Page 45 of Sherwood
Betrayed with a kiss. And now my own personal Judas was outside the gates to finish the job.
I set the tracker on the desk and found a piece of paper, and wrote a little note to Rafe about what he could do with the tracker once he found it.
“Wow,” Will said. “That’s creative. Even I’ve never heard of that, and some of the dungeons in Paris arewild, I mean wild like you wouldn’t believe—”
“Are we ready to go?” I asked him as I straightened up and tossed my Sharpie back on the desk. If Rafe charged in here, I hoped he found the note. I hope he knew thatIknew when he’d planted it on me. I hoped he hated himself for it.
“All ready to burn, my friend.”
I nodded, shoved down the sick, shivering hurt, and grabbed my bag. “Then let’s go.”
“Okay, but important question first.”
I looked at him, my hand laced in Marian’s and my bag over my shoulder.
Will gave me a very serious, very intense expression as he asked, “Are you ever going to button up your pants, because it’s very distracting, and I think it’ll impede your—”
That almost pulled a real smile out of me, and I shoved him. “Let’s go, asshole.”
With only a few keystrokes, the rigs had begun to shut down, and they were dying as we walked into the computer pod and then to the far end, where the three egress tunnels led out to the forest. The mood was quiet but not overly grim as we made our way to the tunnel entrances; this wasn’t ideal, but we’d planned for it. The data would be safe, we’d be safe. We had a place to go and, because of the family money I’d secreted away, more than enough to keep the Merry Men and our dream going.
I looked back at the aisles of now-dead CPUs and GPUs as the others started filtering into the tunnels.
I’m sorry, Rafe had said into the camera.
Had he been sorry even as he’d kissed me? Even as he’d searched out my cunt with his fingers and held Marian close so we could both play with her?
Marian squeezed my hand now and I swallowed. In less than an hour, this room would be charred metal and concrete, pools of melted plastic and fumes. We’d be on a beach, having taken different routes out of the forest, planning the best way to get to our backup location on the other side of the state. And the Castle of the North Wind would be a burned and empty ruin. A dream that ended with two words.
I’m sorry.
I turned and led Marian to the tunnel entrance. We were the last ones to leave and I made sure to shut the door behind us.
* * *
It tookus hours to carefully and quietly make our way from where our tunnel dumped us to a road, and then from the road to a small beach nestled directly underneath the cliffs my childhood home rested on.
The house had been sold right after my mother had died—I had no use for a too-big mansion while I was in the NSA anyway—but there was a narrow path to the beach that was hidden from view, and the beach itself was impossible to see from the house above. Unless someone came by boat, we were invisible.
As the sun heaved itself up from the forest to our east, we began to take stock, to make sure we were all okay and had everything we needed to run.
Except—
“Where’s Will?” I asked, stepping to the side to make sure he wasn’t slouched on the sand somewhere. “Has anyone seen him?”
They shook their heads, and that’s when Alana and Tinker stepped onto the beach, their clothes muddy and their faces full of shame.
“They were waiting outside our tunnel,” Alana whispered. “We tried to run, but…”
“Where’s Will?” I asked. The panic was a cold collar around my throat. “Where is he?”
“I think they got him,” Tinker said miserably. “He was running with us, and then he wasn’t, and when we looked back, we could see their flashlights…”
“You weren’t followed here, were you?” Jovanna asked urgently.
They both shook their heads.
I looked at her and Marian. “Rafe has him,” I said. “I know it.”
