Out in the hall, someone banged against the door, so I hit harder.
“Come on,” I said to no one but myself. “Come—”
And then the glass shattered, falling to the floor. I jumped over the partition and into the other room, where the ambassador was still bound to his chair as he lay on the floor. Blood stained the concrete. His face looked almost peaceful as he stared up at me and gave me one last smile.
“Save Preston,” he whispered, eyelids fluttering.
And then he died.
Chapter Fifteen
Even as I watched the life drain out of Preston’s father, I knew that I should run. And yet I felt like I should wait, hold his hand, tell him that his son was going to be okay. But there are some lies even spies can’t tell a dying man.
The door to the room where I’d been sitting banged open, and I didn’t wait for the shooter to realize I was gone—to see me on the other side of the shattered glass and follow. I leaped over the ambassador’s lifeless body and hurled myself into the hall, running away from the interrogation rooms as quickly as I could.
But my breath came harder than it should have. I told myself that I’d eaten too much of Grandma Morgan’s fudge over Christmas—that maybe the drugs they’d used to transport me there weren’t entirely out of my system. Whatever the case, my legs didn’t move as quickly as they should have. My breath was labored and heavy, and after a hundred feet, I wanted to double over and catch my breath, but I didn’t dare slow down.
If I slowed down, I’d die.
I was deep underground in a facility so secure there were probably only a handful of people who knew it even existed, but someone from the Circle had found Winters there. Someone was still looking for me.
The corridor curved and branched, and footsteps echoed in the hallway. I looked for a way out, but then I realized a pair of guards was running toward me.
A deep voice ordered, “Spread out. Find her.”
I thought maybe I should trust them, but then I remembered I couldn’t trust anybody.
So I pressed myself deeper into the shadows and the pair ran past. As soon as they were gone, alarms began to sound. The overhead fluorescents pulsed. The lights on the surveillance cameras began to blink, and I knew that the system was rebooting. It wasn’t just a camera malfunction, the sirens said. The facility knew there was a breach, a gunman. A body. They would know that I was on the loose, and maybe they would blame me—how did I know? All I was sure of was that I wasn’t safe there.
My side ached and my head hurt, and when the hallway branched, I stopped and looked and listened.
Heavy cables ran overhead, electrical lines that carried currents and pictures and sound. But one hall had fewer lines, so that was where I went.
I slowed my pace, moving carefully. There was a storage room that was locked. A vacant room that I thought must have been a cell. And then there was another door. Through the tiny window, I looked into what must have been a guardroom. Monitors covered one wall, and on them I saw people walking in cells, sleeping on cots.
Red lights whirled. Gates swung shut. The images changed then, and I saw him.
“Preston.”
He was asleep in a cell—I didn’t know where. He looked so peaceful. So innocent. There was no way for him to know that somewhere in that labyrinth, his father’s body was lying on the floor—that I still had his blood on my hands.
And then more than ever I knew I had to get out of there. I had to survive so that I could get him out too.
Thirty yards down the corridor, a metal barrier began to fall out of the ceiling, blocking off the only other exit. I had no idea what lay in that direction, but I knew I couldn’t go back the way I’d come, so I bolted forward. My hands pumped at my sides. My lungs burned, but I didn’t let that stop me as I dropped to the ground, sliding faster and faster. I felt the metal barrier graze against my hair—a few strands even caught in it—nothing but faint traces that I had been there as I made it to the other side.
There was an air shaft. I didn’t know where it led or what would greet me on the other side, but what else was new?
Cold hit me as I opened the shaft.
I didn’t think twice. I shimmied inside. And that was when I felt the fall.
You might think I’m exaggerating. But, believe me, this time I’m totally not. I felt myself begin to slide, with nothing to hold on to. No way to stop my descent. Suddenly, I burst free of the shaft and landed on what felt like a slab of solid ice.
But then even the ground gave way beneath me, and soon I was falling, tumbling. Snow covered me, and I rolled over and over. Freezing dampness clung to my hair and my skin. My teeth rattled, and instantly I understood why my breath had been so labored, why my head had hurt so much.
Agent Edwards hadn’t brought me down to the facility. I clawed backward, easing across the ledge on which I lay.
He’d brought me up.