Page 53 of Assassin's Mark
Chapter Twenty-Five
I prowled the warehouse, forward and back, forward and back, trying to work off the nervous energy that buzzed under my skin. Why did I have to stay here? Leah got to leave. Remi and Eli got to leave. They’d promised me Levi would return, but until then I was stuck waiting. Someone else was in control of my life. Again.
That had gotten old several days ago. Now it flat-outpissed me off. If I hadn’t been ready to pound something, I might’ve laughed. I had been raised to glittering prophood—never worry my pretty little head, always look and feel and act perfect without making an actual decision about my life.Enough.When I finally made it out of this mess—and I’d suddenly decided I sure as hell was, because I wouldn’t let anyone win but me—the prince charming andhis king that I’d been raised to let run my life could go take a flying leap. I never, ever wanted to hand control of me over to anyone else. Never.
And that included Levi.
The warehouse seemed eerie with everyone gone. I’d been here alone before, but there was something in the air—or maybe just the knowledge that we weren’t coming back here—that made the emptiness heavy, a weight pressing downon me that I couldn’t ignore. Pacing didn’t help. I switched to lying on the couch, but that only reminded me of Remi, wondering if he was still stable. If Leah had found help yet. If she was holding her daughter in her arms.
Her daughter didn’t know how lucky she was.
I was still running the hamster wheel in my head when I returned from the bathroom. At least the toilet paper hadn’t been packed.Or the food. I was making a sandwich, plastic knife in hand to spread mayo on a slice of bread, when the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight on end.
What the hell?
Setting the bread on my paper plate, I glanced around the room. There was nothing off that I could see, certainly nothing that had changed in the past couple of minutes. I didn’t hear any—
Wait. I did hear something. I focusedon the far wall of the warehouse as my mouth went dry. The sound wasn’t recognizable at first, just a barely perceptible rumble, more of a vibration that I finally interpreted to be one of those heavy-duty diesel pickup trucks, the kind that took up more than their share of space in a parking lot. All along I’d figured the walls were soundproof given the lack of outside noise that filtered in,but apparently they weren’t a hundred percent, because as I crept closer, the vibration grew stronger. And stronger. When I reached the corner closest to the bedroom and placed my hand flat on the wall, I could feel it. Right outside.
Was it Levi?
No, he wouldn’t use a vehicle that loud, draw that much attention. Despite the absence of clues, my instincts told me something was wrong, very wrong.The unpleasant tingling running up my spine agreed.
Run. Now!
So I did.
I glanced around wildly, one question on my mind in that instant: Where can I hide? Where can I freaking hide? Everything was too open, the cabinets in the desk and kitchen too small. Still, I had to get away.
I was rounding the kitchen table when the wall exploded behind me.
One moment I was on my feet; the next, painskidded through my palms and knees as I landed on the concrete floor. Barked words and the pounding of booted feet sent a chill up my spine.Stand up, get away, Abby!But no, standing would only reveal where I was. Dust and smoke moved through the cavernous space like fog. Taking advantage of the cover, I crawled toward the back wall of the warehouse and Remi’s sickroom. The door hadn’t been closedsince he arrived, and I didn’t have the means to close it, but it was the farthest from whoever had just blasted their way in here. So that’s where I hid.
On the opposite side of Remi’s hospital bed, crouched behind one of the tables Leah had insisted on, I pressed my spine into the wall and blinked hard against the sting of dust and smoke in my eyes. Tears squeezed out to trace down my cheeks,and the sting got worse. Only when I raised my hand to investigate did I realize I was still gripping the plastic knife, slick with mayonnaise, like a weapon I could use to protect myself. A bubble of laughter rose to my lips, but I clamped them tight. One sound and hysteria would take over, I knew it would. I threw the knife away, watching it skid into the gloom as my tension grew.
“Find thegirl!”
Were they here for me? I opened my mouth to call out, but something in the words, the tone, held me back. Something not right. If they were rescuers thinking I was here with my kidnapper, why blow the wall and risk hurting me? Why wouldn’t their focus be on finding and securing Levi first?
Unless…
Through the dust and smoke filling the living area, I saw white shots of light, alien probespiercing the darkness. Flashlights. But I couldn’t see who held them. All I could do was scramble to push my back as far into the wall as I possibly could, and not let the whimper of fear knotting my throat past my lips.
The lights disappeared.
Minutes passed in silence. Then it came, a soft scrape—boots on concrete. Whoever the man was, he stepped carefully, quietly, hiding his approach, butthe dust was beginning to settle, a film on the floor that crunched beneath the rubber of his heels. I sucked in a breath, held it—and almost choked on the dirty air. Stinging tears trailed down my cheeks as I squeezed my eyelids shut. What should I do, surrender or stay hidden? But instinct pressed me closer and closer to the wall, harder and harder, as those booted feet came near.
“There youare.”
I forced my eyes open. A man I’d never seen before stood staring down at me, tension in every muscle of his body. He reminded me of Levi that way. Dressed all in black, his head covered in a helmet, he cradled what looked like a machine gun in his arms, bigger than anything I’d ever seen before. That gun was enough to make me hyperventilate. The smile that curved his thin lips made me shudder.
“Axe! Got her!”
Axe? Axe, the guy who sent someone after Remi in the hospital, Axe? Axe, the assassin hired by my father after Levi quit? The shudder became a full-body tremble that rattled my teeth.
“Bring her out.”
Rough hands gripped my hair and jerked me out of my hiding place. I stumbled along next to him as he dragged me into the living area. Four men stood there, all big, all in black,all with those machine guns in hand.
