally that high-pitched siren I’d been expecting pierced the night.

Tires squealed as Roman sped out from within the trees. He spun the wheel, all but sliding up alongside us.

“Everyone on the back,” Daniel barked out.

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