Page 114 of The Stolen Princess
“I couldn’t get everyone out and take him down.”
Myka looked around. The commander had to be around there somewhere. She walked toward the side garage where the transporters were held, and just as she had predicted, Stoddard was thirty feet away, opening the door to the driver’s side of one of the transporters. Doctor Von and the nurse from the basement held a woman’s body in between them, clumsily trying to fit her into the back of the transporter. The woman’s limbs were limp, and tubes ran from her arms to the IV pole behind them. She wore a gray medical gown, and her long black hair covered her face, making it difficult for Myka to get a good look at her, but something about the woman’s jet-black hair felt familiar. The color and the soft way it hung almost reminded her of her mother.
“Doctor Von, stop!” she yelled in desperation.
The doctor startled and looked up with big eyes.
“Let’s go,” Stoddard shouted, ducking into the vehicle and slamming the door. The transporter turned on as the doctor and the nurse scrambled inside the back seat. Myka ran after them, but Arco grabbed her by the waist.
“Myka, we have to go!” he said, pulling her back.
She kicked out her legs, trying to break out of his grasp before Stoddard got away. “No! We have to go after them!”
“We’re out of time!”
“He’s getting away!”
The transporter accelerated out of the garage, speeding down the drive of Tolsten House.
“No!” she shouted, turning to Arco, pounding on his chest with her fists. “He has my mother!” she cried. “He has my mother.”
Arco hugged her close.“That wasn’t your mother, Myka.”
She pulled back, pointing to the back of the transporter. “They have her! I saw her!”
“Myka!” Arco shook her shoulders. “That’s impossible. Your mother is dead.”
She shook her head. “What if she’s not?”
“She is.” He patted her hair. “She is.”
Myka’s fists slid across his chest.
It was as if she had lost her mother all over again, like when she was eight years old, and the wind was blowing her mother farther and farther away.
Tears streamed down her face, and Arco’s words turned gentle. “We need to go.”
She nodded, stumbling toward the West Woods like everyone else.
Stoddard was gone. There was nothing she could do now but run to safety.
33
Drake
The operatives were almost to the city of Denton. It would be nice if they could go straight to Tolsten House, but without Arco’s help, they didn’t have a way to get inside. Instead, they needed to travel to the inn in Denton and send a message to Arco through their contact. It was late, and most people at the inn would probably be asleep. The message might have to wait until the morning.
Lights beamed behind them, and they turned over their shoulders, looking directly into the headlights of a transporter.
“Look out!” Drake said as he veered his PT off the dirt road. A black transporter charged toward them, and dust flew in the air as the transporter sped past.
“What kind of lunatic would drive that fast at this hour?” Grady asked.
A loud boom lit up the sky, and a whooshing sound blew past the men, tipping them and their machines to the side. An orange fireball exploded into the air above Tolsten House, then flared into a thick cloud of black smoke. Drake shook his head, trying to get the ringing sound out of his ears, when another explosion went off, then another. Heavy smoke filled his eyes and nostrils as he looked back at the blazing scene a mile away.
Myka!
A wave of nausea churned in his stomach. Drake wasn’t sure what had happened, but he knew one thing, Myka and the weapons were involved. His head shot back to the fading lights of the transporter speeding away. Only guilty people sped away from an explosion like that. Was Myka guilty? He had spent the entire ride to Denton thinking she was innocent. Now he didn’t know.
