What She Doesn't Know (41 page)
Read What She Doesn't Know Online
Authors: Tina Wainscott
Everyone.
Yes!
The sudden assault would send the crowd running. Hopefully they’d get out before they even knew that flames were licking away at their world. Hopefully Christopher would leave with them.
She hesitated. Sending everyone away would leave her little chance of being rescued, but her life wasn’t worth saving at the expense of forty others. Closing her eyes, she pressed the nozzle as hard as she could.
Christopher watched Sira inch closer as she tried to incite the crowd against him. They were obviously confused as to what was real and what role they were supposed to be playing.
He no longer had trouble with that. He knew what was real, at least inside him. And he knew that he had to get out of there and find Rita. If Sira injected him with ketamine, his chances would be over. She would push him into the cage and have the opportunity to convince the crowd of her intentions.
Suddenly his eyes stung. Everyone around him started calling out in pain, coughing and rubbing reddened eyes. What was happening? What had Sira done? But Sira was as shocked as everyone else, and just as affected. The sword hit the concrete floor with a loud clang. While she covered her eyes and clawed at her throat, he pushed through the crowd and shoved her into the cage. The door clanged shut, and he heard the lock click. He grabbed up the sword in case Sira’s accomplice was nearby.
“No!” she yelled. “Someone get me out of here! There isn’t a key!”
Her panic touched no one as Christopher pushed the crowd toward the door. “Get outside! Now!”. He wiped tears from burning eyes and he tried to find the source of the chemical. A glistening mist floated down, caught by the teal lights in the corner of the room.
Pepper spray.
She was upstairs.
“Rita!”
“Let me out of here,” Sira screamed in a gurgled voice, curling up into a ball beneath the assault of the spray.
Then he smelled the smoke. His throat burned, but not from the spray. The thought of losing Rita was almost debilitating. He pushed on, racing through the fabric hallways looking for the stairs he remembered from years back.
Smoke billowed from the back room where Vitar’s body lay. The music cut off. Walls of fabric caught flame. There wasn’t much time. Flames would eat the fabric like a ravenous monster.
His face was burning from the spray, but the crushing sensation in his chest kept him going. He found the back stairs leading up to the old storage area and lunged up them two at a time. He heard the powdery sound of rusty metal giving way, but not in time. His leg crashed through the grate. Shards of
broken metal cut into his calf. Pain screamed up his muscles. The sword slid across the grate and dropped over the edge of the platform, clanging on the concrete floor below.
He didn’t have time to carefully extricate his leg from the ragged hole. He jerked it free, driving the pain deeper inside him. No time for pain, either. He ignored the wetness of his blood as it soaked his sock, not even looking at the damage. All he cared about was finding Rita.
When he saw her lying there, he nearly sagged. She was struggling to free herself from duct tape bindings, stretching the strips taut with her writhing movements. She’d already pulled herself free from the railing, but her arms were still bound tight.
“Rita, I’m here. Hold on, baby.” He knelt beside her and tugged on the thick tape across her mouth.
“Use the knife on my right ankle,” she said, breathless.
He pulled out the knife and cut the tape. In seconds she was free, and he pulled her up.
“Why aren’t you outside?” she said in a strained voice.
“Because you’re inside.” He ripped the tape at her wrists. “Can you walk?”
“Yes, I’m all right. Oh, Christopher, your leg!”
“It’s fine. Let’s get out of here.”
The fire had already consumed the area where he had come in. He tried to remember if there was another set of stairs. Smoke obliterated the top portion of the warehouse and sucked the oxygen out of the air.
“That way!” she said, pointing in the other direction. “I saw a balcony that I think leads to the front area.”
When they reached the far side, the railing was already too hot to touch. Sira’s screams filled the air. He was supposed to be in that cage, and Rita was supposed to have watched him die while she succumbed to smoke. He steeled himself against the sounds of Sira’s agony.
“We have to jump. It’s our only chance.”
They both climbed over the railing and hung onto the floor of the upper level. They let go simultaneously and tumbled to the floor. He favored his injured leg but quickly braced himself. His cell phone cracked as it hit the concrete.
“This isn’t where I thought it was. I think we go that way,” she said, searching for something familiar in the smoke.
They navigated through the rest of the fabric walls. Just ahead of them, one burst into flame. They went through another doorway. Just another room.
“Over here!” she shouted, pushing through into the dining hall. The main hall was to the right. The wall of curtains behind them roared to life in a blaze. They ran to the large doorway, then down the corridor.
The open area in front of the door looked miles away. Fresh air and sunlight and worried faces hovered just outside. He glanced at her to make sure she was holding up all right. She was doing great. He was worried that his injury was slowing her down. His legs felt rubbery from pain, but he pushed on. When they emerged from the warehouse, the crowd broke into applause.
“This is the best Gathering yet!” one man said.
“Alta put so much into it this time.”
“Everyone, move back!” He led Rita away from the warehouse, as far as his legs would take him. The pain was white hot now. He dropped to the ground, and she knelt down beside him. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said in a strained voice. “Call for help. I lost my cell phone when we jumped.”
She reached for hers. “Mine’s gone, too.” She looked at the crowd of people. “You, whatever your name is,” she said, waving one man over. “Do you have a cell phone?”
“It’s in my car.”
“Go get it. Call 911.”
He tilted his head. “Seriously?”
“Yes, you idiot!” Christopher yelled.
The man scurried away, and the rest of the crowd inched farther back from the building. Reality was dawning on their streaky faces and in their bloodshot eyes.
“Your leg.” She sat back to examine his stripped calf. She tore off her scarf and wrapped it tightly around his leg to staunch the bleeding.
“They’re just scratches,” he said through gritted teeth. He felt the blood drain from his face but took a deep breath. “Your throat’s cut.” He reached out, grazing the skin around the cut.
“It stings, but I don’t think it’s deep.” She ran her finger across his cheek. “Did you get burnt?” she asked. “Your face is all red.”
“From the pepper spray. That was brilliant.”
“You were supposed to get out of there, not risk your life by finding me.”
She had soot stains on her face, her hair was mussed, but she’d never looked so beautiful.
He pushed the hair from her face. “And leave you behind? Not a chance. You’re not getting out of this that easily.” His throat tightened. “I thought I’d lost you, Rita. I never want to feel that way again.” He moved his thumb gently over her ragged lips. He took a deep breath, hoping to dispel the tightness in his chest.
One man stepped forward. “We know you’re not Alta, and we know you’re not the evil Gerard, either. If Alta is no longer with us, we want you to be our next king.” The crowd behind him nodded in agreement.
In the distance, sirens sounded. The warehouse creaked and groaned under the assault of heat and flame. He looked at the building and relived those last harrowing minutes.
“What about it?” the man asked again. “Will you be our king?”
“I gotta tell you, I’ve lived in this mythical land of yours too long already. Alone in the dark too long.” He kissed Rita on the forehead. “And I’ve been the king of nothing for too long. I can’t accept your offer. I’m making Rita my queen—my wife—and I’m going to live in the light.”
The crowd was riveted to his words, and he wasn’t sure they knew what was real or not. “It’s time for you all to live in the light, too. Shed your roles and let Xanadu go. Brian—Alta invented this world, and he died because of it. Sira murdered people because of it. No matter how wonderful and pure you want Xanadu to be, there’s always a chance that someone will take it too seriously.”
They didn’t applaud this time but nodded thoughtfully. The sirens grew louder, and soon fire trucks and police cars swarmed the area. He started to get to his feet, and Rita got up to help him.
“Well said, your majesty,” she said, quietly so that only he could hear.
“Call me Chris. That’ll do just fine.”
“Okay, Chris. My answer is yes.”
He took his attention from the frenzy of activity to the woman standing at his side. “Mm?”
“I think, somewhere in all that, you asked me to be your wife. I said yes.”
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I hope you enjoyed my book! Jaime Rush is a pseudonym for Tina Wainscott, and as Tina, I am the bestselling author of eighteen novels for St. MartinsMartin's Press and Harlequin.
My books garnered several awards, including The Golden Heart (Romance Writer’s of America) and the Maggie (Georgia Romance Writers) as well as Top Pick reviews from RT Book Reviews. In 2009, I moved to Harper Collins and began a new career as Jaime Rush.
Because my Jaime fans are always clamoring for more books (music to an author’s ear … ), I’m re-releasing the books originally published under the Tina Wainscott name.
If you haven’t read my Jaime books, they’re also paranormal romantic suspense. I missed the romance, relationship drama, and action of my favorite television shows, X-Files, Roswell, and Highlander, so I created my own mix in the Offspring series.
The Offspring: Sexy…dangerous…outcasts. They possess extraordinary abilities, and they’rethey're being hunted by the government. Together they must find the truth and fight an enemy out to destroy them. The first book in the series garnered a Reviewer’sReviewer's Choice Award from RT Book Reviews, and the most recent, BURNING DARKNESS, won three Top Picks.
Contests, sneak peeks and more at
www.jaimerush.com
or
www.tinawainscott.com
.