Vengeance of the Demons (18 page)

“It’s not much farther,” he whispered.

The sound of laughter from up ahead had them both stopping in their tracks. Her heart pounded so loud she was sure Tommy heard it.

Footsteps crunched on sticks and twigs and the sound of voices drew closer. Tommy pushed her behind himself and flattened them into the trunk of a giant apple tree. They held their breath as two guards passed by them a row over.

After several minutes, Tommy stepped away from her, started again in the direction the guards had come from.

“There shouldn’t be any more for at least fifteen minutes,” he said. “We’ll have to hurry and get in and out.”

His steps picked up and soon she was running to keep up with him. They headed toward the far end of what used to be the golf course and stopped at the edge of the orchard. He pointed into the darkness.

“There.”

A large metal building with a faint light over the entrance gleamed in the night.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The weapons depot.”

Tommy looked both ways. They had fifty yards of open space to cross.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Go.” She sprinted into the open without asking permission. Tommy hissed her name but the two raced flat out across the expanse. Because of the inoculation, they crossed the area in under four seconds and hit the side of the building laughing.

“Beat ya again,” she said.

“Because you got a head start,” he countered.

“Because you’re going soft from all this easy living, and I’ve had to keep on my toes out there.” She smiled and he chuckled.

Evan tried the door handle. It was locked.

“You got the key?”

Tommy gave her a sheepish grin.

“So, how do you expect us to get in?” She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice.

“Come on.”

He rounded the building. Halfway down the building was a small window toward the top. Beneath it hung a small ledge.

“You’re joking, right?” she asked.

“You get a running start, I’ll boost you up, and you make a grab for the ledge.”

“That’s got to be twelve feet up.”

He grinned. “No higher than your bedroom window when we used to sneak out. Chicken?”

She grumbled. Tommy knew that was the one word that could get her to do about anything. He and Peter had used it on her frequently growing up to get her to prove herself.

“Okay… but how do I know it’s unlocked? And even if it is, there is no guarantee I’ll fit through that thing.”

“Well I’m not going to fit, that’s for damn sure. It’s our only option. We are going to need weapons. This is the only way.”

Evan stared at the window and ledge. It was high. Higher than she’d ever tried to jump before. No matter what Tommy said. It was true with him boosting her up she might make it, but it was going to be a slim chance. And if she did make it…

She backed up twenty feet from the building.

“Back up a little further,” he said.

She stepped away another three steps and took a deep breath. Tommy laced his fingers together and braced himself by squatting down.

“Ready?” she whispered.

She neither saw nor heard his reply. Running, she headed straight for Tommy and leapt. Her foot connected with his hands, and she pushed off as he boosted her up. She leapt into the air and reached for the platform. Her right hand fingers grabbed the ledge but her left hand slipped, and she dropped down to the ground. She hit with a thud. A jolt coursed through her leg. She cried out and grabbed her thigh.

“Are you all right?” Tommy rushed to her side.

The pain zigzagged up to her hip and down to her knee. She rolled on the ground holding onto her leg.

“Damn that hurt.” She breathed through the pain until it subsided.

“Maybe this was a bad idea.”

“No.” She got to her feet and tested her weight. The leg ached but it held. “I can do it. I just need to try again.”

“I don’t know, Evan. That looked worse than I had imagined when I thought this out.”

“No.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “We have to do this. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’ll make it this time.” She had to make it this time. She refused to let the attack from a stupid slaver cripple her for life. But she knew her leg wouldn’t give her a third chance at the jump.

“Again,” she said. She hobbled back to her starting position. Her leg muscles ached and trembled. She rubbed her leg and stretched. She had to do this. It was her fault William was in the lab dying. She needed to fix this for him.

She blew out a breath and then nodded. Reassuring herself more than trying to reassure Tommy. Evan sucked in a breath and raced at Tommy again. Her leg screamed in pain, but she ran hard and pushed off as he boosted her up. She reached as far as she could and grabbed onto the ledge with both hands.

“Yes!” She grinned like an idiot.

Dangling high above the ground, she slowly pulled herself up to her elbows. The bumpy corrugated metal of the platform gave her traction. The rusty plates dug into her armpits and she threw her foot up on the ledge, hoisting herself up.

She lay for a moment catching her breath and trying to keep her mind off the fact that she was so high off the ground.

Above her, the small window sat waiting to be opened.

“Are you okay?” Tommy called softly.

“Yeah.” She got to her feet and inspected the aluminum-framed sliding window. It was just too small for her. Getting through would be a trick. She pressed her fingers into the edge and tried to pry it open, but it wouldn’t budge.

“I’m gonna have to break the glass,” she called.

“Be careful.”

“Be careful,” she muttered. “Now he wants me to be careful?”

She glanced around for something to break the glass but there was nothing so she slid off her boot and shoved her hand inside it. Pulling her arm back, she tested the length and then punched the glass. It cracked and spiderwebbed but didn’t break. She took a deep breath and, envisioning that the window was Peter’s face, let her fist fly. The glass cracked and fell inward. It clattered to the ground a story below, and the noise reverberated around the building inside.

“Way to go, sis!” Tommy whispered.

She cleaned out as much glass as she was able and then slid the boot back on her foot and looked inside. There was a walkway on the inside about four feet down from the opening.

She pulled herself into the window ledge and tiny shards of glass on the top of the frame dug into her skin. She slid her legs inside and twisted so she was on her stomach. When she got to her hips, she couldn’t get through. Darn those extra eggs and toast.

Evan wiggled and twisted to take advantage of the diagonal space. Her shirt crept up and her side pressed down on the glass. She was stuck.

“Are you okay? We have to hurry,” said Tommy.

The air squeezed tight in her chest. She pressed and wiggled in the window frame.

“I’m stuck!”

Tommy cursed below her.

If she stayed stuck in the window not only was she dead meat, but Tommy was as well. She pushed with her arms and wiggled her torso. The glass shards dug into her sides, cutting into her skin. Blood trickled down her hips. She leaned into the glass shards, cutting deeper. She shimmied again and slipped through the window, landing hard on the walkway. Blood slicked her sides and stained her pants.

“Damn.” Her body stung from her hips to her breasts. She wiped her torso with her T-shirt and glanced around. The floor of the building contained two large military trucks, tables full of guns, and ammunition and crates stacked high all along two walls.

Lou hadn’t been lying when he’d said they were prepared for any attack. She jogged down the walkway but where there should have been stairs they’d been ripped off. She headed back to where she’d started and hopped over the railing. She lowered herself as far as possible, and then dropped to the top of the truck. The vehicle shook beneath her and she slipped as she landed. She slid down the windshield, then bumped over the hood and landed hard on the dirt ground.

Her body ached from the jump, the fall, the cuts, the stab wound to her leg. She lay winded on the cement and wished she were drinking a margarita next to a pool instead of breaking into a weapons building. Not that she’d ever had a margarita. But she remembered seeing a movie when she was a kid. A woman was on a tropical island sipping a margarita, and Evan had always thought that would be the height of luxury. Too bad everything had happened before she’d become legal to drink.

She got to her feet, located the door, and limped to it. She opened it slowly and peeked out.

“Tommy,” she whispered.

There was no answer.

“Tommy—”

A large hand clamped over her mouth and she was shoved inside. She kicked out and tore at the hand when the door was shut and locked.

“Shhh… Evan, it’s me.” Tommy removed his hand from her mouth.

She smacked him in the chest. “Dammit, Tommy, what did you do that for?”

“Shhh…” He held his fingers to her lips. His eyes stayed focused on the entrance.

Someone outside tried the handle and then two people continued a conversation and moved on.

“Sorry,” he said. “I saw them coming right as you opened the door.”

“Let’s move.” The longer she stood the more her energy waned. She headed for the tables of guns and ammo.

“You’re limping,” he said.

“Yeah, well, running, jumping, falling, falling again, and then falling again. All while having been stabbed in the leg only a week ago, tends to leave me a bit sore.” She scanned the dark table and found a revolver with the appropriate ammo. She shoved the gun into her waistband and the ammo into her pocket. Then she grabbed two hunting knives and put one in each boot.

“The big ones will be harder to hide,” said Tommy.

“Then we have to stay small.” She scanned over the remaining guns and picked out two more. Lifting her shirt, she pushed them into her waistband.

“What the hell?” Tommy stepped up to her quickly and lifted her shirt.

“I couldn’t fit through the window.” She lowered the black shirt back over the deep gouges. She looked like she’d been in a wrestling match with a lion. The cuts had stopped dripping but they still oozed.

“You’ll need to tend to that,” he said. “After this I’ll go to the hospital wing. I’ll get as many bags of blood as I can conceal and some first aid supplies as well.”

She headed to another table and looked at the items laid out. She picked up several flash grenades as well as three regular grenades and put them in her waistband.

“William had bags of supplies. Do you know what happened to them?”

“The vehicle was trashed, but if there were bags inside it, I’m sure the supplies were scavenged.”

“Look for black duffel bags. There should be three or four. It’ll save us time if you can just grab those and not have to find all the supplies individually.”

Tommy nodded.

She stared at her cousin. He was a good guy and a sweet kid. Doing this for her meant he’d be turning his back on his own family.

“You don’t have to do this, Tommy. I can knock you out, and you can tell them I forced you to help me when they find you.”

His brows furrowed. “Do you not want me to come with you?”

“No, that’s not it at all,” she said. “I just… I don’t want to be the reason you turn your back on Pop and Peter.”

Tommy licked his lips. “You aren’t the reason. William is. I saw what they did to him.”

“But they’ve done it to others before.”

“Yeah, but I never really saw it until now. I never realized how far we’d fallen and how bad it had gotten. Not till I saw you with him. I tried to deny that Pop had changed. Telling myself that as soon as all this was over we’d be like we used to be. But we won’t, will we?”

“Who knows if this will ever be over. And if it is… None of us can go back to who we were before.”

He nodded. “Then I’d rather go with you. At least I know you’re still trying to do what’s right.”

Evan walked up and hugged Tommy tight. She kissed his cheek. “Thank you, bro.”

“Hey now. Be careful.” He pushed her to arm’s length. “You have explosives all over your body.”

She chuckled. “Come on. We better get back.”

She turned in a circle and spotted a stack of black cases neatly tucked next to the tables. She crossed to them and flipped the latches of the one on top.

She smiled and then laughed. “Well, hello there.”

* * * *

Getting back into the building took much longer than it had to get out. But when they got inside they didn’t return to their rooms. Instead, they took the black weapon cases down to the parking garage. Tommy located one of a hundred SUV’s that would be easy to maneuver out of the garage and they slid the cases into the trunk.

“Now we just need to get the first aid stuff, and get out of here.”

“I’ll go now,” said Tommy. He looked at his watch. “It’s two-thirty. If we can get out in the next sixty minutes, we have a better chance of people not noticing we’re missing until at least seven or eight. Possibly later.”

“I’ll go back to my room and wait.”

“Pack light but take what you want. We won’t be coming back and even if we did, I doubt anything we leave behind will be here.”

Evan pulled him into a light hug. “Be careful.”

He closed the trunk. “See ya soon.”

* * * *

Evan peered down the hallway to her room; there wasn’t another soul in sight. Thus far, she and Tommy had been able to keep out of the view of the cameras. The ones in the larger areas rotated and by timing them, they’d been able to move freely. But the one in her hallway was stationary. The only way to avoid detection on it was to act as though she belonged. Not drawing attention was the best form of camouflage when she was out in the open.

She blew out a breath and walked into the view of the camera. Face passive, gait slow but steady, she headed for her room. To her surprise, the absence of the two guards hadn’t caught anyone’s attention yet. She had to consciously keep herself from glancing at the camera. She pulled her key card from her pocket and slid it into the lock. The light turned green. The door swung inward and the now conscious guards lay hog tied and gagged on her hotel room floor.