So Close to You (So Close to You - Trilogy) (21 page)

“Because I need to save Dean! I need to save my family!” I shout it at him without thinking, and as soon as the words leave my mouth, something that’s been holding Wes together cracks. His eyes go glittery and he comes for me, lightning quick. I don’t know what he’s going to do, but I don’t wait around to find out. I yank at the door handle behind me and fall into the hallway.

I take off the way we came. I can hear Wes following me. I turn a corner, and another one, barely aware of what I’m doing. Finally I slow down. My anger is cooling, and common sense returns. I can’t run from Wes
and
the guards. I won’t let Wes take me back to the time machine, but running away from him down here is stupid. I can’t tell where I am and I don’t know how to get out of here without Wes.

I stop in a hallway, waiting for Wes to catch up with me. But I don’t hear anything. Puzzled, I turn around to look for him. There’s no one coming.

I press my body against the wall, wondering where Wes is. He should be here by now. What if something happened to him? What if he’s given up on me? I have to find him again. I pull myself up, and I hear a footstep behind me.

“Wes.” I start to turn but freeze when I hear a clicking noise near my ear.

“Don’t move,” an unrecognizable male voice says.

The stranger pushes something into the back of my head. Something cold and metal.

“Or I’ll shoot.”

The barrel of a gun.

“T
urn
around.”

I automatically raise my hands and slowly pivot. Blood pounding, breath short. The man holding the gun is probably in his late twenties, and he’s dressed in the black guard’s uniform. He’s a little taller than me, and has light brown hair that’s cropped close to his head.

He barely looks at me as he reaches out and clamps onto my arm with one hand. He tugs me forward. I dig in my heels.

“Where are you taking me?” My voice sounds faint.

He doesn’t answer, just squeezes my arm tighter and jerks. I stumble. Before I can find my footing, he starts to drag me.

He pulls me down the hallway. My ears are ringing, and all I can hear is the sound of the screaming from earlier, the noise ringing through the metal vent.

“Faster.” The man’s voice is harsh, like he smokes too many cigarettes. He yanks on my arm and I barely catch myself before I ram into the wall.

Will Wes come for me? Maybe he’s finally decided that I’m not worth the trouble. Maybe I’m on my own here, waiting to be killed by the men behind this project. Or worse, waiting for them to use me in their experiments. That thought makes me straighten up. I’d rather die quickly from a bullet than become one of those subjects.

Using all of my strength, I quickly twist away from the guard. I catch him by surprise and his hand stays outstretched for a moment before he fully realizes what just happened. I see my opening and bring my knee up hard between his legs. He makes a strangled noise and I lunge, ready to run. But he’s faster, and he grabs me around the middle before I can get away. He pushes me up again the wall, my face scraping against the uneven cement.

Suddenly his body jerks and my head hits the wall. The guard starts to fall. I move to the side to get away from his weight. He drops like a stone, hitting the tile floor with a dull thud.

I turn around slowly. Wes is standing there, watching me. He holds out his hand. I take it without a word.

We run through the white hallways of the Facility. There’s no point in saying what we’re both thinking: the fallen guard will be found quickly. Someone will be aware of the breach, and this place is about to go on high alert.

I’m a little dazed from my head hitting the concrete and have a hard time keeping up. Wes notices and slows his pace, but we don’t have much time left. Just when I think I can’t go any farther, he stops and opens a random door on the left. We enter a large room, filled with what look like oil tanks. Wes weaves through the huge containers, and I follow, the scent of grease heavy in the air.

Back in the hallway, he took the gun from the fallen guard. Now he holds it close to his chest as we enter a different room. There’s only one other door on the far wall. He approaches it, glancing back at me.

“I need you to do what I say,” he whispers. “Promise me.”

“Okay.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“I promise, all right?”

“Stay here.” He steps through the door. I hesitate for a moment before I peer around it. The room is filled with blinking machines. There are two guards in uniforms. One stands near the door; the other is over by the machines.

I watch as Wes sneaks up behind the first guard. He brings his hand down in a sharp motion and the guard crumples. Before the second guard can even turn around, Wes kicks him in the chest. The guard slumps onto the machine in front of him. It all takes less than a minute.

I walk into the room. Wes turns at the sound of my footsteps. “I told you to stay back.” I shrug, staring down at the fallen guards. He sighs, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Go,” he says, steering me toward another door.

We enter a new room. This one is filled with cars and trucks of all sizes, gleaming in the bright light overhead.

“Are we taking one of them?” I whisper.

“No.” His breath tickles my ear, and his hand lightly grips my shirt. “Too dangerous.”

He leads me to a door that’s obscured by a big army truck. There’s a combination lock near the handle. He fiddles with it and it slides open.

“Go,” he says again.

I step out into the dark, quiet woods of Camp Hero.

Wes winds through the forest like he’s part of it. I struggle to follow. My arm aches from where the guard yanked on it, and my cheek feels like it’s on fire. I’m not sure where Wes is headed, though I know we’re near the south side of the camp, not far from the vent we crawled through only hours earlier.

“Where are we going?” I ask after a minute. He halts abruptly, and I barely stop myself from colliding into him. He turns around. Only a little moonlight filters through the trees above our heads, but I can see the shape of his features in the darkness.

“Can you keep walking?” His voice is soft.

“Yeah, but can we rest for a minute?” There’s a pounding on the side of my head. I reach up to feel a large bump forming under the skin. “Just a minute, then I’ll be fine.”

He watches me silently. The air around us smells of fresh dirt, cut grass, and gasoline; we’re close to the central part of the camp. “Come here,” he says.

I give him a suspicious look, not moving any closer. Now that we’re out of the Facility, I think about our argument, about running away from him. I’m not sure how to act around him.

He takes a step forward, bends down, and hooks his hand under my legs, pulling me up into his arms.

“I can walk by myself!” I struggle and push my hands against him. I don’t want to rely on his support. He ignores me and continues through the woods.

“You’re about to fall over. We’re still not clear of the lab. We need to get you back to the Bentleys’ house.” His voice is still soft, hushed.

His arms are solid against my knees, my back. He carries me as though I weigh nothing. I stop fighting, one hand rising up to his neck almost involuntarily.

“Are you still mad at me?” I blurt out the question.

Wes gazes down at me through long, dark lashes. He looks different from this angle; his bottom lip is even fuller, his chin more pronounced. He looks innocent, as if his armor is falling away. I wonder if that’s true or if it’s just a trick of the moonlight and shadows.

“No. Seeing him hurt you …” He trails off and his arms tighten around me. “I’m not mad.”

I’m silent as I digest this. He might not be mad, but he doesn’t want me to try to stop Dean either.

“Are you still mad?” His voice is curiously blank, and he stares straight ahead as he asks the question.

“Not anymore.” I wait a beat. “I wish you didn’t try to trick me though.”

Wes walks us around a tree trunk, then through a thicker part of the woods. He ducks so I can push branches out of the way as we pass.

“I wasn’t trying to trick you,” he says quietly. “I honestly thought you would want to leave once you had the information.”

“I still have things to do.”

“I gathered that.” His voice lowers. “You want to save Dean.”

He doesn’t sound very happy about it, and I don’t say anything. After a few minutes, he stops at the edge of an open clearing. There’s one large building in the middle of it, with several army-green jeeps parked nearby. I slide down out of his arms, holding on to his shoulder as my head spins a little.

As soon as I let go, Wes motions me forward. We move through the trees in a wide arc, stopping when we’re close to a wooden structure. It looks like a utility shed; there are no windows and only one wide metal door.

“Where are we?” I whisper.

“Old supply area. There aren’t any guards, but a patrol comes by every half hour. I’m not sure when they were last here. We should wait.” But then he looks at my tired, bruised face and seems to reassess. “We’ll go now.”

He crouches down and runs toward one of the small all-terrain jeeps. I run after him, gritting my teeth against the pounding in my head. He holds the passenger-side door open for me and I dive in. The jeep is low to the ground, with a thin canvas top and no windows.

Wes slides into the driver’s seat. I duck down as he yanks at something under the steering wheel.

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

“Hot-wiring it.” He does something with his hands, there’s a spark, and the jeep roars to life. “It’s easy with these old cars.” He throws it into gear and we back up quickly.

I stare at the wires hanging near his legs. “Will you teach me how to do that?”

He glances at me, surprised. “You want to learn how to hot-wire a car?”

“It seems like a useful skill.”

His lips tilt into a smile, but he doesn’t respond.

The headlights are off as we drive quickly out of the clearing. Soon we’re on the main road that curves through the camp. It’s empty this late at night, though I can see lights glowing in other parts of the base.

“What about the guards at the gate?”

“We’re not going through the gate.” Wes veers the jeep onto a tiny dirt road that leads through a maze of trees. We turn onto another run-down path. This one curves west through the southern part of the camp, not far from the cliffs near the beach. After a while the road ends and turns into forest. I expect Wes to stop, but he keeps going. We drive around trees, over a tiny stream. I hold tight to the dashboard as we bounce through the woods.

The trees open into a wide field, and Wes drives along the edge of a grassy pasture. It’s too windy inside the jeep to try to talk to each other, but I keep glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. Everything unsaid seems to stir and boil between us, and the air grows thicker and thicker with tension.

When the field ends and turns into the beach, Wes cuts the engine. We’re parked on top of a dune, and the ocean is in front of us, dark and unending. It is almost impossible to see where the black water turns into the night sky.

Wes opens his door. “Wait there.” He gets out of the jeep and disappears. I hear him rummaging around in the truck bed.

I breathe in the scent of salt water and listen to the sound of the waves running onto the shore. Being on the beach feels like coming home again, especially after the night I’ve had.

My door opens and I look up. Wes is leaning over me. His face is stark in the moonlight, all angles and dark hollows. I feel something tighten inside my chest.

He slowly takes my chin in his hand. I flinch, but I don’t pull away. Using his other hand, he touches my cheek with a piece of cloth that he must have found in the back. His movements are jerky, like he’s not used to doing this. I wince as the fabric rubs against my torn skin.

“Does it hurt?” His voice is tight with emotion, but I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

I shake my head—a difficult task with Wes holding on to me—and our skin rubs together. “I feel a little dizzy.”