Viggo rolled the unconscious guard over and I raced toward him to see him peering at a door just around the corner. “She was guarding this door—I think it’s the garage door.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said, and he yanked it open for me, reversing our familiar pattern. I crouched on the other side of the door and looked out as the sound of guns firing and bullets ricocheting burst from the room beyond.
Outside, I saw why the corridors had been so empty. I looked out at a low catwalk lining a giant garage. It was the size of a warehouse, with rows and rows of vehicles lined up in pristine condition—well, they probably had been before the battle. A huge box of a vehicle, with massive tires and blacked-out rear windows, was pulled halfway out of one of the rows. An overturned four-wheeler lay between it and the rows of palace guards who lined the catwalk on the wall perpendicular to this one, resting their automatic weapons on the railing and firing without a break. The bullets seemed to ping off harmlessly—the SUV must be armored. Every so often an answering shot rang out from the people concealed behind its tinted windows. I caught sight of a few metal steps between us and the guards which led from the catwalk down to the garage floor.
It seemed nobody had noticed the open door. I looked back at Viggo and filled him in.
He nodded grimly. “That’s gotta be Ms. Dale. I hope Owen got to her. If we force those guards to take cover, we can get to them.”
I surveyed my single handgun. I’d dropped the empty one on the floor behind us. “I’ve only got one clip left.”
Viggo nodded. “Then we’ve gotta make it count. All at once—make them think there’s a whole company of us.”
We looked levelly into each other’s eyes for a moment, Viggo’s sharp green gaze speaking volumes to me. I hoped mine said all the things that swelled in my heart for that tiny moment. Then Viggo signaled go, and the two of us burst out into the garage, guns firing.
Thankfully, we didn’t need to aim. The effect of our unexpected attack was immediate: the group of guards scattered, some of them pulling back against the wall of the garage, some of them dropping to the floor of the metal catwalk and crawling back toward the next room.
Viggo behind me, I took the few steps down to the garage floor at a run. I saw why none of the guards were by this door when the SUV’s driver’s side window, which pointed toward us with the windshield facing the guards, rolled down just enough that the point of a shotgun could be seen poking out.
“Ms. Dale, Owen!” I shouted, waving my arms. “Don’t shoot! It’s us!”
The window flashed a couple more inches down, and the woman inside—it was Ms. Dale, thank goodness—nodded. “We'll be right there!” Then the boxy SUV reversed suddenly, speeding out from behind the four-wheeler that had sheltered its tires, skidding to a halt beside us.
By the time we heard both Owen and Ms. Dale’s voices shouting “Get in!” I’d yanked open the back door, abandoning my empty gun to grab the handle with my left hand, and toppled into the backseat, Viggo jumping in behind me. Bullets pinged off the vehicle as the door slammed shut; the guards had gotten back into formation.
“About time you guys got here,” Owen said from the passenger’s side.
“I’m sorry about the mess back there, kids,” Ms. Dale said conversationally. Viggo was already agape, staring at the duffel bag the two of us were now practically sitting on, which was bursting with a jumble of weapons and ammunition. “I didn’t have time to be tidy.”
“Tidiness is overrated,” Viggo said, grabbing a handgun, cracking the window, and firing out toward the group of guards now in front of our window.
“Seatbelts on?” Ms. Dale asked, as a fresh shower of gunfire impacted the windshield. I winced, but the Matrian technology showed only the barest cracks.
“Just drive, woman!” Viggo hollered at her.
Ms. Dale drove.
As rows of cars flashed by us, Owen turned around to look at Viggo. “I got hold of your friend. He’s moving the… uh, the transportation for us. He said he’ll meet us an hour’s drive outside of town—I gave Ms. Dale directions. But we need to hurry—we have no idea whether Elena will go after them, or how long it will take them to mobilize and follow us.”
Ms. Dale continued the briefing. “From what I’ve seen, Elena and Desmond are likely more focused on their master plan than us,” she said. “Regardless, whatever ideas you have for a plan, don’t talk about them in the car—it’s likely wired.”
“Okay.” Viggo stared at Ms. Dale, who calmly continued driving. “Change of subject. How did you get down here? And where did you get all of these weapons?”
Ms. Dale’s eyes didn’t leave the road, but she smiled a bit. “A good spy never reveals her secrets,” she said smugly. Then her eyes sobered. “But I’ve been in this palace hundreds of times. I know it very well. And I figured if I was going to officially betray my country, I might as well go out with a bang.”
I looked at her, then out of the back windshield, noting the lack of cars pursuing us as we hurtled up a dimly lit tunnel that I trusted led to the outside world. The emptiness in the tunnel around us was unsettling; even in the stairs of the castle it had been strange. Faintly, we could still hear the palace alarm, but it was already fading. “Are you sure we’re not being tracked? Is there a tracker on this car? This feels… too easy.”
Ms. Dale’s answer wasn’t comforting. “We can’t be sure. But it’s our only option.”
5
Viggo
I didn’t say it at the time, but Violet was right. I couldn’t help but feel like our escape had been too easy. Since leaving the palace, there had been no signs of pursuit, and that alone was worrisome. I did not expect Elena to give us up so easily—not unless there was a reason for it. Yet there was nothing we could do about it now: staying would’ve certainly meant death for me and more torture for Violet. Even if Elena had further plans for us, we were going to have to risk it, because time was running out—whatever Elena and Desmond had planned, I was willing to bet they were already implementing it.
Next to me, Violet was cradling her right hand, her eyes closed and a grim look on her face as she tried not to react to every jostle and bump of the vehicle. I looked at my makeshift bandage on her hand and frowned, making a mental note to ask Alejandro if he had a first aid kit when we got onboard his boat. Violet needed her wound treated properly—I was worried about infection. After all, the shirt I had used hadn’t been the cleanest. I had been wearing it since… yesterday? The day before?
I couldn’t actually recall the last time I’d changed my shirt. Time was moving so quickly that all the days were blending together in my mind. It was a sure sign of fatigue, but I—we—couldn’t afford to sleep. We just didn’t have the time for anything more than catnaps in the vehicle. The sun was close to setting, and we had a long way to go.
We had passed the border to the no-man’s land that was the riverbank nearly an hour ago, and Ms. Dale was using the armored SUV like the professional she was. She had stopped only long enough to switch into four-wheel drive, and then pulled us into the long grass growing by the side of the road, forging through the vegetation toward the river. It was slow going—it had to be—but I could see the break in the grass that meant the river was drawing close.