ENTANGLED (39 page)

A fight in the corridor, coming closer.

Kel started to rise, but one look from Morris and she sunk back down on the sill.

Harvey peered out into the passage.

They must be almost at her cell, given the volume of the screaming and struggling. Two orderlies, by the sound of things, one really angry patient.

Scratch that. There weren’t any patients here. One really angry inmate.

She silently cheered him on. Hoped he was throwing as many punches as he was getting.

And then the fight was suddenly in her room.

Harvey leaped back as a writhing mass of male fell through her door. It was Evans and Longmore, two of her least-favorite, and someone she’d never seen before.

Well, duh.

Of course she hadn't seen him before. She hadn't seen anyone. Anyone like her, that is.

This one was big. Tall. His face twisted with effort as he fought the two orderlies, the muscles in his arms bunching as he wrestled and punched.

To give him a hand, Kel spun the heavy melamine cup off her washbasin and slammed it into Longmore’s head. She kept most of her focus on Morris as she did it, but he didn’t notice in the chaos.

Really, she should give Doc Greenway more credit. He might be the devil incarnate, but when she’d come here, she could just about move a spoon across a table.

Without taking her eyes off Morris, hands tightly clasped in front of her, she tipped the light-weight wire wastebasket under her desk over and rolled it across the floor. When it was close enough, she jammed it over Evans’ head.

The fighting man, her compatriot, looked up, straight at her, as she did it. A shock ran through her, like she’d closed her hand around a live wire. And for a moment, she could hear nothing.

His eyes were very dark, but blue, she thought, not brown.

Longmore punched him in the face, breaking the connection, and Kel’s head jerked up, heart hammering at the thought of losing track of Morris for even one second.

But it was okay.

He’d actually turned away from her, syringe gun at the ready, trying to find a gap. He was eager as a dog at a rabbit hole.

Kel wondered what the dose in that thing was. More than was needed to take one man down, she’d guess.

Morris lunged.

She didn’t know if she’d live to regret it, but Kel jinked the gun just to the right as he did, and instead of getting her fighting man in the face, he caught Evans in the arm.

“Shit.” Morris pulled back, panicked, as Evans went limp. Biting her lip, Kel waited for his arm to drop to his side, nice and loose, his finger still on the trigger, and then jinked it again. Straight into his leg.

“Wha…” Morris spun to her, eyes wide, the rage and hatred in them making her press back against the window. He took one step, and fell. Like a tree going down.

His head made a nice sharp crack as it hit the leg of her desk and she winced, despite herself.

Harvey was still by the door, his focus completely on the fight, his one leg back a bit, as if looking for the opportunity to put the boot in.

And the noise had died down to almost nothing, with Evans and Morris out of the game. Longmore and her fighter were grunting and swearing as they grappled and twisted on her floor.

What was good was no one seemed to have radioed it in yet. They liked a bit of physical ‘correction’ now and again, did the lads.

Just to make sure, Kel slid all their radio buttons to off.

She had no objects handy that would make a significant dent in Harvey’s skull. There was still the cup, and at the thought of it, she lifted it up and smacked Longmore in the head with it again. But it was just nuisance value.

Everything else was bolted down or too light.

And then suddenly, the game changed.

Longmore slumped to the ground. Still and limp as Evans. And her comrade in arms rolled to his feet, staggering a little when he got upright.

He looked like he was going to go down the same way as Morris had, and at last, Kel saw the syringe gun sticking out of his leg. Longmore must have got it in seconds before he had his lights punched out. Probably how her tall, blue-eyed friend had gotten the final jump on him.

He reached down and yanked the syringe out, turning to look at her, just as Morris had. But his eyes were very different. Just as full of emotion, but this one, she couldn’t read.

He threw the gun at Harvey, as if he knew what she could do, and obligingly, she turned it, sharp end pointing the right way, and drove it straight into Harvey’s neck. She made the trigger depress, and Harvey simply fell sideways and rolled forward a little, so he was more or less face down.

Kel jumped down off the sill, scrambling back a little as her fighter lurched towards her.

He looked like he wanted to say something, but he was going down, and they both knew it. Just as he toppled, Kel created a safety net, caught him in mid-air, and using his own momentum, propelled him onto her bed.

He hit it hard and bounced.

And suddenly, she was in complete silence.

With five unconscious men around her.

Nate woke up to swearing.

He cracked open his eyes and saw the woman who had helped him earlier struggling to cuff the orderlies in a complicated weave of arms and legs.

He stared, fascinated.

She seemed to be braiding their arms and legs through each other, cuffing a wrist to an ankle, to another wrist. Four syringe guns sat neatly to one side.

She worked with a focused intensity that was a little frightening, and he made a mental note never to piss her off.

It came to him that he was lying on her bed, and he wondered how that had happened, when he knew he’d gone down on the other side of the room.

Not that the room was that big, but it would have been impossible for her to have lifted him. She stood about 5’6” to his 6’2” and he outweighed her significantly.

Finished at last, she took a deep breath and stepped back to admire her handiwork, her hands on her hips, her dark ponytail swinging. “Get out of
that
, you assholes.”

She was so slender, so graceful, even in the standard green scrubs and white t-shirt they all wore. She looked breakable.

He’d never seen her before, and he thought he’d seen most of the inmates. Maybe she was new, but that didn't make sense. Why would they bring in someone new? Things were going to hell.

“Now let’s make sure you can’t scream for help.” Her voice was quiet, but steely. He reassessed his thought that they would break her.

Man, he really needed to make sure he never pissed this woman off.

She turned suddenly to the bed, her gaze going to the sheets folded at the foot of it, but went very still when she saw he was watching her.

She took a step back, and the instinctive quality to the movement was like a hard, sharp punch to his chest. The only way she knew to be safe was to be out of reach. In here, it was the only sane conclusion.

“How long have you been awake? The others are still out cold.” Her gaze never left his face and he wondered what was going on behind those pale blue eyes.

“A couple of minutes.” His voice was scratchy. Rough. He cleared his throat. “Longmore didn’t get the chance to pull the trigger. I only got a small dose.” He waited a beat. “How’d you get me on the bed?”

She frowned, dismissing the question with a wave of her hand. “Doesn't matter. You’re just lucky I have good aim.”

“Oh, I’ve been lucky since the moment I fell into your cell.”

He could tell she didn’t know what to make of that, but he meant it. Things had been going nowhere until that jackass of an orderly stuck his head out of her room to rubberneck the fight moving towards him.

Nate had thrown himself at that open door with everything in him. If it delayed reaching the steel and glass door at the end of the corridor for even one minute, it was worth it.

It had been worth a lot more than that.

“My name’s Nate.” He wondered when her need to get the sheet would overcome her reluctance to get close.

“Kel.” She finally moved closer, caught hold of a sheet and pulled it off the bed. Started ripping it into strips.

“Why has no one else come?” Nate forced himself to sit up, swinging his legs down. He propped his elbows on his thighs and put his head in his hands. He could feel he was healing already, the bruises and cuts on his face smoothing out, closing up. Longmore had cracked his cheekbone, and the tight, hot sensation he always got with a bone heal throbbed on the left side of his face.

“It’s the weekend. I’m guessing these four were the only ones on duty, except maybe for someone up at admin. But they never called this in while it was happening. I switched off their radios, just in case, but even when Harvey had a couple of seconds at the end there, he didn’t so much as try to reach for his. So maybe there is no one in admin.” She rolled a piece of sheet into a ball and stuffed it into Harvey’s mouth as she spoke, then wound a strip across his mouth and tied it behind his head.

“You think we’ve got them all? Right here?” Nate lifted his head, and for a moment they stared straight into each other’s eyes. An uncomfortable pounding started in his chest, and it had nothing to do with the situation they were in. He dragged his gaze away. “Longmore and Evans were taking me out. There must be someone waiting for me to arrive somewhere.”

“Where were they taking you?” She looked up from tying a strip around Longmore’s mouth, and he suddenly realized he’d only punched Longmore’s lights out, the orderly wasn’t under with a shot from the syringe gun.

“Get back.”

She flinched at his hard, flat command, but did not move. She looked up at him. Steady and pissed off.

“I only punched him, he isn’t under—”

“Yes, he is.” She went back to securing her knot. “I gave him a shot straight after you hit the deck.” She didn’t look at him, just rose up to fix the last gag, this time on Morris. She seemed reluctant to touch the stocky orderly.

Nate blew out a breath. Tried to think. Tried to get his mind in the game. “I don’t know where they were taking me. I thought they were delivering me to some transportation waiting at the entrance.”

“Well, some transportation sounds just what we need, right now.” Her hand trembled a little as she bent over Morris. She stared down at him, then she stood and let go of the sheet strip. It scrunched into a ball in midair, and an unseen force pushed down Morris’ jaw so it could fit inside. A strip of cloth wrapped around his face and his head lifted up, and at last she bent down and tied the knot, as if not trusting her power to tie it hard enough.

“You don’t like Morris.” The orderly was not someone he came into contact with often, but Nate knew instinctively he enjoyed his job way too much.

She didn’t answer, but he caught the quick flick of a look she sent him.

“What did he do?” He had a sudden urge to give Morris a gook kick in the nuts.

She shook her head. “Nothing.” Then she stepped away from the entangled men and looked directly at him. “It’s what he plans to do that worries me.” She shivered, a full tremor, from neck to lower back. “If he gets his hands on me after this,” she waved at the trussed heap, “I’ll wish I was dead.”

“He isn’t going to get his hands on you.”

She gave him a look of such deep pity, it took his breath away. Man, he was getting in way over his head here.

“To get back to our situation.” Nate stood, and was happy the world didn't tilt. He really did only get the smallest dose of the drug. “I need to go back into my section.”

Her mouth fell open. “Go back?”

“Left someone behind.” It had been why he’d fought the orderlies in the first place. Thanks to Giles, he knew they were planning to ship them out, but he’d thought it would be together. Giles would not last long on his own, the shape he was in now.

“You know someone else here?” She sank down onto the window sill, where she’d been when he first saw her, her eyes wide with surprise.

“Yeah.” What was it about this woman? She was breaking his heart.

“I’ve been here nearly three years,” she whispered. “And you’re the first person who wasn’t a doctor or an orderly that I’ve met.”

And then he knew. This was HER. Good old Doc Greenway’s secret weapon. “We have to go,” he said, his eyes moving from her to the door.

If she was who he thought she was, they would be coming any second now.

She hated they were going deeper into the facility, rather than out, but she also could not bear the thought of leaving others behind. Others just like her.

As she ran, one or two steps behind Nate, she noticed a camera up ahead and she blasted out a pulse of power. Not quite the top of what she was capable of, she sensed, but close to it.