“Throw it through the bars,” she commanded, her eyes reflecting her burgeoning desire to shoot me.
“My pants will fall down,” I whined, and the guard blew out an irritated stream of air through her nose. She took a step forward and thrust her free hand through the bars.
“Give it to me now,” she started to say, and by the tone of her voice, I knew there was an ‘or else’ attached to it.
It didn’t matter, because I never gave her the chance to finish. My hands snapped out and I grabbed her arm, giving it a hard yank. The breath in her chest huffed out, and her gun clattered to the floor when her head slammed into the bars. Her body followed, and her feet flew out from under her as I yanked her shoulder down to the ground like we were wrestling.
Adrenaline rushing in my veins, I whipped my hand through the bars, grabbed her hair, and banged her head against the metal as hard as I could. Once. Twice. Thankfully, that was all it took. Her body thrashed, and her gun hand tried to reach me, but eventually she slumped to the floor.
It took me a harrowing few moments of yanking and tugging through the bars before I managed to reach the set of keys on her belt. Turning the key in the door felt like it took years.
The lock clicked, and I stepped out into the corridor, taking a moment to drag the guard’s stirring form into the cell and lock it behind me. I’d searched her for a handheld, but no luck. With her gun in one hand and my belt in the other, I moved toward the area she had come from. I remembered a small office that they had brought me through at the end of the hall. There had only been two guards when I came in, and now one of them was taking an involuntary nap in my cell.
I was hoping the lack of any alarms meant the other guard was not paying close attention to the video cameras I had seen here and there as they brought me through the prison area. But I didn’t want to rely on just luck. I paused just outside the door and tested the handle as quietly as possible. It was locked, but I still had the guard’s key set.
Only four keys. Thankfully. It took less than a minute to figure out which one I needed. Still, as I inserted the third key into the lock and turned it, I was fortified by the continued quiet. I slowly pushed open the door and stepped through.
All my caution had been wasted. The guard was fast asleep at her desk. I felt a little pang of pity for her as I pulled her head back and wrapped her in a chokehold, ensuring through her struggles that her nap would last a little longer.
A bank of screens lined the wall of the office, the rows of grainy video feeds showing… I paused as I used my belt to cinch the unconscious guard’s hands tightly behind her back. Static pulsed and flickered on all the screens. Could that be normal?
I had no way of knowing. Cautiously, I punched a few common buttons on the keyboard in front of the computer. Nothing happened. Disappointment flared in me—a part of me had been hoping that I’d be able to use these cameras to find Violet’s cell… if that’s where she was.
There was no time to be disappointed. I went out into the prison again, determined to make a thorough search if I had to.
The halls of the prison were eerily quiet and the cells mostly empty. I assumed a stance of calm indifference, padding down the corridors before the other prisoners as though I belonged there. I couldn’t stop to wonder about their stories.
I was tense as a coiled spring, prepared to face reinforcements for the two unconscious guards, so when I heard footsteps around the corner and Owen appeared, I barely avoided shooting him.
Still, I kept my gun trained on him as he slowly held his hands up. The man was younger than me by a few years, and he had a kind face, with blue eyes and blond hair. I didn’t know him well, but considering I’d just wrestled a bomb meant to kill the queen away from him, I wasn’t letting my guard down.
“Viggo!” he began. “I was just on my way to get you—”
I cut him off. “Owen,” I said, my tone tight, “what are you doing here? Are you here to finish your mission?”
“No,” he said softly, his gaze turning downward. “I…uh… Well…”
I kept the gun leveled, my anger mounting. I knew this man had just been a pawn, and wasn’t truly my enemy, but I couldn’t trust any of the Liberators anymore. “Why aren’t you in prison? You just tried to kill the Matrian queen with a bomb. What are you doing here if not working for Desmond?”
“Desmond?” Owen’s voice cracked, and the carefully neutral face I’d always seen him wear slipped for just a moment. “Desmond used me for her false ideals and threw me away,” he snarled.
I took one step forward, my head reeling. There was something here I was missing… something very serious. “False ideals? What are you talking about, Owen? I need to find Violet, and I don’t have much time. If you’re not going to help me, know that I will take you down.”
“I’m here to help, Viggo! I know the general area of where they took her. We have a plan.”
I stared at him, unconvinced. “We?”
He kept his hands in the air. “Ms. Dale sent me! She knows this whole place by heart.”
Ms. Dale? How had she gotten mixed up in this whole equation? I was tired of asking uninformed questions and getting haphazard answers. The feelings on Owen’s face when he’d mentioned Desmond… a look of rage and sorrow… it had looked sincere. I made a decision.
“Owen,” I growled, “you’ve got thirty seconds to explain this whole thing from the beginning. Don’t make me regret not shooting you on sight.”
The young man breathed out, and his face calmed. “Okay. When you guys took the bomb, I managed to get away from the crowds and followed you back to the palace—it was the longest time I’ve ever used the suit successfully, and it hurt like hell.”
I glanced down at the suit he was wearing—it was a Liberator design, the one that worked like active camouflage via invisibility—and then back up at his face, keeping my expression impassive. “Fifteen seconds,” I said, my tone brusque.
“Right. I made it all the way to the queen’s office. And Elena and Desmond were there… together. They were talking to Violet. Elena told her…” Owen hesitated, his eyes filling with pain. “She and Desmond have been working together the entire time.”
I absorbed this. I could feel a puzzle piece clicking into place… and the whole puzzle was bigger than I’d even imagined. Too big to think about right now. Guards could be coming toward us at any time.
“And Ms. Dale?”
“She must have been faking unconsciousness. When the guards took Violet away, Elena, Desmond, and the other princess, Tabitha, went with them… They left only two guards with her. She took them down before they even knew what was happening.” There was a slight look of admiration on his face as he imparted this tidbit.
That made one piece of information by which I was completely unsurprised. That wily old spy. I couldn’t be completely certain he was telling the truth—that Ms. Dale was out there on our side was almost too good to be true—but it was my only lead.
I lowered my gun and started down the corridor. We had to get moving before the guards returned. “Walk and talk,” I snapped. He kept pace with me immediately.
“I knew that talking to her was my only chance if I wanted to escape... Now that I failed her bombing mission, Desmond will… probably have me killed.” Owen looked down for a moment, a private war showing on his mild face. “Ms. Dale went to take the security system down. She said to meet her in the garage and she’ll get us out of here. She sent me to find you and get Violet. She’s worried… she’s worried they’re going to do something very bad to Violet.”