Bad Blood (Book 4 of The Warden series) (20 page)

She stood up and walked a little ways away just to keep the distance in case he didn’t fall for her bluff.

“Get up
,”
she said it herself, but she heard his voice instead.

The transportation through her timeline was starting to muddy. The sounds and sights weren’t matching up anymore. It took a few seconds for the backdrop of the time bubble to disappear and the elevator to come into view.

37

“Shit, I can’t take this anymore.” She sat back against the wall of the freight elevator. “Where are we?”

“The freight elevator,” he answered.

“
When
are we, you jackass?”

“Apparently going down to level 2, to be captured by Danato again,” Efrat sneered right back.

“Already, damn it.” She looked at the dial above the door. “Well at least this time I can get it right.”

“Get what right?” he asked suspiciously.

“Never mind, just don’t blow a fuse, okay. Stay calm. I don’t want to get fried in here. Just trust me.”

“Famous last words,” he mumbled.

The elevator doors
ponked
and everything happened much like before. Duke was polite in his requesting that they leave the elevator and Efrat reluctantly obliged. They stepped into the center of the surrounding guards and Duke asked for her weapon. “Ma’am,” Duke said with the same apologetic tone, “I’m gonna need you to slide that pistol over to me.”

“I understand.” Cori took the pistol from its holster and bent down to place it on the floor.

“What are you doing?” Efrat mumbled behind her.

“Saving lives,” she mumbled back before sliding the pistol over to Duke. He picked up the gun and placed it in his empty holster, while keeping his gun on her.

“Can you come toward me now?” Duke held out his hand to her. It was a strange gesture in light of the fact that she had just broken Efrat out of captivity and helped him flee. “Boss would be real unhappy if I let anything bad happen to you on my watch.” His eyes were pleading with her. She was again the jumper on the ledge of the building, but this time Duke was her soothing negotiator.

“Duke, this isn’t that simple. I’m not being held against my will. I’m holding him against his.”

“Cori!” Danato snapped. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Danato stormed in with Belus trailing behind. She was relieved to see him alive again.

“Danato…” She started to explain.

“We have her weapon, sir,” Duke reported.

“Good, grab her, and take Efrat back to the upper level.”

“What? No!” She objected as the guards started to come at her. “I told you they’ll kill him!”

She wanted to protest more, but an arm wrapped around her from behind. She struggled to pull away, but the grip tightened across her chest. It wasn’t until the sparking hand outstretched in front of her that she realized it wasn’t one of the guards man handling her.

“Stay back or I’ll kill her,” Efrat threatened. The men backed off instantly. Efrat whispered close to her ear. “I told you he wouldn’t believe you.”

“Shoot him now!” Danato yelled.

“Let me explain!” Cori pleaded to Danato.

“That time is over!” Danato yelled.

Efrat released an encompassing bolt. Unable to risk using the elemental weapons with her in the way, the blast resulted in three men being punished with electricity. She screamed and bit Efrat’s hand. He threw her to one side.

She felt a spike in electricity as the guards fired on him. A wave of tangible, but barely visible energy deflected the bullets. She felt her chest explode in pain and then she could barely breathe.

Time slowed and for a moment, she thought she might be transporting again, but the image before her stayed the same. The guards stopped shooting as they saw her double over. Efrat looked on her with a look of subdued shame. She was sure he was already trying to convince himself this was the way it had to be. No shame for veterans, only guilt.

He didn’t see Danato approach until it was too late. His face was red with anger, but his expression was blank like he was no longer present inside of himself. His newly gained pistol pressed into Efrat’s stomach and shot again and again until all that was left was an empty cartridge to click at an empty body on the floor.

Danato stared down at Efrat’s motionless body, and Cori felt her legs slip beneath her. She felt hands on her neck and back easing her down the rest of the way. Belus was beside her. She had saved him. Three or more guards were dead, Efrat was dead, and apparently so was she, if the look on Belus’s face was telling her the truth.

He was saying something to console her—something that anyone should say to anyone when they are about to die. She was sure if she died in his arms, he would find some way to blame himself. She was also sure Danato was not going to recover from this. She was mortified that she would be leaving Ethan a widower. She hated herself for that, as much as he would hate her for it.

“I killed you, Belus.” She finally said when she started to taste blood. “I went back and forth through time to save you, but now I’ve killed myself, and everyone. I’m sorry. I tried.”

He looked confused, but he pretended to understand. There was really no point in arguing with a dying woman. “You tried to change my future? Why would you do a stupid thing like that? You know that never works out.” He chuckled and she could hear a tremble in his voice that she knew would never translate to his face.

“I might still have a chance.”

“Okay, kid. You give it a go. But next time don’t get yourself killed over me. I’m an old man and nobody will miss me.”

“I’ll miss you!” She scolded croaking over the blood pooling in her throat. His face cringed and she could see two tears drizzle from his hard eyes as he touched her cheek. It was the rarest of visions, but she wasn’t sure it was worth dying for.

She thought her tears were blurring her vision, but it was the time jump. She had another chance to undo what she had tried to undo. If at first you don’t succeed…die trying.

38

Efrat’s face was probably the last image she wanted to see at that point, but he was at least alive to feel her wrath. With her gun in hand, she backhanded Efrat with more strength than she knew she possessed. Despite the rage-induced effort, he didn’t fly across the room as she had hoped. He did back away rubbing his cheek.

“You stupid son of a bitch!” She screamed as loud as she could letting her voice echo over the hollowness that surrounded the time bubble. “You killed me! How hard is it to just not kill me? Is it hardwired into your DNA!”

She was following him with stalking steps and he was obliging her wrathful fit by keeping his mouth shut. “Electrocution, strangulation, and finally shot dead! I am not your enemy! Can you understand that you arrogant ass? Just so you know, Danato unloaded an entire clip in you after you killed me. In case, you needed to know how that went on your end.”

His face took on some understanding of her words, at least the part where Danato killed him for killing her. “What happened?”

Cori shook her head. She still wasn’t sure how many factors she wanted to introduce into this mess. “I tried to save Belus, and in saving him, you started a gun fight, which killed me and a few others.”

“Sounds about right for me.”

“Don’t.” She held the gun in his face. “Don’t get clever with me, like death is no big deal. I was serious when I said my morning would go a hell of lot easier if I just killed you. Without me, you’re dead, no matter what. Either Danato kills you or the General does. So don’t mess with me. I will do what I can to keep you and Belus
and
me alive, but you will do what I say, when I say it, or this is over and I accept the repercussions for killing you in self-defense. Do you understand?”

She set her teeth and wondered if she could actually do it. Could she gun him down just to make this day go away? But would it go away. Even though the timeline was cinching in, she was still repeating and she didn’t really believe that if she made things right that everything would magically go back to normal. Something had propelled her to go in and out of her timeline, but whether it wore off, or stopped suddenly, she needed it to stop at some point. Preferably, right after she fixed this hellish mess Efrat had created.

Efrat must have sensed her internal debate because he took another step away from her as he nodded. “Okay, kitten, don’t get your morals in a twist over me. I’ll play along. I still think your nuts, but this might be entertaining. Just so you know though, my people upstairs won’t be asleep forever. If you can’t get me back upstairs in a couple of hours, your use to me will expire.”

“Don’t worry, you only have to do this morning once, it should be a quick ride for you. I on the other hand have to figure out how to save Belus from…his attacker, save you from Danato, and save me from you. Maybe I can…”

“What in tarnation is this?” Duke howled from the double doors as he pulled his weapon.

“Oh, crap,” Cori said exasperated. “I forgot about that.”

After several minutes of assuring Duke that she was okay, and several more spent convincing him that the military were not to be involved, she sent Duke on his way to tell Danato of their whereabouts. She couldn’t stop him from doing it, and since she already knew when and where Efrat gets taken, there wasn’t much point in trying to prevent the truth from getting out.

Her timeline was already hopelessly bent out of shape. Adding new dimensions to her past engagements with Efrat was pointless. Not to mention, she didn’t want to spend any more time in this morning with him than she had to.

She took Efrat down to the main level via the stairs. She caught a glimpse of Danato taking the elevator up with Duke through the window on the door to the stairwell. She waited until she was sure the doors were closed and headed down to the freight elevator.

With Efrat as a look out, she placed a first aid kit on elevator and sent it back up to the seducers level. They snuck through the cafeteria where she grabbed a grocery pad and a pen to write with. She wrote herself a sloppy note and took it into the prop room to place under the snow globe, so she would know that Efrat was supposed to be taken and not to stop it.

When she slipped back out into the hall, she looked over Efrat. She wondered how much she could truly trust him at this point. She should have known how much by the outcomes that have already passed for her, but one slip up could change so much.

“Listen to me,” she said as gingerly as possible. He stopped scanning the hall and brought his attention to her. “You must have made a good soldier, but this isn’t a war. Not with me. Not today anyhow. I know you don’t trust me, but at some point I think you will realize that I am one of the good guys, and not just because I wear the uniform.”

She pulled her gun and released the clip. She shoved the magazine at him. He stared at the proffered bullets. He must have thought it was a test. A test he wasn’t sure how to pass. “If you think I’m nuts now, things are about to get a hell of a lot crazier. You know more than I will in a few minutes. You will have to explain to me what’s happening to me. I’m not going to trust you either and you really need to take this because I
will
try to shoot you.”

He took the magazine and slipped it into his back pocket. “What should I tell you?”

“Just make sure I understand that you are going to help me with Belus, whether you believe it or not yourself, just say it to me. I already know you’ll do the right thing in the end.” She stared over his eyes. He shouldn’t have had blue eyes like that. He should have had cold hard dead brown eyes with no luster or highlights.

She wished she could tell him something that would make him understand how many lives were in her hands, and consequently his. Even if she could convey that, he wasn’t likely to care. His survival instincts were stuck in overdrive and probably had been for years. There was barely room for civility, let alone compassion.

“Try not to kill me, okay,” she said.

“I’ll do my best.”

“Cori.” She let her eyes fall away from his as she holstered her gun. “My name is Corinthia Ellen Reiger. In case you need my
full
attention.”

She paused, waiting for him to offer his full name, but he didn’t. He just stared at her with that same annoyed, cocky—
you are a bug to me—
look. At some point, she was going to have to stop having expectations for him. Simple social mores were clearly beyond his capability.

She stepped into the prop room and motioned for him to follow. “Alston.”

“What?”

“Lieutenant Sergeant Efrat Alston. In case you need
my
full attention.”

She nodded and headed into the prop room, she could already feel the time and space warp around her.