Page 93 of Amethyst Flame
“Stairs?” I asked Oluwa.
“This way,” she said.
We ran to the end of the corridor where an unobtrusive door required an access card. Oluwa swiped, the lock disengaged, and I pelted up the stairs—Oluwa huffing behind me—one, two, three fucking floors to the ground level. My legs burned. My heart heaved. And I was wheezing for breath. Ugh, fine, I needed to get in shape.
We exited the stairwell into mayhem. More of Drew’s clever work, no doubt.
In the center of the pristine lobby, fountain wall shushing gently with water, armed men surrounded Will, who clutched wormy Adley to him for dear life. These guys weren’t like mall security either; they had the hardened bodies and granite jaws of former soldiers. Maybe they were Adley’s personal bodyguards and kept an eye on everyone from god-like seats in security rooms…waiting for a moment like this.
From where Oluwa and I stood, I heard one say, “I’ve got a shot.”
No no no no—
He must’ve gotten the okay because his finger twitched on the trigger.
I sent [grab] after the bullet—a violet rush of energy seared through the air—and caught the missile six inches from Will’s forehead.
Good aim, but that shot would never have saved Adley. Only Will could do that now.
I made a [fist] with my hand, and the bullet crushed and fell in a hiss of dust to the floor.
Only to notice that a few of the security guys now aimed their weapons at me. Me, the only one who was thinking here.
“I can take her down,” one dude said, offering to…off me.
Nice, real nice.
“No!” Adley gasped. “I need her.”
Yeah, she did. I was the only one who could save her. This could’ve all gone so differently.
Will glanced toward the bright light of day streaming in from the sliding doors and then back to me. “I’ll be in touch with my demands.”
Did he think he was just going to drive away? There’d be a pursuit. Obviously.
“You do that,” I told him. He held both our lives in his arms.
Will heaved Adley out the door, into the parking lot—some woman arriving late to work dropped her coffee and ran to hide behind one of the cars—and to his white Tesla. He opened the driver’s side and made Adley crawl across to the front passenger’s seat.
The security guys were strategizing—mostly I ignored them—but a couple headed to the elevator to go to the roof and use the helicopter. A few others were scattering to vehicles. Two came to stand at my shoulders—to take me away? Ha. Adley needed me. She’d said so herself.
I moseyed to the sliding glass door to watch the Tesla back out. As it started forward, it shimmered…and then disappeared. The whole damn car and its occupants. Cloaking again! It made me damn jealous. Fucking cool magic.
I turned to the security guy nearest me. “Yeah, good luck following him.”
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Disappearinga whole vehicle while keeping control of Ruskinandthe Tesla in morning rush hour traffic… That was going to take a shit-ton of energy.
Would I have that much power when my hive avalanched?
I swallowed hard, still staring out the window. At this point, maybe Adley’s best bet would be for Will to burn out and crash before he got too far.
“We can’t just wait around,” Oluwa said. “What else can we do?”
I shot her a sidelong glance. I hadn’t realized I was muttering aloud. She and Drew were both looking at me. “Since when are ‘we’ doing anything? This is all your mess.”
I waved a big gesture that took in all of Banta and everything else, and the security goons took a unified step back to aim their guns at me.
