Page 66 of Resolve
Aiden nods and finishes my thought aloud, “But not as many as you would’ve expected. We’ve also run into a fair number of agents, but if we’re at a stronghold or a large enough compound of theirs, then it’s too small of a response. I haven’t heard any sort of alarm going off that we've escaped, either.”
“So, it’s a trap,” I reason. “How do we avoid it?”
Kell scratches his beard. “Do what he’d least expect, right?”
What would I normally try next now that we’ve found each other?
“Has anyone seen or heard any news on Dane?” I ask, my chest tightening at the thought of him being captured and alone.
Aiden answers, “No, but the smart thing to do would be to separate us from him. I doubt he’s here, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t check. We would need to find their security room to review all the cameras, rather than fighting with every agent here and Charles by running around to search each room. There could be other Guild members here, too.”
We’ll find you, Dane.I have a promise to keep. But I can’t destroy wherever we are until we know where the others are first. “If Charles is expecting that, then what’s our next option for finding them?”
“We don’t,” Jack offers. “We escape instead. Come back with a stronger force.”
Aiden’s brow pinches in thought. The idea of leaving everyone else behindisthe last thing we’d think of.
“What if he kills them because we leave?” Kellan demands, his hands clenching into fists.
Jackson cocks his head. “What if he’s killing them right now?”
Fuck. “Don’t say that, Jack!” I snap, that very thought now taking root in my mind and inciting a small panic. “We can’t just stand around talking. Let’s go.” I move to pull away from Aiden, but he tugs me back to him.
“Don’t go running off,” he warns.
I give him a wicked smile. “Don’t fall behind.”
Kellan curses, throwing the stairwell door open and revealing awall of concrete. “How much do we wanna bet that wasn’t there before?”
Fuck.
“Jack,” Aiden says, and Jackson’s already on the move, checking the other doors in this hallway. Kellan jogs the hallway he and I came from, disappearing around the corner.
While they’re busy with that, I pull free of Aiden, which he reluctantly relents to, and place my palm against the concrete wall blocking our way to the stairs. I close my eyes, dipping into my gift and sending a thread of it into the cool cement.
A small crack appears beneath my hand, but it doesn’t do more than that as I push it further out, sending it deeper to where the concrete runs out.
It doesn’t.
Kellan huffs when he returns and I draw my gift back before turning around.
“There’s a wall blocking the entire hallway now,” Kellan reports, and Jackson, who’s also back, nods.
“The way we came is also blocked. The hallway meeting in the middle of this one is open until two doors, but both are also like this.” Jackson tilts his head to indicate this stairwell door.
Aiden looks at me next.
“I couldn’t feel an end to it. It’s not just blocking the doorway. It’s filling the entire stairwell,” I admit. “But I can break it. I’ll have to be careful it doesn’t wreck the rest of the building with it, but I can do it.”
His dark stare trails over my body, then returns to my face. “Did you sleep at all? Have you had anything to eat or drink?”
“Kell and I split a sandwich about an hour ago. And we had somewater.”
Aiden frowns, unimpressed. “Test the walls and the other two doors for the thinnest escape. This could all be an effort to wear us down.”
I do as he instructs, checking the other escape routes and then giving them my findings after the last one. “These two doors don’t have as much behind them. It would be easy to break through them.” The walls blocking the corridors were almost as deep and thick as the stairwell.
He nods. “We’ll try one of these, then.”
