Jodi closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Do it. Shut them off.”
Mary hit the button. The sudden absence of the thumping outbound blasts was followed by their response when the inbound bombardment also ceased.
“Turn off the alarm,” Jodi growled.
Mary hit the override sending the room into an eerie silence.
No one spoke. I pushed my swivel chair away from the console, my focus shifting to the little girl holding Adam beyond the glass partition. When I turned back, Jodi’s face had turned waxy in the emergency lighting.
“Get everyone together in the main room,” she said. “Then we’ll open the doors.”
It was done. Our time in Sanctuary was over, and a new future stretched out to the terrifying unknown.
Ava
The dark, wet streets reflected back foreboding. It hadn’t stopped raining, and the constant drizzle soaking into my clothes made them heavy and cold. A fire blazed to my north, the glow lighting the night sky. Smoke drifted sluggishly against the light rain.
I’d been praying for a break in the fighting so I could sneak back into Sanctuary. It hadn’t happened, and I could only watch helplessly from the rooftop of a neighboring building as enemy soldiers marched in and out of Sanctuary like ants discovering a new and interesting food source. Whatever the fate of my friends, I could do nothing for them. Our community had been swallowed up by something far larger.
I worried about the thirty individuals who called Sanctuary home—the people I’d come to think of as a family. For a startling, dark moment, I genuinely didn’t care about my own fate as I watched this unfold from the vantage of a desolate rooftop.
It had taken years for the nightmares to stop after I fled my former home with Jodi. The last few days had picked me up and thrown me right back into the middle of one. Only this was no nightmare, it was terrifyingly real.
Turning, I sat back against the low wall surrounding the rooftop. Perhaps I would stay here. I was so desperately cold, tired, hungry, and numb that nothing had any purpose or shape anymore.
My eyes must have closed, a light exhausted doze pulling me under. I’d no idea for how long, but when I opened my eyes again, a man was standing before me. He was big, head to toe in black battle fatigues with his face lost in the shadows of a helmet. In that single, heart-stopping glance, I could see he carried enough weapons to start a one-man war.
Time stretched; no thoughts would form.
Then everything slammed back into focus and I fumbled for the Colt. In a lightning-fast move, the weapon was snatched from my grasp as he wrenched me with dizzying speed to my feet.
“What the fuck is this?” he demanded, voice a low growl as he fisted my right arm in an iron grip. I dangled, my toes scraping over the rough stone floor as I fought to regain my footing. He examined the gun with a shake of his head. “Rust. Like real fucking rust.”
I’d spent an unhealthy amount of time since I left Sanctuary, regaling my tired mind with horror-filled scenarios pertaining to my capture. Reality matched most of them. In most, I’d attempted to fire it or managed a few moves before defeat.
He tossed my former weapon to the floor as though utterly disgusted by its presence. Finally, some shred of training clicked, and my fist slammed into his throat.
A sharp pain shot the length of my arm. My stomach turned over at the choked gurgling noise he made. Releasing me, he doubled over, coughing.
I was off, sprinting toward the fire exit door without a backward glance. The thud of my footsteps reverberated through my body while my racing heart pounded in my ears. My vision tunneled on that door. I became mindless to everything but the need to flee, my throat so dry that my breath shuttled in and out with a hoarse rasp.
He was giving chase—his heavier footsteps gaining on me, driving my animal instinct to scramble for options.
There were none. I was closing in on the door, but he was gaining on me.
The world turned grey. Within reach of my grasping fingers, the door became an irrational hope given there were many floors to descend. Yet still, I gripped the handle and yanked.
It opened an inch, then crashed shut as the impact of my body smacked into the flat, hard surface due to a body plowing into me from behind. A short, sharp, terrorized scream escaped my lips, after which I could neither breathe nor move. My head rattled from the blow of my forehead connecting with unyielding metal before I was spun around and slammed back against the door.
I slid a little, legs planted wide, my whole body shaking and limp as the adrenaline abandoned me in the wake of shock and pain.
Stepping back, he coughed hard, snatching at the fastener on his helmet before ripping it off.
Dropping it carelessly to the floor, he massaged his throat. The rain had stopped, and the wind whipped up, sending his dark hair swirling around his face. His features were in the shadows, giving an impression of rugged lines that solidified as he turned to face me.
Eyes as dark as the night sky, handsome, forbidding, and utterly furious.
“How long have you been running?” His voice was gruff, from the blow most likely, and the question surprised me given his eyes spat death threats.
The truth or a lie? “A few days,” I said, unable to formulate anything more useful than the truth. A headache was radiating from my forehead and everything was spinning.
“And hiding up here?” he demanded.
I should be searching for an opening to attack, but my head felt like it was no longer connected to me, and he was watching me closely enough that another lucky punch was unlikely.
“A few days.”
He huffed out a breath as he took a step closer, cautiously as though expecting me to pull a move—it took all my focus to remain upright.
He wasn’t going to hurt me. Instinct told me monsters did not ask about your situation… especially after you’d just punched them. I squirmed a little as he caught my chin between strong fingers, turning my face to expose it to the limited light.
The barest tightening of his fingers told me he’d noticed my skin held no mark.
“You’re going to need an owner,” he said.
My stomach turned over slowly, my world contracted and then expanded, heart rate surging within my chest.
I nodded.
“You know how this works?” He released my chin, running his fingers down my throat until they rested at the base, collaring me. The light pressure held a warning. Thoughts escaped my grasp as I became hyper-aware of our size difference, of his strength, of my helplessness. His fingers were warm against my cold skin—I’d gotten chilled to the bone in my wet clothing.
Ownership.
That word was like ice water, bringing a sluggish surge of fresh fear. He shifted his stance, thumb grazing the flesh before dipping into my pulse point.
“Yes, I think so.”
His lips narrowed to a line. “Then consider it done.”
My vision turned to sparkling dots. It would hurt when I hit the floor, but thankfully by the time it happened I was already unconscious.
CHAPTER FOUR
Blaine
I CAUGHT HER before she hit the ground. Shock, exhaustion, or the blow to her head?
Three days hiding with no evidence of a backpack was a long time to go without supplies, definitely exhaustion. The way her pulse had leaped at the mention of ownership, definitely shock.