War Bringer (16 page)

He pushed himself to a seated position and wiped the dirt and bugs off, spitting them out of his mouth. The blue, blue sky spun around him. He had to shut his eyes until the world settled down. When he realized he was no longer in the tunnels, he leapt to his feet, ready for a threat. How long had he been unconscious?

He was alone. In a sea of prairie. It seemed the land rose and fell like the swells of an ocean.
 

Where was he? There wasn’t a house or vehicle or road in sight. The sun was well into the western sky. If the fake light in the garden room had been accurate, it was early morning when he’d been taken from Fiona; he’d been out for hours.

He climbed the nearest hill and tried to see if he could spot the mountains, as he would be able to if he were anywhere within fifty miles of the front range. All he saw was a whole lot of nothing. Sparse buffalo grass. Dirt. Sage and rabbitbrush. No mountains.

When he turned around again, he noticed there were tracks where he had been lying. Truck tracks. He studied them from his vantage point. They dead-ended where he’d been dumped, then backtracked the way they’d come. He jogged in a direction parallel with them. He lost sight of them in a couple of areas that were particularly rocky, but they always picked up again when the gravel gave way to dirt.

He looked where the tracks were headed. There were no buildings and no clues to where he was. He could be anywhere on the plains—in or out of Colorado. Best thing to do would be to find a phone and check in with the guys. But that was also the last thing he wanted to do. He needed their help to find the tunnels, but if he went to them, they’d insist on following him back in—possibly to their deaths; didn’t take a fool to see the only reason he had been left alive was as bait to trap the whole team.

I can’t save her. Only you can.
He remembered that guy’s warning. Who was he? Not King—he was too young.

He continued to jog. He didn’t know where the entrance to the tunnels was, but the truck he’d been on from the warehouse last night hadn’t driven more than an hour east of Denver to the arena. From there to the tunnel had been less than another hour. It gave him a specific search area for when he reconnected with civilization.
 

The thing was, he had no idea how far he was from the arena or the tunnels.
 

He looked for signs of human habitation—a dirt road, a telephone pole. Anything. The tracks were still clear, which was good, because if he wasted time going in the wrong direction, he could wander for days without seeing anyone.
 

* * *

Fiona returned to her closet, hoping at last to be able to sneak out. Ellen and her friends had spent the afternoon with her, talking, adjusting the wedding gown, writing more letters. Mr. Edwards had not returned with more husband choices for her or to press his case. Obviously, her acceptance of the situation was irrelevant.
 

Well, they could just find another princess, because this one was out of there. She was about to open the secret door, then remembered the letters the girls had written. She rushed back into her room for them—she couldn’t leave without them. Not only was it important that their loved ones hear from them, but the letters were the only proof she’d been in this nightmarish place.

Before she could get to the secret door, it swung open and Ellen came through. She was carrying a long garment box.

“Hi.” Fiona tried to smile, but she was frustrated that her exit was foiled again. Ellen didn’t smile back. Fiona caught the edge of emotion she was barely holding back. “What’s in the box? The wedding dress you’ve been working on?”

“No. It’s for tonight.”

“What’s happening tonight?”

“Another ceremony.”

“Oh.”

“I’m here to help you bathe and dress.”

Fiona tilted her head. “I think I can dress myself.” She needed to get Ellen out of her room so that she could make a run for it.

Ellen nodded. “As you wish. I’ll just leave it here, then.” She set the big box on the oblong ottoman in the middle of the room. When she straightened, she asked, “Are you sure I can’t assist you?”

“Quite. Quite sure.”
 

“I will return in an hour for you. Please be ready.”

“Okay. An hour. I’ll be ready.”
 

Fiona set the letters down and opened the box. Inside was an exquisite red velvet robe trimmed in white fur. It wasn’t fake fur. She touched the soft skin, saddened that an animal had been sacrificed for that use. She lifted the robe out, but didn’t see an accompanying dress.
 

Not that it mattered, because she wasn’t going to be there to attend the ceremony.
 

She looked at the secret door, hoping Ellen wasn’t waiting on the other side of it. She pushed the electrical outlet as Ellen had shown her to do. She heard a click. The whole front face of the cabinet released, revealing a black, empty corridor.
 

Fiona stared at it in shock. She grabbed the candle she’d brought into the closet and used a box of matches to light it. She stepped just inside the tunnel, looking around to find out how to open the door from the other side. It was easier than from the closet side; the tunnel side had a latch to pull.
 

She closed the door and went down the sloping tunnel, away from her room. She had no watch, but she estimated that she had about forty minutes before the alarm would go up that she had escaped. She had to get as far away as possible in that time. Her access tunnel stopped at another, larger one. She went right. The tunnel had a slight curve, as if it made a wide circle around some central core of the warren.

There were other people here. Not enough that she could get lost in the crowd. They looked harried and didn’t make eye contact. She did as they did. At one point, there was a map on a wall. She tried to think where she was in relation to where she’d come into the tunnels. It was set up like spokes and concentric rings. The farther out, the smaller the shafts.
 

She couldn’t see where any of the tunnels had true exits, but then she wasn’t thinking super clearly. Any minute, Ellen would notice she wasn’t in the room. Then Mr. Edwards and the guards would come for her. She picked a spot on the map that looked as if it might lead into another wheel and spoke system.
 

Ten minutes later, she entered a new tunnel system. She followed one of the channels to its end at an access tunnel like hers. She’d just turned into it when she heard some commotion from the area where she’d been. She blew out her candle and stood in complete darkness, then began feeling her way along the steep ascent up the tunnel. Her heart was beating so loudly, she feared it was a beacon for those who hunted her.

She paused for a minute to calm her breathing. Up ahead, she noticed there was a slight shimmer of light coming from the end of the shaft. She went in that direction, praying the room or space she stepped into would be empty. She had no idea what she was getting in to. Hopefully, at the very worst, there would be someplace she could hide. Her best plan at that moment was to go from hiding place to hiding place until she could find her way out.

When she got to the door at the end, there was a latch like the one in her access tunnel. She listened to the door for a while, but could hear nothing other than her own breathing. No, that wasn’t true. She could hear the uproar that had been trailing her grow louder. She had no choice. She had to go forward.

She pushed the lever. The door popped open. She peeked around the edge of it, seeing what looked like an ordinary basement space, finished and nicely decorated.

Stepping into the room, she realized the access chute was behind a large bookshelf…near a power plug that doubled as a button release for the lever. She pushed the bookshelf almost all the way closed, keeping it open enough in case she needed to make a quick exit, but closed enough that if someone flashed a light up toward it from the tunnel side, it would appear to be closed.
 

Fiona stood still and silent, getting her bearings. What a surprise it would be to have some stranger walk up out of one’s basement. Best idea would be to slip out unnoticed.

She crossed the room to crack the door to the main level. She heard voices…two men talking. She closed the door again and looked around for a place to hide. She hoped whoever lived here didn’t have a dog.
 

Her gaze landed on a phone. She took it out of its docking station and dialed Kelan. It rang once.

“Shiozski here,”
a man answered, but it wasn’t Kelan. It was Max.
Still, his familiar voice filled her with savage relief. She could barely speak.

“Hello?”

“Max.”

“Fiona! Baby, where are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Never mind. I’m tracing your call. Stay on the line as long as you can.”

“I got out through the jewelry cabinet in my closet,” she whispered. “I went through tunnels and tunnels. It looks like I’m in the basement of a house, but I can’t be sure.”

“Aw, Fee, it’s so good to hear your voice. Are you hurt?”

“No. Where’s Kelan?”

Silence.
“We—we’ve lost contact with him.”

“He was with me last night, then they took him out this morning. I think they drugged him. Oh, God, Max. I don’t know what’s happening here. They say I’m King’s daughter. This place is insane and huge.”

“Yeah, Val told us about Daddy dearest. Some of the guys are in Colorado, probably not far from you. Stay put. They’ll come to you. Got your location. I’m sending it to Val.”

“Max—something’s happening tonight. I don’t know what. Some part of the wedding ceremony. I’m supposed to marry this guy. They call him the War Bringer.”

“Fee, hang tight. The team’s almost there. You aren’t going back. Just stay with me.”

Laughter came over the line.
Someone else was on the phone with them.
“Oh, yes, she is.”
 

“Fiona, get out of there,”
Max ordered.

Fiona tossed the phone to the sofa. She heard people moving upstairs. The room she was in had small windows mounted high in the walls. She wondered if she could get out in time, then decided she had to try. Before she could move a chair under the window, the bookshelf hiding the entrance to the tunnels opened. Men spilled into the room.
 

She fought them off as best she could, but she was severely outnumbered. At the same time she was struggling in the basement, she heard a scuffle upstairs. The men who had been up there came running down the stairs. Her captors forced her back into the tunnel.
 

She heard one of them say to the ones who’d come downstairs, “Get back up there. Kill anyone who comes for her.” The man grinned at her. “You just got your boyfriend killed.”
 

Two men held her arms folded behind her. She leveraged their weight to kick him in the face. His head shot back on his neck, and he stumbled backward. When he righted himself, he charged toward her, his fist raised.
 

She braced herself for the blow, but it never came. One of the other guards caught his hand. “Don’t forget who she is and what’s about to happen,” he warned the guy.

He straightened then rubbed his jaw where she kicked him. “Of course. Mr. Edwards will deal with her.”
 

Chapter
 
Fifteen

Kelan followed the tire tracks to an empty steel-frame building. No cars were around. No homes, either. There were no trees or shrubs for cover, but there also weren’t any windows on the side of the building he was approaching.
 

A few feet from the building were several abandoned cars parked in a neat line of wrecked metal. Tall brown grass grew up wherever daylight hit—in the wheel wells, the busted floorboards, the narrow spaces between bumpers.
 

He ran forward, as quickly and silently as he could, then crouched behind the cars and listened. He could hear the whine of a power drill and a radio. Some men laughing about a chick they’d had the night before.

Shit was about to get real. He had no idea where he was, and no idea how to get back into the tunnels. He needed a phone to call in a pickup from the team. And he needed to get hydrated. He checked the shadows, trying to judge what time it was. Depending on where he was, the guys could be hours coming for him.
 

He didn’t have hours. Fiona was in dire trouble
now
. The guys would need time to research and make a plan, maybe check in with Lobo. The tire tracks in the dirt by where he’d been left led here—he couldn’t waste this lead.
 

Someone came out of the building to take a piss in the weeds. Kelan waited for him to come around the row of trashed cars, then stood up. The guy grabbed for his gun. Kelan stood, holding his hands up. “Hey, man, I could use some water.”

The guy walked toward him, his pistol held at shoulder height, his arm fully extended. “You’re the guy they dumped. How’d you find us?”

Kelan nodded as he moved forward. “It’s a long story, and I really could use some water first.”

The guy motioned with his gun for Kelan to come with him. “Let’s go.”

Kelan moved cautiously forward. When he was within reach of the gun, he grabbed the guy’s wrist, slapped the gun in toward his chest, and disarmed him. Two other guys heard the commotion and came running out.
 

Kelan grabbed the first guy by the throat and spun him around for cover as he used the guy’s gun to shoot the two men firing at him. Seconds later, the man he held was dead weight and the other two were lying flat on their backs.
 

These guys knew he’d been dumped. They had to be involved in King’s world. Why else would they shoot first and ask questions later?

He took their weapons and stuffed them into his waistband. Leaning up against the steel siding, he listened for sounds of more people inside. The tools were silent. The radio music spun on, covering the sound of anyone else who might still be in the building.