I'm clutching his hand like a frightened maiden as we creep along the corridors. Not that I'm actually frightened, but I'm not stupid either. The transgenic boy that rescued me is dreamy and I'm pretty sure that when we get around to rescuing Harker the sight of him will snap her right out of her catatonia.
The first two cubicles, I can't bring myself to call them cells, are empty, but the third one has a middle aged man lying on the cot inside. My companions face screws up when he looks inside, as though he were confronting one of the less pleasant unfathomable forces of the universe. He reaches out tentatively and taps a finger against the glass. The man inside the room jumps off the bed with a little start, and smacks his head on the wall. Alec chuckles silently to himself before reaching over and wrenching the door open.
"Alec what are you doing here?" The man on the cot rubs his head and shoves a pair of glasses up on the bridge of his nose.
"I'm taking a vacation for my health you twit, what do you think I'm doing? Max sent me here to rescue your sorry ass." This news makes the man on the cot sit up straighter and he looks for all the world like a preening bird for a moment.
"Max sent you to rescue me?" Alec roles his eyes at the older man and smirks.
"Yeah she sent me to rescue you and Elizabeth and a few half dozen other people it seems. She was very specific though that I rescue her dear old Friend Logan. She said I wouldn't get any for a whole week if I didn't bring at least half of you people home." The older man deflates like a punctured balloon and Alec walks over and hauls him off the bed by the arms. "Elizabeth Burnhart, English Royale, meet Logan Cale, international superhero." With that, Alec takes Logan by the shoulder and me by the hand and propels both of us down the hall.
Harker is sitting up against the wall in the next room in almost exactly the same position that I'd last seen her. As I had predicted, the sight of Alec cheered her greatly and me and Logan were summarily allowed to walk under our own power so that Alec could carry the little faker who had suddenly developed the inability to walk under her own power.
Alec halts suddenly so that I'm forced to stop on a dime and Logan rams into him almost propelling Harker out of his arms and onto the floor, only Erick's steadying arms stop her from getting a chinful of concrete. I curse the Fate's which for some unaccountable reason seem to have taken favor on Harker. Oh yeah, like she's a deserving person. "Shhh, I hear voices up ahead." Brazilian voices, this isn't a good sign. I flatten myself against the wall and hold my breath, I'm not eager to continue my tenure here so getting caught isn't on the agenda. We still haven't found the other prisoners, but I know that Alec works for my mother so I have to be his main priority. "Three men coming up the stairs, you four stay here and stay quiet." I wonder whether he'll opt for getting me to safety first and then returning for the others or whether he'll try to play the hero. In a flash of denim and black leather Harker is tossed onto her feet and he's gone and mingled grunts, smacks, and groans come floating up the stairs. Before I can blink again he's back by our sides and propelling us down the stairs, around the prone bodies of three bloodied gang members, and out to freedom.
We're close to an exit now, I can smell it in the sudden freshness of the air. Wood smoke and hibiscus mingle on the warm currents on night air that waft through the narrow servants hall, but it seems to me that there is too much smoke for a few simple cooking fires. Alec tilts his head like a dog catching the scent of a rabbit and a small smile lifts the corners of his full mouth. The sight is comforting, it means that our back up rescuers are probably here. Holding hands like Dorothy, Scarecrow, and Tinman, the five of us edge down the hall towards the door, backs flattened against the wall. Five yards, then four, now even I can smell the scent of burning huts and here the metallic banging of a fist fight in the courtyard.
They are lined up in military precision, standing on the grass and waiting for us. Still looking frail and grandfatherly, the old man stands in front of them like a benevolent dictator and beams at us, the first rays of morning sun just touching the snowy white masses of his hair. Two men standing off to one side hold trash can lids in their hands, and just behind them I can see the remains of a large bonfire. I understand with a sinking nausea in my stomach that we've been smoked out of hiding like no more than cattle.
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Kate gently holds my hair back while I retch the last of my breakfast up in a convenient grove of palm fronds. The raft ride to the island had not been kind on my stomach and my squad was lucky that I'd managed to hold it in until we'd landed on shore rather than spewing up all over them. I can here the sounds of a verbal altercation in the meadow beside me, two voices that could only belong to Naia and Dix.
"I'm telling you it was here!" Naia's voice is pitched high and on the defensive.
"Well gee dandy you idiot, I can tell that from the happy remains of building that we found scattered around in the forest , but that doesn't exactly help us find the yahoos we're supposed to be rescuing now does it." Dix's voice grates like gravel against my sensitive nerves. I feel the warm stickiness of a few salt tears trickling down my face before I double over and start to retch again.