Page 128 of One Secret

I freeze in place, Darcy hanging off my arms.

Darcy doesn't hesitate. Quick as a flash, she hooks a leg around the two halves of her skirt and crunches upwards, taking the fabric and her feet out of view. Then she holds.

And we wait.

I can see the edge of Rocco's profile as he stands half in, half out on the little balcony. His head is lowered, his eyes on his phone. In his other hand is an automatic revolver.

Don't turn around. Just don't turn around...

I keep holding my breath, even as my lungs start to spasm. The tug of Darcy's weight has the skin around my wrists screaming. My shoulders are on fire. The railing digs in against my thighs.

All I can see is the rushing inky waves miles below and their roaring foam as they crash on the rocks.

Don't let go, I chant to myself. Don't let go, you bastard.

Everything precious to me is hanging a hundred meters above jagged rocks, swinging bare inches from an enemy's bullet. Sweat is threatening my grip, turning it slick. The ocean breeze sends a sharp salty tang into my nose and up behind my eyes, making them water. My shoulders have locked, unable to move.

Just. Don't. Let. Go.

'What the fuck are you doing?' Rocco accuses and, for a second, I think that's it. We're dead and gone.

But Rocco is yelling at someone inside.

'Get out, you morons,' he growls, stepping back into the bedroom. 'We need to search the hotel. Those spying fuckers don't know we're on to them. But that won't last…'

I finally exhale. My grip cries out for release but I hold on tighter, fighting the ache in my knuckles.

Darcy looks up at me and, for a second, I'm not sure I can bring her up. My back has locked, my muscles frozen. Horror rips through me, followed by the unfamiliar sensation of panic.

Darcy reads something in my face and, with some strange intuition, begins to swing her legs back and forth. I suppress a moan as the pendulum motion rocks my arms in their sockets and brings blood flow back into my limbs.

The next second, I have her up and over the railing. The voices in our room fade as Rocco frog-marches his bozo cohorts out into the hallway.

'Well,' Darcy pants, shaking her leg free from her dress. 'That was bracing.'

That was terrifying, I admit only to myself. To get my head back in the game, I center myself on the doors in front of us and quickly jimmy the lock.

Luckily, there's no one inside. Just a lot of hair products, make-up, and a suitcase that looks to have vomited half its contents across the room. The air is thick with hair spray and something musky-sweet.

'You know...' Darcy says. Her cheeks are flushed with exertion and her eyes bright with adrenaline. She plants her hands on her hips as her breathing evens out. 'If you'd let me have a gun, I could have shot Rocco instead of just hanging there.'

I hurry across the room to check the peephole into the corridor. We're now a level above Felix's goons but that doesn't mean there aren't more nearby.

'We have enough variables to manage right now without you having a gun,' I warn her.

'Well, actually—'

'Shh,' I throw out a hand to keep her quiet, twisting to see further through the spyhole. 'Okay, it's clear. Come help me shove this thing.'

I can't pick a card-reader lock, so breaking out of this room is about to be a whole lot louder than breaking in.

'I'm serious, Cyrus,' Darcy complains in a whisper, dutifully bracing her shoulder up beside mine. 'You need to let me have something to—'

'Now!' I bark and, in perfect synchrony, we both haul back and then throw our weight into the door.

The hinge bends, the door cracks, and we have enough space to shimmy out into the hallway. Just.

Darcy dusts herself down, eyeing the broken door with a twist of her lips.

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