“Me? What did I do?”
“You jumped through the window and I followed. That’s the second time that I’ve been sliced open because of a window and you!”
“Can we have this argument later? Right now we have to get to cover and then I need to take a look at that.”
“Fine, but we’re going to talk about the fact that I’m the one that always seems to get hurt around here.”
She started jogging toward what looked like some kind of cave. I glanced behind me to see the helicopter had touched down and there were three guys running for us. I took off after Blake, just catching up to her as we approached the tunnel.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“It looks like a mine shaft. There are a ton of closed mines around here.”
“Is it safe?”
Gunfire sounded behind us and I pushed Blake into the tunnel toward the ladder that would take us down. “I don’t think we have any other options right now,” I shouted as we started climbing down. It was dark down here, and we had to run our hands along the walls to feel where we were going.
“I really hope this thing doesn’t suddenly open up beneath my feet,” she said nervously as we walked down the dark passageway.
“I’ll catch you if you fall.”
“You’d better, because if I die, I’m coming back as a ghost and I’ll haunt you the rest of your life.”
“Ooh, I’m really scared,” I said mockingly. The wind blew in just the right way through the tunnel, creating eerie sounds all around us. Blake stopped in front of me, waiting for the sounds to stop, her hand gripping tightly onto my shirt.
“It’s just the wind,” I whispered in her ear.
“I know.”
But she didn’t sound so confident about that now. We started moving again and after a curve in the tunnel, we could see light shining in up ahead. It was reflecting off some kind of pocket of water, but Blake must not have seen it. She started running ahead, not paying attention to anything around her.
“Blake, stop!”
She saw it too late, stumbling at the edge of the water, but she couldn’t stop. She fell in and disappeared beneath the water as I dove for the edge and shoved my arm down to try and grab for her. I couldn’t see her. There wasn’t enough light in here to see into the depths of the water.
“Blake!”
When she didn’t come up after a few seconds, I stood and tore the vest from my body and dove into the water. I could feel the pull as the water started sucking me down further. I let it pull me down until the light from above was too dim to see anything else. A sudden yank had me spinning in the water. Blake was holding onto the wall down below me, as a particularly strong current was pulling her down. She seemed to be just on the edge of it. I motioned for her to grab my leg and hold on, then I gripped onto the rock wall and started pulling us up. When she broke the resistance of the current, she grabbed onto the rock and propelled herself up to the top. We broke the surface of the water, panting and shaking from the cold water.
I swam for the side where my vest still laid and held it over the water as I swam to the other side. I had the journal in one of the pockets and I couldn’t risk getting it wet. Then all of this would have been for nothing. Pulling myself up to the ledge, I hoisted myself up and then held out my hand for Blake to take. Once on dry land again, we both collapsed to the ground, panting and trying to catch our breath.
“Sorry I almost got you killed,” she panted.
“It’s okay. Don’t feel bad about it,” I said, not mentioning that I had shot her. I had to have some leverage over her.
“No, really. I’m sorry. I should have been paying better attention.”
I waved her off and sat up on one elbow to face her. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
She sat up quickly, pressing her lips to mine. “You are so gonna get lucky when we get out of this.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah. I’m gonna do so many dirty things to you.”
I swallowed hard, a million thoughts running through my head. Positions, lingerie, and those gorgeous tits, all running on a reel in my head. It almost made me feel bad. I should really tell her that I shot her. I should really tell her that now we were even.
She leaned in to whisper in my ear. “I’m gonna suck you so hard that you see stars as you come, and then I’m gonna let you fuck my ass and take me until I’m so sore I can’t walk.”
Yeah, I definitely wasn’t telling her anything.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Senator Cortez
“Sir, the lab was broken into.”
It was the phone call that I thought would never come. Nobody knew about what we were doing, aside from our small group, and there were measures in place to make sure that no one talked.
“What did they get?”
“One of the journals I was using to document the research. We’re still going through everything else. At this time, it doesn’t look like any samples were taken.”
Shit. “What will that tell them?”
“Everything. All my notes, everything we’ve tested, all the lab results…it’s all in there.”
“What about names?”
“No, that was all kept separate.”
“So, they have no proof.”
“Sir, with all due respect, they have proof of what I was doing.”
“No,” I said angrily. “They have the ramblings of a scientist. There are no bodies, and if they don’t have the actual vials from the lab, then they have nothing.”
“They have evidence of what we’ve done. If they get their hands on anything else, we’ll be exposed.”
“Then bump up security. I want video feed from the lab so that I know exactly who the fuck snuck in and what they
