Page 71 of The Flame

“Don’t even think about it,” Daniel barked out, advancing one slow step at a time, his arm stretched taut with the gun aimed, his finger on the trigger.

“I’m not doing anything,” the guard said carefully.

It was a lie. He was looking Daniel in the eye, but that hand was still unclipping the iComm and—

“No!” I screamed, slamming my way out of the car and charging around the hood. The guard’s gaze snapped to me, his hand momentarily frozen at his belt, and then he slapped at his neck and his eyes widened in shock. Daniel had used the distraction to fire the dart, a direct hit just below the man’s ear.

My knees wobbled with relief.

The guard’s legs buckled out from under him, then the rest of him collapsed in slow motion. It actually looked kind of funny, but then he was sprawled on the ground, unconscious, and I realized we hadn’t solved anything.

“We can’t just leave him here,” I said. “They’ll find him and know something’s up.”

“We can’t just leave himanywhere.” Lisa nudged the man’s thigh with the toe of her boot. “He’s seen us. As long as he’s alive, he’s a threat.”

Daniel stood where he was, his arm slack at his side, the gun dangling from his fingertips. “What are you suggesting?”

I stared at her in horror. “We arenotkilling him.”

She rolled her eyes from Daniel to me. “I’m not suggesting anything, I’m just stating facts.”

Jessie was out of the car, stumbling toward us. “Is he dead?”

“Unconscious.” I turned to her, and noticed the sun striking off the windshield. The reflecting glare made it impossible to see inside the car from this angle. “Jessie, he didn’t see you. You should go. Get out of here, before anyone else comes along.”

“And leave you in this mess?” Her chin nudged high with a pained expression. “Not happening.”

I didn’t need to have this argument now. The guard would be out for at least an hour. I turned back to our immediate problem. “We’ll have to take him with us.”

“And then what?” Lisa demanded.

“I don’t know!” My voice pitched. I pulled it back. “We’ll figure it out, but he’s probably not out here alone. The longer we stand here…”

I didn’t need to finish that.

We couldn’t put the body in the trunk—how was that even a sentence in my head?—because it was full to the brim with everything we’d cleared from the cabin. With all four of us grabbing a part of the guard, we managed to haul him off the ground and into the car, propped up between Daniel and me in the back.

22

We made it to Daniel’s new build in Parklands with only one scare, a vehicle approaching head-on. Daniel and I ducked down. There wasn’t time to do anything with the comatose guard so he stayed propped up.

My breath caught and didn’t release until Lisa gave us the all-clear. The car passed without slowing down. Daniel had loaded another dart into the gun, prepared for all eventualities, but seriously, we didn’t have space in the car to collect any more bodies.

Once we were off the main road, we all breathed a little easier. As with most estates in Parklands, trees lined the back road and surrounded the ornate house up ahead with its white cornices and pillars. From the approach, it didn’t look incomplete, it looked grand and imposing. As we neared, I could just make out the jagged shapes of exposed steel beams on one side.

“Go around to the left,” Daniel instructed. “We’ll use the courtyard entrance.”

Although winter had thinned the camouflage, it still felt pretty secluded as we pulled up around the side of the building. The closest residence was his parents’ old home across the field, and that sat empty now.

Daniel poked the guard to make sure he wasn’t on the brink of coming around. “Give me a minute. I have to open the door to the basement from inside, but we can take him straight through.”

Either he’d stashed a key somewhere—like his mother—or maybe they hadn’t bothered locking doors, what with the roof missing. Or maybe he smashed a window. No one asked when he returned a short while later. We were too busy huffing and puffing as we maneuvered the dead weight of the guard out of the car and carried him down the outside steps to the basement.

Inside, the walls were unpainted, the only window was a narrow strip of glass above eye level and I swear it was ten degrees colder than outside. Some empty paint tins, a folded tarp, and cardboard boxes littered one shadowy corner.

There was a large storage closet that also housed the electrics board and Daniel insisted we put the guard in there. The door was sturdy and locked, and there were no windows.

“We should bind his ankles and wrists,” Daniel said. “And gag his mouth.”

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