Cloak and Dagger (The IMA Book 1) (23 page)

“
Our execution is scheduled for around ten am. Twelve hours from now.”

“
That's only half a day,” she said, sounding stunned. “I didn't think…”

I didn't give her a chance to finish the thought. I was being manipulative, using tactics that I'd learned in my second year of training. I didn't want to die; I suspected that, deep down, she didn't, either. “If you want to die, you won't have to wait that long. But if you want to be screwed that badly, I can think of a much pleasanter way to do it — you could ask
me
.”

I could feel her eyes on me as I rolled back to face the wall.

I allowed myself the privilege of a smile, knowing she was hooked.

Christina:

10 hours left.

B returned to the cell, accompanied by one of the guards. A Spanish-speaking one, this time.
“¿Está durmiendo?”
she asked, glancing at Michael.

“
Pienso
.
”
I honestly couldn't tell.

The guard relaxed a hair. B smiled.
“¿Hay algo que tú necesitas?”

“
Una horquilla, por favor
.
”
I held up a strand of my frizzy hair.

The guard looked like he thought I was a very vain and foolish girl. B reached into her red leather purse and handed me several of her own tortoise-shell bobby pins. I made a show of smiling and using one to pin back my bangs. I was so afraid the guard would see through my display and confiscate the pins, but he turned on his heel with B trotting after him as obediently as a dog. Neither looked back.

“
Michael?” I turned towards him, eager to spread the news of my victory. Even to him. He still hadn't opened his eyes. He really was asleep? I grabbed his shoulder and shook him gently, screaming in surprise when he kicked my feet from beneath me.

In the next instant, he was sitting upright, breathing hard, and looking down at me with eyes that looked too white in the dimness. “Jesus. I could have killed you. What the fuck were you doing, getting so close to me?”

“
You weren't answering,” I protested, still scared. What Michael had said before about the uselessness of his hands being a minor setback no longer seemed like an idle threat. The kick had heart, its delivery subconscious. I had no doubt he could do much worse.

Michael groaned and flopped back against the mattress. “What did you want?”

“
I got the pins.”

He didn't congratulate me or even thank me. “Are there any guards outside the cells?”

I checked. “Six.”

“
Good. Being in large numbers makes them overconfident. How many are actually watching us?”

I looked again. “Two.”

Michael released his breath through his teeth. “All right. Get on top of me.”

“
Um…what?”

“
I need you to unlock my cuffs. You won't be able to do it from the floor.”

“
You didn't tell me I'd have to do that!”

“
What, did you think they would just magically unlock themselves?”

You're doing this to save your life
.
You're doing this to save your parents' lives
.

I knelt astride him, feeling incredibly uncomfortable. “
There
. Now what?”

“
Reach around me. Can you feel the handcuffs?”

“
No.”

“
Then you have to move closer.” He leaned up a little, as if doing a sit-up, causing the muscles in his abdomen to flex. “That should help.”

I think I'm close enough
. I bowed my head so I wouldn't have to look at him. I thought I could feel the hole in the handcuffs where the key was supposed to go. I bit my lip and fumbled with the pin in my sweaty fingers — and Michael leaned up to kiss me.

I pulled back with a cry, snapping the pin. The two halves fell to the floor with a
tink
. “Nice,” he said flatly. “You broke the goddamn pin.”

I covered my mouth with a shaking hand. “You — ”

“
If I fooled
you
, I must have been fooling the guards, who, I might add, are now
all
watching us — thanks to you.”

“
It wasn't my fault! You tried to…and the guards — you might have warned me!”

“
You've been warned. Was that the only hair pin?”

“
I have extras.” I slipped the one from my hair.

“
This will be more difficult with the guards watching. We'll have to give them their money's worth.”

“
What do you mean, give them their money's worth? What are you going to do?”

“
Don't waste any more pins. We might need them later. Reach behind me.”

“
What are you going to do?”

“
Just reach behind me.”

An uncomfortable sense of
déjà vu
wrapped around me like a thick fog when he kissed me. I tried to concentrate on the cold still of his handcuffs but the feeling wouldn't leave.
Why is this so familiar?
My left thumb brushed against the small keyhole again. I pushed the key into it.

“
Did you find it?”

“
Yes.”

“
Good,” he whispered. “Now, slide the pin between the notches and the ratchet.”

“
I am,” I hissed, even though I had no idea what a ratchet was.

“
Push it,” he said impatiently.

“
I
am
.”

“
At an angle?”

“
It won't go in that way.”

Michael leaned up, forcing me to grab onto his shoulder to keep from falling off. “Then push harder, darlin, and
make it
go in that way.”

He was making me nervous with his shouted commands. What if I broke the pin again? What if the guards heard and caught on? “It's slipping,” I said. “Stop moving, I can't — ”

“
Harder
.
”

One of the guards made a sound of disgust and pointedly looked away. I froze, yanking my hands away from him, just in time to hear a soft snap. I got to my feet as quickly as my injuries would allow.

Michael smiled at me. It was a fierce smile, purely triumphant, and made me wonder if setting him free had been such a good idea.

“
Was it as good for you as it was for me?”

Chapter Nineteen

Cataclysm

Michael:

I woke from my light doze to tingling arms. I discreetly shook them to get the blood circulating again. No one would see. The cell was dark. There were no windows so it was impossible to tell what time it was, though I suspected it was around one or two in the morning.

In several hours, we would die by firing squad.

I bit the inside of my cheek, scanning the room for anything that could be used as a weapon. The cell was empty, cleared of anything even remotely dangerous. Even during meals, a guard was present at all times, standing sentry at the door to make sure the dishes were returned.

Hmm. I might have a plan.

I got up, keeping my movements slow for the sake of the guards, and prodded Christina in the side with my foot. She rolled over, guarding, and muttered something intelligible.

I applied a little more pressure this time. She stirred and looked at me blearily. “What?”

“
Bathroom,” I said, jerking my head in that direction. “Now.”

She shook her head and started to curl back up on the floor.

I nearly grabbed her by the shoulders. Caught myself just in time. “Do you want to get out of here?” I said instead. “If you do, then don't breathe a word. Just follow me.”

I started purposefully for the bathroom without looking back over my shoulder to see if she was following. I heard her stumble to her feet.
Good
. The bathroom, which I had examined earlier on the pretense of using it for its intended use, was one of the few areas that didn't have cameras. Pointless expense in a cell, when all other areas are monitored and you can easily time the prisoner's comings and goings.

I wasn't worried about being inconspicuous — not after our earlier display. The guards would assume I wanted one last screw before I died, and that was exactly what I wanted them to think.

Christina leaned against the sink, rubbing her eyes. “What?”

I clapped a hand over her mouth. “There may not be any cameras in this room but that doesn't mean it's not bugged. So be
quiet
.” I waited until she had nodded. “We have a couple hours before the guards take us to Node Seven — that's the island's shooting range, namesake, and the end of the line, as far as we're concerned. But I have a plan. If you do as I say, you have a chance at survival. A
chance
, mind you, and a small one at that: there's no guarantee that either of us are going to live. Understand?”

Christina nodded again. Good. She was a fast learner.

I whispered the details into her ear, repeating the most important ones several times. My superiors had always said that three was the magic number — I'd always suspected it was their attempt at excusing away the fact that they were senile old bastards that couldn't help repeating themselves, but it seemed to work, regardless.

She nodded in all the right places without saying anything, absentmindedly pulling down the hem of her shirt. Which, I noticed, pulled the fabric taut over her breasts. There was some pink in her cheeks, too. Quite a bit different from the sickly pallor I remembered from her basement days. In fact …she looked very fuckable.

The guards must have thought so, too, because I saw them nudge each other and snicker as we came out of the bathroom together.
I should start charging some goddamn admission
. How could she be so oblivious? She hadn't caught on about the lock-picking display either — not until the end. Where the hell had she gotten her education? A parochial school? Remembering the name of it — Sacred Heart, or something like that — I suspected that might not be too far from the truth. And here I thought Catholic schoolgirls were supposed to be kinky.

“
Isn't it the girl who's supposed to be tied up, Boutilier?”

Guffaws all around.

I smiled tightly and lay back down.
Let's see how much you're laughing three hours from now
.

Christina:

5 hours left.

I woke to the sound of the cell door opening.

My body was already nervous, edgy, and high on adrenaline. I saw Michael move in the corner of my eye. He was watching the food-bearing guard the same way a cat fixates on a person with a can opener. The guard eyed him with wariness that bordered on outright alarm.

“
Stay back.”

I grabbed the tray, letting the food slide to the floor with a loud crash. I was starving and sad to see it go but Michael said that with the amount of running we'd be doing, I'd most likely throw up anything that went into my stomach. The guard's head whipped towards me as I raised the tray over my head, leaving Michael free to land a hand punch to his throat. The guard made a garbled sound, a little like Donald Duck, and crumpled to the floor, whereupon Michael promptly seized his handguns.

The guards in the hallway started to fire the moment I seized the tray. Warning shots — or so I thought, until a bullet whizzed dangerously close to my leg. I held the metal tray in front of me, trying to shield my head and torso.

“
Fuck!”

A bullet missed Michael's arm by less than a millimeter, near enough to draw blood. We squeezed out of the cell door as the guards closed in. It was 5am. The guards were exhausted. According to Michael, the day shift relieved the night shift at 6am. After almost twelve hours of surveillance, the guards would be crippled with exhaustion; their hits would not be as accurate as they would have been at, say, 6pm, when they were refreshed, awake, and alert.

Or so Michael had said. Their shots seemed plenty accurate to me.

Over the sound of the gunfire and Michael's own shouted commands, I could just make out the static from the guards' walkie-talkies. “The prisoners in cell 6-34-899 have escaped. They are armed. I repeat,
they are armed
.”

“
The hell should I know?” another guard was saying. “All I know is, he don't got them on anymore and he has a goddamn guys!”

“
Give me that tray,” Michael said.

I reluctantly handed it to him. He grabbed my arm and yanked me into a small alcove I hadn't noticed, leaning around the corner to fire off some rounds of his own. Bullets slammed against the tray, denting the metal. “Useless,” Michael growled, tossing it aside. It hit the floor with a metallic clang. “This way.”

He twisted open a door, urging me inside with the hand wielding the pistol. I found myself in a dark hallway with two sets of staircases: one led into a dim corridor, the other had a sign that said simply
TO ROOF
. I headed for the lower set and Michael shook his head, grabbing me by the back of the shirt and said, “Roof.”

A loud siren cut through the air.

“
What if you're wrong?”

He shoved me up the stairs. I tried not to think about what his silence meant.

“
Do you think A is here?”

“
Probably. Richardson doesn't tolerate disloyalty from anyone, especially not from one of his whores. The moment she helped you, she signed her own death warrant. I don't know what she was thinking…” He trailed off, looking at me thoughtfully.

“
Don't call her a whore! She saved my life — ”

“
Or just bought you more time. I warned you once not to underestimate her. A may not curse or parade herself around with her tits spilling out like B, but she still slept with him for money — and she had a child with him out of wedlock. Both things make her a whore in my book.”

Him and my mother both
. “It's
my
fault she's here!”

Michael shrugged, though how he managed to find the energy to do so as he ran was a mystery. “She chose to help you. Unless you held a gun to her head and forcibly made her choose, you have no culpability in the matter.”

“
We have to save her — and my parents.”

“
No.”

“
But — ”

“
They're going to triple the guards on each of those cells now that we've escaped. It's going to be a nightmare. We won't last five minutes. No.”

“
Then I'll save them!”

“
Alone?” he scoffed. “Unarmed? You might as well have me shoot you right now.”

“
I won't leave without my parents,” I said stoutly. “Or without A. I wouldn't be able to live with myself, knowing that I had the chance to save them and didn't take it.”

“
I've got news for you, Christina. You aren't calling the fucking shots.”

“
Please.”

Michael pushed open the door to the roof, ignoring me.

“
Please
.
”
I touched his shoulder and he swung around like I'd hit him. “I'm begging you.”

“
That's not begging. That's commanding with a please in front of it.”

“
But I — ”

“
It's going to be difficult enough getting the both of us alive without
company
.”

I blinked back tears. “But I have to! Don't you see that? I
have
to — it'd kill me not to. I won't be able to look at myself in the mirror. I'd think,
There's the girl who murdered her parents
. For the rest of my life.” Just the thought of all those years stretching before me, and the endless guilt, was unbearable. “I have to
try
.”

“
Your parents left you for dead. You should return the favor.”

“
I can't do that,” I whispered. “I
love
them. With all my heart.”

“
Then you're even more foolish than I thought.”

“
You're a mercenary, right? You'll do anything for the right price.”

Michael set his jaw and said nothing.

“
Well, I'll do anything, when we get out of this — anything you want.” He looked at me then and I said, “I'm sure my parents would pay you. Money, a pardon, whatever you want. My mother has some friends in the Dominican Republic who work for the government. They could probably hook you up with citizenship if I asked” — more like begged — “and obviously, I would never reveal your identity or your whereabouts to anyone.”

He closed his eyes. “Anything I want,” he repeated. “Really.”

“
Yes.”

When his eyes opened, he looked angry. “I suppose if you've learned anything, it's how to drive a hard bargain. Well, the only way that could even
possibly
work is if the generator — ”

“
What?”

“
They'll be sending the guards to your parents' cells and A's. They probably won't be guarding the generator. If we can get there and shut down the power it'll create total chaos. Prisoners escaping, lights not workers, the works. Maybe buy us an hour of time to find their cells.”

I felt a swell of hope. “It'll work?”

“
It's a shot in the dark. Which, incidentally, is what we'll be getting if we don't
move
.” He gave me a push. “Just remember, you owe me.”

“
I know,” I said equably.

“
No, I really don't think you do.”

Michael:

Except for the door and the ventilation duct, the roof was completely empty. Too open. I searched for the fire escape. It was exactly where I remembered. I hurried the girl towards it just as the roof door swung back with a heavy bang and two guards began firing. They were alone, which meant that the IMA was searching the buildings for us and these two had gotten lucky.

Or unlucky.

“
They're on the roof. Requesting backup on the — ” I shot him in the face and then his partner, in the back, who was smarter and had tried to run. Not fast enough.

Christina froze on the fire escape. She was staring at me. “What are you waiting for? An RSVP? Go!” My gun hadn't been fitted with a silencer. The sound of the shooting, combined with the guard's alarm, was sure to bring company.

I suspected that the guards, when they did come, would expect us to bolt for the beach where the boats were docked. They would head us off accordingly. The generator happened to be conveniently located in the opposite direction, in the jungle, which would buy us a few extra minutes. Maybe more, if we were lucky. I wasn't counting on too much luck at this point.

I tucked the gun into the waistband of my sweatpants. “Stay low. There are watchtowers all around here.”

“
I know. I saw them as they were taking me to my cell.”

A bolt of pain arced down my left arm. I'd forgotten about my injuries and fired at the guards instinctively with my dominant hand. “You are running up
such
a tab,” I muttered, wincing.