Page 44 of Sherwood
“Fire?” Marian asked.
“Maybe,” I said. Although I worried it was something even worse. I pulled my hand free and helped her dress, but there wasn’t any time to button my own pants before the door to the pod slammed open and the Merry Men poured in.
“Proximity alarm,” Jove said over the alarm. Her expression was grim. “They’re outside the ramp right now, figuring out how to get inside.”
“Fuck!” I swore, stepping away and then turning back again. “How many?”
“Six or seven. If it were a siege situation, we could outlast them for months. But if they figure out a way inside—one of the egress tunnels maybe, or through our water system—we’re screwed.”
Will approached, looking like a sketch in the harsh strobe of the alarm. “Just say the word, Lox, and Plan B can happen right now.”
“I need a minute,” I said tightly, trying to think. Could Rafe find a way in? How long would it take for him to guess the size of the castle, to hunt for its years-old permits and permissions? The electronic records I’d destroyed a long time ago, but there might still be paper records, and he’d need only wait for daylight to go bother some county clerk for them. Shit.
I looked at them, my Merry Men and my Marian, all of them watching me with faces full of trust, of readiness. They would do whatever I suggested, and the responsibility that came with that trust could crack my bones if I let it.
But there was no choice. Not really. A cause was just a mere idea if it didn’t have its believers; there was no sense in making a stand that risked the brilliant, brave people in front of me.
And Marian…
No. Nothing bad would happen to my queen fox.
“Plan B,” I said. “We turn this into a furnace and run. We meet at our usual spot by dawn.”
“But—” Marian looked around at us. “The data you took, that you’re storing—you can’t mean to destroy it? After everything you’ve been through?
“We have a backup data farm,” Jove assured her. “It’s not nearly as big as this one, but we’re still working on it, because we always knew this might be a possibility. Besides, it gives us more reasons to spend Lox’s weird dead dad’s money. No sense in it languishing in secret offshore accounts forever.”
“Okay, everyone,” I said. “We have fifteen minutes. Let’s turn off the alarms, get our shit, and start a fire.”
“And then get the hell out of here,” Will said with a salute.
“And then get the hell out of here,” I agreed with a half-smile, and we scattered, me pulling Marian along as I half jogged back to the central pod.
Once in my room, I got her a pair of boots, tossed her my leather jacket, and then started shoving my laptop and tablet into my bugout bag. Within just a few minutes, the alarms were blissfully silenced and we were ready to go. Marian and I went back out to the common area to look at the surveillance feeds while everyone else finished closing up shop.
Sure enough, there were people tramping outside the castle with flashlights in hand and cellphones pressed to ears. When I finally caught sight of Rafe’s broad, suited shoulders and angular face, I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach.
He looked up at the camera I was currently using to watch him, mounted outside on a tree, and he stared for a moment, as if holding my gaze through the feed, even though he couldn’t possibly know I was there. As usual, his face was impossible to parse, and just when I was about to look away, I saw his mouth move. Two words.
I’m sorry.
Chills ran down my spine, down every nerve to my fingertips and the bottoms of my toes, and the same chill was inside my chest and my throat.
It shouldn’thurtthis much to be betrayed by Rafe de Lacy again.
And yet.
“How did he find us?” Will asked, coming to stand next to me in front of the security feeds. “It must have been a planted tracker, but Jove and Much swear no one came close to your bike.”
“I don’t know,” I said. My voice sounded thin after the klaxon shriek of the alarms. “This is hardly a place anyone would stumble upon by chance, but the only thing he could have tracked was my bike, because I brought nothing else inside the club…”
I stopped. I’d brought nothing else inside the club—except for myself. With a sick, miserable clench in my stomach, I turned to face Marian, who was wearing my leather jacket, and I slipped my hand into the inside pocket.
I found it right away.
A black disc about the size of a quarter, but flexible around the edges. A green light blinked at the top.
The memory of Rafe’s hand fisting my jacket as he kissed me, of him pulling me closer while he waged war on my mouth, burned through my mind.
