16
MARGARET
THE GOON ENTERS the room, and before he can turn and run out at the sight of me missing, I move the rope over his head and down onto his neck. He grabs at it, but I pull, hard.
It’s way harder than they make it seem in movies, and I have to use every muscle in my body to pull against him. He backs me toward the wall and slams me into it, knocking the air out of me. I gasp, but I don’t let go—this is life or death, and I can’t let him win.
He’s grappling for my arms and tries to get a good hold, but I don’t let it stop me. He uses his nails to scratch my arms and I growl at the burn of pain when he takes a few chunks of skin. He falls to his knees and I push forward with my leg, hoping he falls onto his stomach; his arms are still holding mine so he can’t catch himself, and his head hits the ground. I wait while his body goes limp, and I stare in amazement at his unconsciousness. When I’m sure he won’t be popping up to get me, I release the ropes and jump off of him.
I can’t believe I actually pulled that off. I’ve never so much as smacked someone before—minus shooting Agent Dimples—and I just knocked a man out cold. The smile that pulls at my lips terrifies me for a second before I chastise myself. He did hold you hostage, Margaret. And who knows what else they were planning on doing to me.
Deciding I need to bolt, I quickly search his body, grateful to find a handgun at his side, and I snatch it up. I pull back the slide and smirk when I see it’s loaded.
Good. I might need it.
I exit into the hallway and check to find it empty, no guards. Going right, I stay close to the wall, doing my best impression of Tom Cruise in any one of his infamous movies. I’m so glad I’ve seen them all.
The end of the hallway forks and I make a quick decision, going left and continuing down the hall. There’s a door with a small window on the left side, and I risk a glance inside. I see men and women wearing masks; it looks like a lab of some sort, and each person seems to be in charge of their own work station. I look closer and see them packaging a white powder.
Holy shit. This is their operation. This is G3’s secret location that Liam was trying to track down, which means I’m more than likely in Nevada.
“Hey!” I turn toward the yell that comes from behind me and see one of the goons who was in the room with me when Anton threatened Liam. I point my gun at him, and he halts slightly at the sight of it. I wait, not sure how I’m going to get out of here. He’s a few feet away and I think if I ran, he’d just shoot me in the back anyway. Don’t hesitate. Even if you think you might not be in danger, consider that, in this situation, you’re always in danger. Liam’s voice echoes in my head.
Before I can decide what to do, my body betrays my concentration and I sneeze. On accident, I also pull the trigger. I’m still recovering from the sneeze when his body thumps to the ground. “Oh my God!” I shriek, staring at the hole in the man’s head. The blood seeps out and I gag, covering my mouth. I can’t puke on the man I killed. I can’t. I won’t.
I look away, and the nauseous feeling fades slowly.
The shot drew attention, and one of the men from inside the room comes out and sees me. He doesn’t seem alarmed until he sees the man on the floor. Before he can get me, I bolt in the direction I was headed before.
It’s a never-ending maze of hallways, and after multiple locked doors, I finally find a staircase. Flinging open the door, I start to run up the stairs, only to be stopped by a body. I start carelessly throwing punches and use the gun to hit whomever is in front of me. One more hit and I spin to run in the other direction, but then the person’s hand grasps my wrist.
“Stop.” The voice halts my movement, and I look up into familiar eyes.
“Liam?”
He doesn’t speak, just drags me up the steps and keeps a hold on my arm as we quickly ascend the staircase.
I breathe hard, barely keeping up and tripping every few steps, Liam silent as he keeps going. He holds me tighter when I slip, and he helps me stay upright. When we reach the top of the concrete steps, he keeps me back as he opens the door. I don’t pay much attention, relief filling me now that someone else is taking the lead. A pressure I didn’t know I felt lifts from my shoulders now that he’s here.
When Liam grabs my hand again, we both go through the door, and I see bodies on the floor, most unmoving, some groaning and crying in pain. I look to the man holding my hand; he doesn’t pay them any mind, doesn’t hesitate as he makes his way out the door and into the bright sunshine. It burns my eyes after so long in the dark, and I hold tight to his hand, letting him continue to pull me down the sidewalk.
I look back one more time as the realization kicks in that he must have done that to them. He killed and hurt all those people. I stare, seeing him in a new light. A weird feeling comes over me as I think about the fact that the man I’m refusing to let go of is a murderer, but it should have hit me sooner. I should have realized this sooner. So, why didn’t I? What does that say about my sense of self-preservation?
When I was kicking myself, feeling guilty about killing a man who wanted to hurt me, Liam was killing twenty times that to get to me.
But what makes my frown even bigger is the fact that it doesn’t seem to bother me all that much. I’m stuck on the fact that he did all of that just to get to me.
Maybe that makes me stupid or desperate, but it’s not in my nature to acknowledge that I’m either.
Liam steals us a random car, which is surprisingly easy considering where we are. It’s Vegas, a place I’ve always wanted to visit because it looks fun and now want to leave because people here want me dead. Anton’s business is smack dab in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip, though it’s impossible to tell that it’s a front for a drug operation, and a major one at that.
People don’t care that it’s there. Most of the people here are far too focused on their own shit to worry about something illegal going down in Sin City.
“How’d you find me?” A husky voice escapes my mouth, and the sharp sting in my throat makes me cringe.
“The phone,” he finally says. “I had a tracker in it.”
Huh. Clever.