Bad Blood (Book 4 of The Warden series) (11 page)

Danato and Belus came over and circled to his front. He looked over both of them. “Cavalry’s here.” Efrat glanced back at her. “Is this your new sheriff?” he asked Danato. “I thought Ethan was the big man behind the big man?”

“He is,” Danato said. “Cori’s his second.”

“Ahh,” Cori could see his smile tense the muscles in his cheek. “The little woman, behind the little man.”

Belus didn’t exhibit any ire for the statement. He was as much an observer at this point as anything. She wondered if she should make it a point to observe the way he handled himself in these situations. Being second to anyone was not her strong suit, but she might as well do it right.

“How long have you been jumping floors?” Danato asked.

“How long have I been here?” Efrat asked taciturn. “I like to visit the time bubble. Five minutes away here and couple hours there is just the break I need.”

“How do you get back out?” Danato asked.

“A bolt into the sky usually pops me right back out.”

“You…” Danato took a step at him like he wanted to punch him.

“Have you spoken with Cori before this moment?” Belus interjected dispelling Danato’s irritation.

“We did have the briefest of conversations during our battle last year.” He looked back at her and winked. “Good times.”

“We haven’t spoken today, though?” she asked while he had his attention on her.

“Aside from this? No. Why?” He looked back to Belus. “Are you referring to our meeting on the transmorph level several weeks ago? I wasn’t sure you remembered that.” He looked back to her.

“Vaguely, but no, that’s not what we are referring to.” Cori pulled her gun back and distanced herself from him as she circled around to stand next to Belus. “Now what?” She mumbled as she looked down at him.

“We take him back,” Belus said.

“No!” Efrat stood up and Cori realigned her gun with his heart.

“Get down!”

“Danato,” Efrat turned his attention to him, “Let me go back on my own. If they find out I’ve been leaving whenever I want, they’ll kill me.”

“I doubt that.” Danato rolled his eyes.

“You doubt it because that’s what keeps your conscience clear. They will be out for another two hours if they aren’t disturbed. Take me back, but don’t inform them.”

“And what is to stop you from roaming the halls?” Danato scolded.

Efrat paused. He had no answer for that. “They will kill me.”

“Two hours?” Cori hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Efrat and Danato looked at her. “Nothing I just…never mind.”

“Cori,” Danato snapped. “Secure your prisoner. We’re going to the top.”

“Yes, sir.” Cori repositioned behind Efrat. “Hands clasped in front.” With his hands secured in front of him, she prodded him with the gun. “Move.”

Cori remembered leaving the room and entering the elevator, but she didn’t remember anything that would have prompted Efrat to lift her into his arms, let alone be running frantically through the corridors of the transmorph level.

21

Cori whimpered as she felt the pain in her right arm. “What did you do to me, you bastard?” She turned to face Efrat. He was doing his best to run while cradled her.

“You stupid girl! You did this to yourself!” He hissed quietly. She could feel static shocks hitting her where his hands were touching her leg and side, but the pain was minimal compared to her wound.

“What?”

“You thought you were saving me,” he grumbled.

“What?” she asked again because he still wasn’t making sense.

“Stop saying
what
and keep your voice down. They will be looking for us. We need a place to hide.”

“Why?”

“Because you just broke me out of captivity right under Danato’s nose.”

“I did?” Cori wasn’t sure why she would have done that to Danato, and more importantly, why she would have done that for Efrat. “Why?”

“Because you knew they would kill me, if the military found out I was gone.”

Cori wasn’t sure she had any sympathy for Efrat, but she did have a general reverence for life. She didn’t like killing, even when it was self-defense. “The freight elevator,” she mumbled feeling obligated to stick with the path of events, even though it didn’t currently make any sense to her. “No one ever uses it. It parks on the seducers level in the north west corner.”

“One level up. Stairs, great.”

Cori noticed he was panting. He wasn’t prepared to carry her up a flight of stairs. No matter what his arm strength was, carrying another human being up a flight of stairs was no less than a 2K run. “I can walk. It’s just my arm.”

“I’m more concerned about blood loss.”

“I’ll make do. You can always ditch me if I get bad enough. Danato might be pissed at me, but he isn’t going to let me die.”

“Okay.” Efrat put her down and jogged ahead to check the stairwell. As she caught up, he whispered. “It’s clear for now. We have to go fast and quiet.”

She nodded and he darted up the stairs as quiet as a mouse. She bolstered her strength and pinched off the wound on her arm before beginning her ascent. She made it up to the seducers level where Efrat was surveying the floor through the rectangle window in the door.

Cori saw a drop of her blood hit the floor. She wiped it away with her shoe, just in case they could track her. Another one dropped in its place. Before she could bend down to wipe it away, Efrat wrapped his blue flannel over shirt around her bicep to bandage the bleeding. He wiped up the extra drop and pulled her along by the tight grasp on her arm.

Sweeping along the west wall, they found the obscure freight elevator that they only used to transport big equipment and big prisoners like the rock man. Efrat pulled the doors open to avoid alerting anyone to its use and pulled her in behind him.

After the doors shut, he sent a bolt into the controls to shut down its function. Cori shielded herself from the sparks. The lights, though too dim to be considered illuminating, went out. He reached up and pumped the metal frames holding the fluorescent lights with energy.

Cori watched in fascination as he charged the metal, until the lights flickered on as if he had just put batteries into the devices. There were probably a dozen reasons that shouldn’t have worked, but she imagined that his electric blue energy didn’t abide by all the same rules as natural electricity. He saw her watching him and gave her a look of loathing that she didn’t understand, nor cared to.

“You I take it,” Efrat said pointing to a first aid kit lying in the corner of the elevator.

Cori looked at the conveniently placed red-cross box. She shrugged. “I guess, I’m so freaking far behind on this day, it’s not even funny.”

Efrat unwrapped her arm and checked the front and back of it. “Bullets still in. We should get it out. Lie down.”

Cori found what looked to be a semi clean spot for emergency surgery and laid down. Efrat grabbed the first aid box and knelt beside her. He neglected the contents and reached to his waist unbuckling his belt.

Without a second thought, Cori crab walked painfully away from him and cowered in the corner. She was suddenly aware that she was trapped in a small space with a prisoner who hadn’t been alone with a woman in who knows how long. She scrambled for her gun and checked for the clip. It was in place.

Efrat was staring at her with a hint of his brash smile as she brought her gun in line with his heart. His hands where paused on his belt. “What’s the matter kitten? Boys make you shy?” A snap of static electricity, prompted him to pull the belt out of his jean loops. He held the oval metal buckle in his hand. Blue webs of energy danced around the surface. His hand vibrated until he released the buckle. The metal oval flung across the elevator and stuck to the wall.

Cori looked back between the belt and Efrat. “Electromagnetic?”

“Good, you get an “A” in science for the day, now get over here.” Efrat removed the buckle from the wall while Cori holstered her gun and laid back down beside him. “This is going to hurt,” he informed her without any note of sympathy in his voice.

“I know,” She said trying to sound tough.

“That’s what they all say.” Efrat muttered before clamping his hand over her mouth. She again felt the tiny stabs of electricity from his hands. “Here we go.” He placed the metal near her wound and recharged the magnetism. She could feel the bullet pulling out like a fingernail being ripped off her finger, but she held her tongue. It may have only been motivated by his arrogance in assuming she couldn’t handle it, but she also knew how important it was that they stay hidden.

She didn’t entirely understand why she had broken him out, but she could only assume she was concerned that Belus might not survive his gunshot wound without his help. She was apparently willing to do anything to make sure he was around to save him.

Once she was free of the bullet, he cauterized the wound with his electricity and put a few feeble stitches in, to close the wound. “Those are the shittiest stitches ever, Efrat,” she said it partially as a joke, but he took a good deal of pleasure in stabbing her with a needle full of morphine after that. “Why didn’t you put that in before?” She winced.

“I didn’t see it,” he murmured, sounding almost guilty about it.

She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. She could feel the morphine miraculously remove her pain.

“Now what?” Cori asked.

“We take him back up to General Clark and report that he has been getting out of the level,” Danato said. She opened her eyes, and saw him looking at from his position beside her in the elevator.

22

Cori felt her arm, but the wound was gone. Efrat was ahead of her beside Belus. They were riding up the east elevator to the top floor. She was thankful that she hadn’t returned to 8:05 again, but there was new confusion being placed at her feet.

Cori wasn’t sure what to do about the new information she had. Clearly, at one point in this day, she was willing to break Efrat free to help Belus.
Was she supposed to save Efrat now? Was it really necessary? Couldn’t she simply tell Danato what was going on? Where was the right and wrong in this situation?

She was pretty sure, abstaining from the truth counted as lying in this case, but she didn’t exactly want to admit to betraying Danato before she had actually done it. “What then?” she asked as casually as possible. “Do they have a punishment for this type of thing?”

“They will have to find a new way for him to stay contained,” Danato answered.

“Maybe we could just slip him back in and post our own guards until they wake up.”

“To what end, Cori?” Danato turned to her and gave her the darkened gaze of a man not willing to negotiate his orders.

She looked away bolstering her strength for her duty. She could see Efrat’s ear had been tipped to listen to her conversation, but nothing she was saying was making a difference and so far, she saw no motivation for the heroics that had apparently gotten her shot.

The elevator ride was quick, as it always tended to be when Danato was a passenger. It seemed even the elevator knew better than to waste his time. Cori pushed Efrat out and Danato punched in a code to open the secondary door to elemental area. She steered Efrat into the big open space behind it.

Despite the fact that she had fought the elementals, she had never technically seen their cells. Unlike some of the other floors that allowed a little hint of sunshine through tiny crevice windows, this floor had none. An observatory lookout station sat on the wall adjacent to the corridor of a half dozen large cells. The walls were scorched and metal frames of the cells melted from the mini battles that took place any time someone got a bee in their bonnet.

Access out of the singular section was obstructed by brick walls. The two blocks of expansive space beyond the one section was unnecessary for four prisoners, and probably a nuisance as well. Despite that though, they were still the only ones renting the top floor.

The half dozen plus military men inside the glass windowed observatory that had buttons and doo-hickies in spades, were unconscious. The men stationed above the observatory in the lookout, were also unconscious.

“How do they not know you left?” Cori whispered behind Efrat. “Don’t they realize something is up when they wake up?”

“Hirem and the others attack once I am back. They are too busy defending themselves to realize the time lapse. Usually, I leave for a half hour or so. No one ever misses that amount of time,” Efrat said. “They might suspect, but since there aren’t any reports of us leaving, they don’t suspect anything.”

Danato punched the code in for the observatory door and opened it. He shook a man awake inside and started explaining the situation to him. Cori could see movement to her right. Hirem, Garr, and Remi emerged from their cells watching the unfolding situation.

“Will they attack?” Cori asked taking a step closer to Efrat in case she needed a human shield.