I shot to my feet and jumped on him, giving him no time to recover. With determination and rage I rarely ever let myself feel, I rained fists down on him, blow after blow. And when I knew those wouldn’t be strong enough, I used my elbows.
I had to avoid his grip.
He was reaching for my neck again, and I knew I wasn’t going to win this on pure strength. So I grasped his ears, picked up his head, and bashed it down into the floor. Once, twice. And then I pushed to my feet, aiming my knee at his chest. I let all my weight fall forward onto his chest and heard the satisfying crack of a rib.
Nix’s eyes popped open as he wheezed, “Fuck you.”
When he didn’t pass out, I did it again. And finally, he groaned and stopped fighting.
Quickly, I checked for a pulse. He was still breathing. I pulled his phone out, grabbed for his hand, and used his thumb to unlock it then tapped my comms. “Eclipse. Eclipse. One active device here in the building. I need to go disarm it. Truman is down, incapacitated. Don’t send anyone in. I’m sending Breck back out.”
There was a crackle on the line, and then Wilder’s voice rang in my ear. “Roger. We hear you loud and clear.”
He’d known. He’d known Breck had come with me.
Damn it. I didn’t have time to think about that.
I glanced up at Breck. And while he had two trained guards fighting him, he looked perfectly at ease. As if he did this kind of hand-to-hand combat all day, every day. He delivered a roundhouse kick to the shoulder of one of the guards. His head snapped to the side, and he fell.
Breck swiped at the blood on his nose and then sent me a feral smile. “Go. Get to the bomb. I’ll deal with this.”
“You have to get out of the building.”
“You worry about the fucking bomb. I have this. You do what you need to do.”
I wanted to wait. I wanted to go to him and say the things that I couldn’t say before. I love you. I’m sorry. Thank you. But there wasn’t time for that.
Instead, I had to run. Because there were people counting on me to get this right.
I sprinted out the far door then swung to the right, following the locator on Nix’s phone toward the stairs, climbing two at a time. I made it up another four flights, to the level just below the roof. Another left brought me to the room where the bomb should be located. I tried the handle, but it was locked. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
I pulled out my lock pick set, knelt down, and tried to stay calm. In my ear, Niko’s voice was low. “Talk to me Sparrow.”
“Oh, you know, just got to pick a lock.”
He chuckled low. “You can do that in your sleep. Want me to time you? You’ll go faster that way.”
“Shut up, Niko.”
But just hearing his voice and knowing he was okay and watching my back helped to calm me, even if he was doing it from the rooftop of another building. “How are we doing on our little friends?” I asked.
“Already took out two guards on the roof. It seems they were waiting for a helicopter. You’re clear.”
“Always watching my back, huh, Niko?”
“Of course I am. You do what you need to do.”
Slowly, I worked on the lock mechanism. I tried to breathe and keep my hands steady. And then, finally, it let go, giving me a way into the room where I saw a bomb strapped to a chair. Jesus.
It was pretty standard. A detonator, charges, and a fuck-ton of C4.
If I got this wrong, the whole building was going to come down. There might not be anyone in this building, but there were certainly people in surrounding buildings, even though they’d been told to evacuate. I could see them as I’d run up the stairs, going about their lives as if nothing was wrong.
I had to do this. And I had to do it right.
I took out the rest of my tools. Holding the penlight in my mouth, I found the decoy detonator. I knew once I cut it, I would only have three minutes. I took a deep breath, thinking of Breck downstairs fighting. Hopefully he was out of the building by now.
“All right, Niko, I’m at the decoy. Is it the red or green wire?”
“You know, this is like a movie. You ask me which one, I tell you which one. You cut the wrong one, and instead of getting a steady timer, you get a rapidly declining clock, and you have to run for it.”
“Jesus Christ, Niko, help me.”
“I wanna say red. But this guy’s a sadistic fuck, so I don’t know.”
“All right great, I’m cutting the red then.”
“You sure, Sparrow?”
I thought of the last time that someone had asked me that question, was I sure. Hell, I had no fucking idea. I knew from the manual it said cut the red one. So that’s what I did. The countdown time held steady with no acceleration.
I kept looking for the other detonator as my time ticked away in rapid seconds. But I couldn’t find one.
“Niko. There’s no second detonator.”
He cursed. “Get out of there, Sparrow.”
“Niko. Second detonator. There are people in the surrounding buildings.”
“Sparrow. I got nothing. Get out of there.”
Fuck Truman Nix. I hated him. I hated him for what he’d done to his wife. I hated him for what he tried to do to my friends. I hated him for what he was doing to me.
“Wild, is Breck out? Wilder, tell me.”
“Breck knows how to handle himself. Get out of the building.”
“No. I’m going back for him.”
Instead of heading to the roof and flying off in my jumpsuit, which would have saved my life, I turned around and headed back the way I’d come. I wasn’t going to leave him down there.
There was no way I was going to jump and save myself. We had to save each other.
But as I ran down the stairs, screaming for him in my comm unit, I knew our window of escape was decreasing rapidly.
When I made it to the room that we’d been kept in, it was empty. No Breck, no Truman. Just two guards, unconscious on the floor. “Shit.”
I checked the detonation time on my wrist. Thirty seconds and going fast.
Fuck. I wouldn’t be able to save Breck. All I could do was pray to God he’d gotten out in time.
I went to one of the windows on the north side and gauged my downward trajectory, wishing I had more height. But I didn’t. At least this would be an easy floating landing since the building buttressed up to the river. I grabbed one of the office chairs, hefted it up with all my strength, and smashed it into the window. The glass was reinforced, so while it shattered, it didn’t fall apart. So, I grabbed the chair and swung again. With the window out, I looked down. I stripped off my outer clothes, tapped the function panel on my squirrel suit to expand the wings under the arms, and swallowed hard.
I was out of time and out of options. I had no other choice but to jump. And so I did.
Chapter 19
Breck
And the world came crashing down.
* * *
The building shook beneath my feet, and I whipped around. Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Sparrow.
Over my shoulders, I carried Truman out. I could’ve left him for dead, but I hadn’t. Now I considered dropping him and running back for her. Would I have enough time?