It’s Zephyrine. Tears are surging down her cheeks, and she lets out a blood-curdling scream as she looks between me and her father. She rips the belt buckle from her waist and flips the hidden switchblade out, jamming it into her father’s thigh.
He drops his gun, disbelieving, and I reach for mine with my left hand, trying and failing at first for all the blood but eventually getting my grip on it. I knock the guy behind me onto his knees and disarm him before I look up to see Zephyrine reaching for the blade, ready to rip it out, while the governor screams for help.
“Stop!” I shout, and she does. Her terrified blue eyes meet mine. “You pull that out, and he’ll bleed to death in seconds. That’s his femoral artery.”
I can hear the sound of footsteps down the hall. We have seconds to act, and my mind is whirring for us to find a wayout of this. A way we survive. A way she doesn’t go to prison for life for armed robbery, parenticide, and assassination of a sitting governor. I take a deep breath, and I see the only way forward.
“What do we do?” I hear her ask over the sounds of her father’s wailing. I manage to pull myself up from the floor. The searing pain makes the room spin, and I have to fight to keep my grip on the gun even with my good hand. The governor reaches for the blade himself, and I swat his hand away with the barrel of the long gun just in time.
“You’ll fucking die if you take that out,” I mutter, the room swaying as I try to stand straight.
“I’ll fucking kill you both first.” His eyes widen as two men enter the room behind me. I put the gun to his head.
“You try anything…” I look between his two security team members. “I’ll shoot him. He’ll be dead before I hit the ground.”
They look to the governor and then at each other in rapid order.
“Do something, you fuckwits,” the governor yells at them, but I can tell from their disoriented state, they have no idea what to do. No plan. Their orders come from the man I disarmed and knocked unconscious on the ground in front of them, and he won’t be talking anytime soon.
“Put your fucking guns down, or I will kill him,” I shout.
They stare blankly. Their eyes dart between the governor and me.
“Do what he says! Or I’ll tell everyone you got the governor killed,” Zephyrine shouts. We have the upper hand since these two don’t know what side she’s on. They follow her order, dropping the guns to the ground and holding their hands up.
“Now kick the guns to me,” I instruct, and they follow. We might have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting out of here if they continue to cooperate.
“You fucking whore.” The governor lashes out at Zephyrine, and I slam the barrel of my gun into his head. He falls backward, unconscious, and blessedly fucking silent. Zephyrine’s eyes snap up to mine, waves of worry and panic crashing in the sea of blue. I give her an unspoken word of reassurance before I turn my attention back to his guards.
“Pick him up. Carry him down to the panic room. Whatever you do, don’t drop him. Don’t jostle him. That blade comes out of his leg, and you’ll have killed him,” I order the two men.
We descend the steps. Slower than I’d like for us to get to the horses. I’m much slower than I need if I’m going to handle the wound in my shoulder. I’m trying to apply pressure as we move, and Zephyrine shoots me a worried look as she eyes the blood soaked into my shirt. We cross the basement, the security guys nearly dropping the governor, but only once, and make our way to the panic room.
“Get inside,” I demand. They exchange looks of worry, and I press my gun to one of their shoulder blades. “Now.”
They follow orders reluctantly, probably ultimately deciding that this is less of a death sentence than what they'll face if they continue to stand there looking like deer in headlights. I’m sure the governor will be rethinking his entire staffing if he survives this.
I slip inside behind them for half a second, pressing the panic button and engaging the lockdown protocol, and then I slide back out through the automated closing door, keeping my gun trained on the security guards. The governor is as much a guarantee of my safety as anything; he’s a ticking time bomb, and their wrestling with me over my gun or trying to stop me will only lead to the knife being dislodged from his leg. They stand glaring and hopeless over his unconscious body as the doors slide shut.
“Whatever you do, do not pull that knife out or let him do it,” I remind them before I grab Zephyrine’s hand. We start racing to the window egress that Bishop and Rowan left through what feels like an eternity ago. I’m running on pure adrenaline at this point, hoping it’s enough to get her back to them.
“What stops them from just coming right out after us?”
“That model will only open on his retina scan. So we have at least until he wakes up or they decide to risk prying his eyes open.”
“How do you know this? And how the hell is that working when everything else electronic is down?” Zephyrine risks a glance back over her shoulder as she climbs out the window.
“We almost bought one ourselves. It’s a Faraday cage,” I explain before we take off running for the barn.
“Can you ride like that?” She frowns at the tender way I hold my shoulder.
“I will.” I don’t have another answer.
I have to be able to ride, or we don’t get out of here alive. But in reality, I know I’ve lost a lot of blood. I’ll be lucky to get on the horse and make it halfway to where we need to go. I’m just hoping by some miracle I get her far enough away that she’ll continue on without me. Somehow, by then, I’ll have the words to convince her to leave me behind and meet the helicopter.
Right now, I just need to take one thing at a time, and for the moment, I’m thankful Bishop and Rowan saddled the horses and have them waiting for us when we get inside the barn.
“Where are they?” Zephyrine looks at me, confused.
