Page 90 of Jude

“The same here,” said Gray Fairy. “Shouldn’t be more than five minutes and the explosives will be ready to go.”

“Colton,” said Jude. “How about you?”

“I’m waiting out some guards,” said Colton. “Looks like they’re taking a break right where I need to be.”

“Take them out if you have to,” said Jude. “We haven’t got time to waste.”

“Copy that,” said Colton.

“We’re all good,” said Evan.

“We’re almost there,” said Tobias as they hurried along the corridor and turned a corner, reaching another locked door.

“We need to get through the security doors quicker,” muttered Octavia. “We’re wasting too much time.”

“I’m going as fast as I can.” Tobias spent a couple of minutes deactivating the lock before inching the door open. “We’re moving into a central part of the building. We’ll find somebody here who will help get the rest of the doors open.”

They hadn’t taken ten steps before Tobias raised his fist, signaling them to stop.

Octavia held her breath. Two men wearing white lab coats rounded the corner, their gazes fixed on the port screen one of them carried.

The dark-haired guy on the right raised his head. For a second, he stared incomprehensibly at them before blinking and coming to a stop.

His colleague glanced up at him. “What’s the matter?”

“Holy crap!” The dark-haired guy took two steps back.

“Don’t go any farther,” said Jude. “Keep walking toward us. If you do as we say, you won’t come to any harm.”

Both men stared at them with wide eyes.

“What are you doing in here?” stuttered out the dark-haired guy. “You don’t have authorization to be in this building.”

“No shit,” said Jude. “Do your passes open the doors in this place?”

The dark-haired guy turned his fearful gaze to his colleague. “What if they do?”

“Then we need them,” said Tobias. “Take off your passes and throw them to us.”

“We can’t do that,” said the dark-haired guy. “We’ll lose our jobs.”

“You’ll lose more than your jobs if you don’t do as we say.” Octavia leveled her pulse laser at them. “Give us your passes. Now.”

With a shaking hand, the dark-haired guy unclipped his pass and threw it along the corridor. It hit Octavia’s boot.

The other guy did the same, a scowl on his face as he slung the pass at Jude.

“Turn around and put your hands behind your back,” said Tobias.

Slowly, both men turned, faced the wall, and placed their hands behind their back.

Tobias made short work of tying their hands together.

“Whatever you’re planning, you won’t get away with it,” said the dark-haired guy.

“Whatever you say,” said Jude. “Where’s the nearest storage closet?”

“Storage closet?”