“Can you be serious?” James said, shaking his head.
“Sorry.”
“That wasn’t even good.”
“I know.”
James set down the flower and picked up the paper. There had to be a connection here; he just couldn’t see it. Who were his “true friends”? The other Supers, James assumed, could be counted on to help, but the problem was, they were all gone. Derek knew Rocky pretty well. Maybe he was telling James to ask him for help. But for what?
“It’s too vague!” James said with frustration, letting the piece of paper flutter to the table.
“We’ve just got to think about it.” Rocky dropped onto the sofa. “But personally, after being shot at and driven into hiding, I’m beat.”
James felt tired himself. His phone told him it was nearly midnight. Maybe sleeping on it would help. Besides the sofa, there wasn’t anywhere to sleep but on the floor. He spied a single blanket crumpled in the corner and sighed.
“Sorry, bro,” Rocky said, settling comfortably into the cushions. “Too slow.”
James laid the blanket carefully on the hard tile floor and lay down. The blanket didn’t provide much cushioning, and his back dug painfully into the floor. If they were stuck down here for too long, he might start having back problems. Still, he was so exhausted from the day’s events that sleep found him quickly. He dreamed of men with guns, of fields of flowers, and of being stuck in a collapsed building, the rubble slowly crushing him, suffocating him. And there was nothing he could do.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
James stirred, shifting in his sleep, barely registering the noise.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
He shifted again, his shoulder digging painfully enough into the floor that he was drawn from his sleep. He sat up, groggy, searching for the source of the noise. At the other end of the bunker, above the door, a small red light flashed in sync with the beeps. Suddenly, James was wide awake.
“Rocky!” he hissed. “Rocky, wake up!”
“Whasat?” Rocky said, turning over on the sofa and sitting up, his eyes bleary.
James stood, his heart pounding. The beeping continued. “I think it’s some kind of alarm,” he whispered.
Rocky sat up straight, fully awake. “Intruders?”
James nodded.
Rocky cursed and stood. James crept as quietly as he could to the metal door and put an ear to it. Sure enough, he could hear the whirring of the mechanism, the screeching that signaled the secret trapdoor was opening...
How did the SIA find them? Were they followed? His thoughts went to Rocky’s car, parked behind the warehouse. Too obvious. They should have hidden it better.
James heard a loud snap behind him and whirled around. Rocky stood next to the now-upturned table. He held a severed leg thick enough to be swung with some weight behind it.
“Here!” Rocky whispered. He tossed the leg to James, then turned and stomped on the table again, snapping off a second leg.
James hefted the table leg in his hand, incredulous. It was smaller and lighter than a baseball bat. It might do some damage, but if the men had guns, it would be worthless.
Outside the door, the intruder descended the staircase, each step a metallic clang. James breathed heavily and glanced at Rocky, who hefted his makeshift club on the other side of the door, ready to swing. Beyond the door, the intruder came closer and closer. The table leg felt comical in James’s hands. Were they really going to do this? Fight off the SIA with table legs? They’d be beaten down and arrested for sure, if not killed. Why not just surrender?
But he thought of Derek in hiding somewhere, counting on James to find him. They had to escape. They had to.
The footsteps stopped right outside the door. James held his breath, sure his heartbeat was loud enough to alert the intruders of his presence. The handle on the door turned. The grip on his club was so tight his fingers felt numb. The door opened.
“Now!” James yelled, hefting the club over his head.
“Ahhh!” Rocky screamed, charging forward and bringing his club back to swing.
“Ahhh!” Katie McLain screamed, falling back onto the metal steps, her blonde hair splaying around her.
James dropped the table leg from above his head. It clanged to the ground behind him. Rocky was mid-swing before he realized it was Katie and couldn’t pull back in time. The table leg passed by where Katie had been moments before and slammed into the side of the doorway. It exploded into two pieces, splinters flying everywhere, the other half landing right next to Katie.
“Katie!” James said with horror, hurrying forward to help her.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said, waving him off and climbing to her feet.
“What’re you doing here?” James said. Before she could answer, a thought hit him. She was his assistant! “Where’s Derek?”
She met his eyes evenly. Now that she was in the light of the room, James could see that her normally flat hair was disheveled, and there were deep bags under her eyes.
“I could ask you the same,” she said, dropping into a chair as Rocky closed the bunker door. Her voice was flatter than normal, lacking the peppiness James had grown to resent. “For both questions.”
“You don’t know where he is?” James said, the brief hope that had risen inside him crashing down like a wave. He hadn’t even thought of Katie since the Supers’ disappearance. He had just assumed that their employees, their assistants, had disappeared with them.
“I don’t,” she said.
“But you must know something.” Rocky pulled up a chair and sat across from her. “I mean, you work for the Supers! Didn’t they, I don’t know, give you a heads-up or something?”
She looked at Rocky, and for a moment, James thought he could see tears starting to well in her eyes. But then her face hardened again, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I really don’t know anything. I assisted Derek, yes, but he would never divulge too many secrets about the
