toward the safe room. Dread settled in. No one would be able to get in. No one would know where we were. How would Dawson find us? Where was he? Was he even okay? My heart continued to thud loudly, making all the sounds muffled and heightened at the same time. A weird dichotomy caused by fear and adrenaline.
Inside, the room was dark, barely lit by a blue glow coming from a set of monitors on the wall. Ken’Ichi shut the door behind him. On the screens, I could see the guests being corralled together into the main room as a S.W.A.T. team surrounded them. I scanned them, looking for Dawson’s tall body.
When I didn’t see him, my stomach clenched. God. I needed out of this room with Jada. I needed to go find Dawson, wrap my arms around him, and never let him go. But first I had to figure out a way to get Jada and me to safety. I turned my attention to the room we were in, searching for anything I could use as a weapon. That was laughable. What use would anything I put together be against a gun?
“They’ll come for us,” Jada told him, still putting her own body between me and Ken’Ichi, shielding me as everyone in my entire life had shielded me, protected me from the world, germs, and myself.
I wouldn’t let Jada die for me.
Ken’Ichi was examining the monitors, but he still pointed the gun in our direction.
“You’ve locked yourself into a corner,” Jada told him.
He turned to her with a smug lift of his lips. “A good safe room always has more than one way out.”
Jada stilled. Was he suggesting there was another way out of the room?
I searched the darkness in vain.
“Too bad you weren’t here when it was installed, or you would have known about it,” he laughed darkly. “But no matter, you see, your hero is coming to negotiate for your release.”
Dawson. My heart leaped. He was alive and unhurt. Relief flooded me. The look on his face was one I’d never seen before. Deadly. He stormed his way into the kitchen with a team behind him and his Glock raised. His tuxedo jacket had been exchanged for a bulletproof vest. He looked like the leader of every advanced team I’d ever seen on television. Muscled and sure. So handsome it hurt.
While Ken’Ichi and I had both been distracted by Dawson and the team’s arrival in the kitchen, Jada had not been. She moved before I could try and stop her. She lunged at Ken’Ichi and the gun, but he pulled it away from her with ease, smacking her across the face with it. She hit the ground on her hands and knees.
“Jada!” I started toward her, and Ken’Ichi waved the gun in my direction.
“No. Stay there, Miss Banner. Jada-chan needs to learn there are consequences for her actions. For her disrespect. For her betrayal of her family.”
“And I told you to stop calling me that.” Jada was off the ground, hand around the wrist with the gun, and fighting him with more strength than I’d ever expected Jada to have.
Fear filled me as she struggled. I had to force my mind back to the room. I searched the stocked shelves. Food. Water. Candles. A lighter. Swirls of formulas filled my eyes. No flour. I could have made a flour explosion.
My hand landed on the bottle of bleach at the same time as the gun went off.
I turned and saw Jada stumble back, hand to her stomach, blood instantly spreading across the blue silk under the black lace. Anguish tore through me, but I didn’t let myself stop to think. I unscrewed the cap and flung the liquid into Ken’Ichi’s face. He screamed as the alkaline hit his eyes, and I brought the bleach bottle down on his wrist with every muscle I had in my body. The gun flew out of his hand and skittered away under the shelves.
I turned to my friend. “Jada!” I called. She was stumbling toward the door, but she didn’t quite make it. She fell to the ground, and I landed on my knees at her side. Tears hit my eyes as the blood continued to pool on her dress.
Ken’Ichi was growling, but I didn’t have time for him. I just prayed he wouldn’t be able to see well enough to search for the gun in the dark.
“Jada, stay with me. Don’t you dare shut those eyes,” I cried out, putting