Chapter 3 is up. Please review...they make me happy.
Disclaimer: I do not own WHR or its characters.
Where was the damn elevator?
His feet, which barely whispered across the hard marble, drummed inside his head. Too much noise. They could hear every footstep, every quick breath she dragged in. The coat flapped like wings about her willowy frame. The tie hung loose across her hips, the coat edges offering glimpses of pale flesh with each step. A bead of sweat twisted down his back. She was beginning to lag. Her hand jerked in his as she lost her footing again and again. A swift glance behind him revealed what he feared most. She couldn't make it. Her face gleamed with a wet sheen of perspiration; the skin was colorless and waxen. Tiny specks of saliva escaped her parted lips with each labored breath. Her chest was heaving too hard. The green of her eyes had receded to a thin band ringing black pools.
The hallway arrowed straight for another 10 feet and then made a hard 90-degree turn to end in front of a large bank of elevators. A door labeled 'EXIT' stood to his right. Stairs or elevator. Elevator or stairs. He ran a calloused hand over his face, shoving them through his hair in agitation. Her breathing filled his mind and his heartbeat had never sounded so loud. Not sparing a glance at where she leaned heavily against the wall, he pressed the elevator down button. And waited.
His fingers twitched restlessly in his coat pocket, out of sight. He wanted to tap his foot, walk in circles, anything to relieve this tension. Nothing sounded in the hallway, but it didn't mean anything. They could be waiting in the elevator with guns held in ready position. Or maybe men lined the stairwell prepared to cut them down. No, he would save her. She would not suffer the same fate.
Where was the damn elevator?
There was no air. Just vapid, empty space blocking her throat. She leaned her shoulders against the cool wall and turned her burning cheek to its surface. Every muscle spasmed and twisted until hot salt tears glazed the world in shimmering focus. Blinking to clear her gaze, she inhaled a shallow breath and shifted her eyes to the dark figure before her. His head was bent as if in deep contemplation, but somehow she thought he could hear every gasp and ruffle of the coat. Jet-black hair swung down to obscure his face and his hands were jammed deep in his pockets. Utterly still, like a carved stone statue standing mute and without expression.
Turned towards the elevators, she felt at ease to study him. He was tall. Scarce images darted in front of her eyes like butterfly wings-so quick they remained a soft blur. A street crammed with bustling people; a young girl running and laughing with wheat-colored locks spiraling out behind her; tart sensation of oversweet candy on her tongue and a cloudy face standing near the stove. None of them made sense. Did she know these faceless people? Were they part of her forgotten life? Her eyes stopped at his shoulder and stared unseeing while her mind tried to grasp reality.
Her life was...nothing. She recognized objects, knew the place as Japan, but everything else was shuttered off in some dead part of her brain. What was her name? God, she didn't even know that! A solitary drop snaked down her cheek to linger momentarily at her chin before falling soundlessly to the floor between her feet. To not even know her own name... A sob choked her throat but was distilled at the sudden gust of sharp wind. She realized he was gone and her flimsy clothing gaped obscenely down her torso. She grasped the tie and swiftly jerked it closed. Her cheeks heated with a hot blush.
One elevator stood open second from the left. Unbidden she walked forward to enter. The interior was gaudy even to her new eyes. Red velvet lined the walls drowned in gilded leaves and tiny flowers. Cringing slightly she stepped forward only to have her cold companion swing out, grab her arm and wordlessly shove her through the stairwell door. Opening her mouth to protest, she glanced back to watch the elevator doors close with a soft click. She rounded on him then, eyes fired by anger and fear. She had to concentrate not to shake with his steel gray gaze burning her, but she would not let him control another minute of an existence she did not even understand.
"Where are we going?" She almost turned to see who had spoken, but it was her own voice. He merely cocked a brow.
Five armed soldiers marched in perfect combat formation, their guns raised to waist level and eyes scanning the perimeter. The sterile white walls and fluorescent lights made their black clad figures stand out like candles in the dark. The director didn't dare look behind him. This was a place of science, not violence. He wiped at the film of nervous sweat along his upper lip.
Relief rushed up his chest like adrenaline when the open door of the specimen's chamber came into sight. Finally, this would all be... His step faltered as his brain rewinded. Open. Brun.
Ignoring the suffocating silence, the director wrapped his hand around the doorjamb and paused. He could feel the soldiers behind him vibrating raw energy. The director realized they were excited...they might get to kill. Sucking in a deep breath and steeling himself, he stepped into the entrance.
At once he wished he had not. The afternoon's lunch of turkey and chips gargled up his throat to pool nastily in the back of his mouth. Bending at the waist he rushed outside to purge himself. His eyes closed tightly against the image forever burned into them. Brun lying sprawled beside the bathroom door in a pool of black fluids, an empty syringe protruding rudely from his chest. Without the mix of sedatives and medications the specimen had received, Brun had bled from the eyes and nose, his orbs bloated so they bobbed above his sockets. Another wave of nausea roiled through him as the image blinked like a neon sign against his temples.
Wiping strings of spit and food from his lips, the director turned back towards the soldiers. They stood at attention outside the doorway with guns at the ready. Even now they were prepared to kill. Did nothing affect them?
"He's dead," the director stated from his position leaning weakly against the wall. Nothing. "I said, he's dead. The specimen is gone. Report back that the mission failed. Well? What are you waiting for?" he screamed when they remained silent. A soft tread alerted him to something far dangerous than soldiers' guns.
"It seems you lost something, yes?" The accented voice had seemed more...masculine...on the phone. The director stared, slightly mortified, at the golden-haired beauty gliding towards him. Each step brought the slither and creak of black leather that encased long legs and the jacket stopping just short of her pants. Stopping directly in front of him, she spoke quietly to the soldier who stepped forward at her entrance. He nodded imperceptibly and turned to his comrades speaking in rapid fire French. Lost in their jumbled words, the director did not notice her until she pressed a small hand against his groin. Gasping at the sudden contact and ashamed to feel a reaction, he tried to turn away from those awful blue eyes. Fogged over as if blind, but he knew she saw everything. She twisted viciously at his movement and he yelped in male anguish.
"What you've lost is not yet gone," she whispered close to his ear. "You will find and retrieve my employer's property before the midsummer solstice." She enunciated each word with a slight tightening of her hand that had the director whimpering and clutching at her arm. "
"I don't know where- Oh, God!" He screamed when she jerked her hand down. He felt something pop and blood ran thick down his leg to pool in his shoe.
"You will find her. My employer paid you the sum requested; now he wants what is his." Her tongue darted out to lick along the rim of his ear. The director cringed and tried to fold himself flatter against the wall to escape her ministrations. "Just think of the little wife sitting at home, knitting in hand, a bullet in her brain. And the children! So sad to see their scared faces decorating your lawn. I'm not sure where I would put the rest of them..."
The director's eyes widened, his pupils dilated and breath caught in his chest. "Yes, yes," he whispered. "I, I'll find her. They won't get away. No, they won't..." His voice drifted off still mumbling incoherently. The woman grimaced at his slack mouth and removed her hand from his crotch. She wiped the blood on his suit jacket and pulled out a 10 mm Glock from her under her waistband.
"Too bad my employer no longer trusts you. Your incompetence has forced me to undertake this task, something I have no wish to do. But this will make me feel better." Raising the weapon, she fired two shots into his chest and one through his temple. A tiny trickle of blood oozed out of the hole in his head before the director collapsed against the floor. His eyes stared blindly ahead. She turned away and walked back to her men, shoving the piece back into her waistband. "Remove the bodies and alert the central corp. We must find them before they leave the city."
He stared at her for a long moment before responding, "Rome."
It sounded familiar, like a memory standing on the tip of one's tongue. "Have I been there before?"
He seemed reluctant to say anything more by the way he shifted his stance and glanced back towards the door. "Yes. You were born there. Now, we have to leave-"
"No." Her bold statement stopped him mid sentence and his brows drew together in a sharp line across his forehead. "Tell me your name first. Wait, tell me mine."
"While we walk." He grasped her arm in a firm grip and bounded down the steps, leaving her to follow or be dragged in his wake. She wanted to stop him and force the issue, but the breath she had worked so hard to collect outside the elevators was evaporating with each jarring step. She lost count of flights and matched his steps automatically as her body tried to compensate by partially shutting down. The world returned when her face slammed into his back.
He was stopped in front of a heavy door staring out through a small glass window situated high on the frame. Apparently deciding all was well, he pushed through it and pulled her after. She tripped clumsily over a curb and fell on her hands and knees. The hard concrete bit through her skin. She looked up into her own eyes reflected off the door a black sedan. They were outside behind the building in a massive parking lot. The sky swirled violet and black as darker stratus clouds rumbled low in the atmosphere. Her companion dragged her up and shoved her forcefully into the open car, slamming the door shut behind her. Seconds later he slid in beside her and started the engine.
Shoving his foot to the floor, the car heaved and screamed into gear. Her head rammed against the window and red flecks floated before her eyes. He made a mad 180-degree turn and zoomed over a curb to fly into an empty unlit street. She didn't know how he could see. The headlights remained off, and he drove with an unnatural concentration, his gloved hands strangling the wheel. Too afraid to speak, she cowered in her seat and tried to absorb what had happened since she woke up, killed a man and escaped. Her thoughts were disrupted by a low utterance.
"What did you say?" She twisted to face him. His eyes never left the road.
"Amon. My name is Amon. You are Robin."
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