The tilt of the mattress indicated Sniper had sat. I gasped inwardly when I felt the heat from his closeness while he caressed strands of hair away from my face. Releasing soft moans, I pretended to have a nightmare as an excuse to kick off the light blanket covering me.
“Ava.” Sniper shook me lightly.
When I stopped moving, he did the same. Then I slowly opened my eyes. His features expressed sadness and happiness at the same time. Something about him made me pity him. He must be out of his mind to think he knew me. As a moment of silence stretched between us when I locked my eyes with his, I wondered, why me.
The sound of footsteps drove me into panic mode. I had to do it or I might never have the chance again. Sniper’s pensive stare—as if he was reaching into my soul or drawing up memories—gave me an advantage. Poor guy. It was going to suck for him when he finally realized he had made a huge mistake. He’d made another huge error by telling his friends he would be fine.
I jerked my butt up and pushed against the mattress with one foot to throw him off balance. Then I swung one leg over, and locked him between my knees. At the same time, I used my hands to trap his arms straight up from behind him, as his butt found the ground. His friends came back just in time to see it happen.
“Don’t take another step or I’ll snap his neck.”
Ozzie held out one hand, placing the tray on the counter with the other. The savory aroma drove me insane, and I wondered what they were serving. Missing dinner last night, possibly breakfast and lunch too, my stomach growled.
“Ava, you don’t want to do that.” Ozzie’s forehead creased with pained expression. “We’re not the bad guys here, okay? We could’ve tied you up, but we didn’t. See this plate? I brought back something for you to eat. I know you’re hungry. See?” He lowered the tray. “Ground beef, mashed potatoes, and corn. It’s canned corn. Actually, most of the stuff is canned, but you get the point.”
“You can relax,” Sniper said coolly, no worry in his voice.
If he was talking to his friends, he was crazy. I had him locked good and tight.
“Ava isn’t going to kill me. She thinks I’m hot.”
Prick.
He grunted when I squeezed my thighs tighter.
“What is it with guys and their egos? Rhett, you can be so arrogant. You deserve whatever is coming to you.” Reyna placed her tray down and picked up corn with her fingers, eating one kernel at a time.
“Rhett?” I squealed. “Your name is Rhett, not Sniper? You lied to me?” I squeezed tighter until his face reddened.
“No, I didn’t.” His voice came out as a horse whisper. “I can explain. Let me go or I’ll have to hurt you.”
Ozzie stuck out his hands, as if to stop whatever he thought would happen. “Wait, wait, wait. You like each other, remember? No violence. What the hell’s going on?”
“Sit down and eat, Ozzie.” Reyna giggled. “This is entertaining. We get dinner and a comedy show.”
I scowled. Bitch. You’re next.
“Last warning,” Sniper or Rhett, whoever he was, said, even though there was no escape for him. “You might have forgotten, but you don’t have Helix in your system anymore.”
How did he know about Helix? Oh God, had I rambled and disclosed information while I had been sedated?
“I dare you to try,” I said.
In a blink, I landed flat on my butt on the floor in front of Rhett. Pain shot up to my head. That freakin’ hurt! I let the sting run its course. Rhett had somehow placed his hands behind my neck when he lunged back to me, and then flipped me over. Luckily, he was nice enough to break my fall, or it would’ve been a lot worse.
Wait—nice enough? Pompous ass.
When he gave me his hand, I refused to take it. I crawled up to the mattress and laid back down. He wore an apologetic frown, but I didn’t care. He should feel bad for a lot of things he’d done to me.
“Let me go.” I rubbed at my legs still throbbing. “They’ll be searching for me, and when they find me—and they will—you’ll all be dead.”
“We know.” Reyna shoved ground beef into her mouth. “I mean the part about them trying to find you. But the thing is, they can’t. Our hideout is not on any radar. They don’t even know this place exists. It was a secret military base the president of the United States and his staff used during the natural disasters, and no one who knew about it is still alive.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if anything she said was remotely true.
Rhett’s jaw clenched, and his nose flared. “Ozzie, stay here with Ava. Maybe she’ll eat when I’m gone. Reyna, come with me.”
Reyna got up, picked up her tray, and followed Rhett. When the door closed behind him, my muscles relaxed, and hunger pangs took over my stubbornness.
“I’m not like Rhett. Come here and eat with me.” Ozzie tapped the table, his tone softer than Rhett’s stomping out the door.
Ozzie reminded me of Russ, the sweet, caring type, especially his friendly and welcoming smile. A big, teddy-bear-with-a-good-heart kind of guy. His gentle voice pegged him as someone I could maybe take advantage of.
Ozzie’s deep blue eyes put me at ease. That was the first thing I’d noticed when I’d first seen him, and they appeared even bluer up close.
“Sorry. We don’t have utensils. We make do with whatever we have and whatever we can get our hands on.”
“Thanks.”
I tried to smile, but only curled my lips a little. Though my stomach had raged minutes before, the hunger pangs had vanished, so I took my time eating. Thanks to Diana’s finishing class, I didn’t want to look or act like a savage.
“How long have you been here?” I asked. I scooped mashed potatoes with two fingers and dropped them in my mouth.
“Roughly six months,” Ozzie said, then his eyes grew wide like he’d slipped up.
“Do you think I’m your friend, too? I mean, Rhett thinks we’re friends.”
Ozzie sipped water from a topless can. When I stared at it, he said, “We don’t have cups. We use this instead. But to answer your question, we can’t really be friends if you can’t remember. How can we talk about anything if we don’t even know what to talk about? You can’t tell me anything, because what you believe to be true is not, and even if I tried to convince you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“You’re wrong.” I chewed some corn and cringed. “You can’t erase memories.”
Ozzie shifted his body from the chair and glared at me incredulously. “Think about how much technology has advanced in the last fifty years, thanks to the meteors. We have gliders to take us where we want to go by our voice command or simply by punching in the address. Bank access, our address, medical records, every detail of us are stored in our chip. The doors to our homes open by our handprints. Kids all over the world are taught by specialized grade level teachers on their TABS at home. If we can do all this, what makes you think our technology isn’t advanced enough to do anything else?”
I took a sip and twitched, then wiped my lips with my hand. “I guess you have a point there.” My hand came away with blood on it.
Ozzie wiped his finger on his pants, reached out to me, but then changed his mind. His sweet gesture softened my anger.
“Are you okay? You’re bleeding. Sorry. I should’ve warned you about the cans. Some can be sharp around the edges.”
I sucked the blood from my lips and welcomed the sting. “I’m fine. This is nothing compared to the stunt Rhett pulled on me.”
Ozzie gave me a warm smile and leaned back in his chair. “He’s not so bad. He wasn’t always like this.”
“Oh, so he wasn’t cocky before? I doubt that.”
“No, he’s still arrogant, but he kind of lost his way when ...” Ozzie pressed his lips into a thin line and craned his neck sideways. “Anyway, he can tell you himself. I don’t think he would like for me to say anything more.”
“What time is it?” I rose from my chair.
Ozzie sat
taller, eyes wide, and ready to bolt, already half out of his seat.
“Thanks for dinner. I’m used to better, but it wasn’t too bad.”
“Wait.” Ozzie shot up. “Where’re you going?”
“Obviously I can’t go out, so I’m snooping. I also need to use the restroom.” I headed to the glass cabinet and stopped when I saw my reflection. “Who dressed me?”
I hadn’t noticed the puffy black pants and long-sleeved, blue flannel shirt earlier. Rhett always left me so confused whenever he was around. He made me forget to notice I wasn’t in my own clothes.
“Reyna did. It’s more like she put another layer on you. It can get chilly around here.”
I shifted my legs, the leggings underneath rubbing against my skin with the movement.
“What are these?” I opened the cabinet and saw a multitude of small bottles filled with clear liquid.
“Medicine.”
“Medicine? Why would you need ...?” I realized the answer before I finished.
I moved to the steel table in the center. On top sat a bunch of equipment. I recognized a burner and test tubes but didn’t know what the rest were.
“Don’t touch that, please.” Ozzie shoved my hand away.
I spotted a wooden desk in the corner and sauntered there. I had never seen an old desk like that before, except on the net. Mr. Thorpe had had one, but his seemed brand new. Too bad he couldn’t enjoy it anymore. I ran my hand over the fine texture.
“How many of you are there?” I pulled the drawer, but it wouldn’t budge. “Do you have the key?”
“Why?” Ozzie backed away.
Was he scared of me? Surely, he could take me on. His muscles were just as defined as Rhett’s, and without Helix, a regular guy could still overpower me.
I advanced toward him, forcing him back until he hit the wall. “So, I can open it and see what’s inside. If it’s locked, then something important must be inside.”
“It’s not my desk.” He raised his hands as if to defend himself.
“Whose is it?”
His shoulders tensed. “Rhett’s. He’ll get upset if I let you see what’s inside it.”
I planted my hands on either side of him against the wall and peered up through narrowed eyes. “Are you scared of me, Ozzie?”
He shook his head feverishly. “Nope. I don’t want to hurt you.”
I snickered. “Why would you hurt me?”
He didn’t answer my question and lightly tapped my shoulders gently. “Ava, please sit down. They’ll be here very soon.”
I glanced around the room to find anything I could use as a weapon.
“You can’t escape from this room,” he said, as if he could read my mind. “We have monitors all over this place. Not because we don’t trust each other, but because we need to keep an eye out for attackers.”
“I thought it couldn’t be found?”
When I wrung a strand of my hair back, Ozzie flinched and flattened against the wall.
“We’re cautious. We have to be.”
I paced aimlessly, checking out any other exit beside the front. “How big is your hideout?”
“You can find out later. I’m not answering any more questions. You’re not supposed to even be standing.”
I hiked up my eyebrows. “Says who? Rhett? He can go to hell. I’m getting out of here and you’re going to help me.”
“I can’t help you get out, but if you did, you’d get captured again.”
I sighed and rested my hands on a metal table. “Fine. I’ll escape on my own.”
Ozzie’s cheeks puffed out into a ball. Apparently annoyed, he raised his tone. “Have you heard anything I said?”
“I did, Ozzie.”
I unbuttoned my shirt. It had worked on Mitch. Come to think of it, it would work on most men.
Ozzie waved a hand at me. “Whoa ... what’re you doing? I know you can’t remember, but you love Rhett and he loves you, so don’t do anything foolish. He’ll come in here and get mad at me. Stay back.”
He pushed me away, that time using more strength.
I could’ve resisted being shoved, but I froze at his words. I loved Rhett? He loved me? Liar. I’d never loved anyone in my life except for my mom. Brushing off the attempt to distract me, I continued. My shirt slipped off my shoulders and I tossed it on the floor.
“Sorry, I was a bit hot, but now I’m cold. Can you pick that up for me?” I fluttered my eyelashes and gave him my most impressive angelic smile.
Ozzie didn’t move a muscle. His jaw dropped, and he darted his eyes everywhere but at me.
“You don’t want Rhett to come in and see me like this, do ya? I’ll tell him you tried to take off my clothes.”
Good one, Ava, but what a bitch.
I wished I could’ve framed his shocked expression. Epic. I couldn’t wait to tell Brooke as soon as I got out of there.
“You’re not the same sweet Ava. What happened to you?”
His askance expression caused me to pause, and I found myself asking the same question. No. Ozzie didn’t know me. How dare he fib and try to confuse me. I had planned to go easy on him, but now he was going to pay for his trickery.
With one eye on the shirt and one eye on me, he bent down.
“Sorry, Ozzie. I don’t recall being sweet. You’ve kidnapped the wrong Ava.” I delivered a roundhouse kick to his face and punched him between the legs.
Poor Ozzie couldn’t say a word. With his lips pressed tight, he grabbed himself and dropped to the ground. His face turned red and his mouth opened but only a wheezing sound came out.
I picked up the shirt and slipped it on, not bothering with the buttons. Recalling the two types of shots I had seen inside the cabinet, I took out the one with the syringe and held it like a weapon with the needle pointing down.
Bending low, I gave him a rub on the shoulder. “Sorry, Oz. Thanks for all your help. This was your own fault. Next time, grow some balls and don’t let a girl sweet talk you into anything.”
I rushed to the door, not knowing how many people would be on the other side. Hopefully everyone else had gathered at the dining hall and were eating. I pushed the button to open the door and waited anxiously as my heart thumped out of control.
I had no plan, but a faint map of the place materialized in my mind. How could that happen without Helix? If I did escape, how would I get back home? Something else was missing. I wiggled my toes and realized I only had socks on.
None of my planning mattered. When the door slid open, Rhett stood as if he knew I would be there. His eyes roamed intensely over my body, causing me to blush, and then landed on my hand with the syringe.
Crap.
Wearing an irresistibly sexy smirk, he planted his hands on either side of the doorway, muscles flexing, blocking me.
“Going somewhere?”
I wanted to wipe Rhett’s expression off his face with a spiky sponge because I found myself utterly attracted to my kidnapper. It was twisted and sick. I needed therapy, and tons of it. With a heavy sigh, I backed away.
“Not anymore,” I murmured under my breath.
When the door closed, Rhett double tapped the button, punched a few keys, and bent down to Ozzie.
“She got you good, bro.” He got up and went to the cabinet. “Don’t even try it again, Ava. I’ve set the door so it can only be unlocked with a code. Now, please put the syringe back.”
I grumbled and placed the syringe inside the cabinet.
Rhett shot Ozzie’s thigh with medication. Within seconds, Ozzie stopped moaning, straightened his legs, and released a long sigh of relief.
“You let her give you a roundhouse kick and a nutcracker?” Rhett chuckled and got down on his knees.
For a split second, his attention and care softened my heart.
“Take my hand.” He helped Ozzie up to the mattress.
“How did you know that’s what I did to him?” I tucked a pillow under Ozzie’s head.
Though Ozzie didn?
??t say a word, his glare said plenty. He had every right to be pissed off, and I hung my head. I wanted to do what I could to apologize without actually saying it. Then I rethought it. I was the one who had every right to be angry. They had kidnapped me.
“Because.” Rhett turned to me. “One side of his cheek is red, and I taught you that move.”
I scoffed. Liar.
Rhett went to the other side of the bed and opened a drawer. “Here.” He tossed me a pair of old blue tennis shoes. “Put those on and button up your shirt.”
“Why?”
“If you’re desperate enough to hurt my friend just to see outside this room, I’ll show you around now.”
“Fine.” I gave him the same harsh tone back. I closed the last button, unhooked the corset and tossed it on the bed, and I wiggled my feet inside the shoes. “Who do these belong to? They fit perfectly.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Rhett tapped the keys on the panel and the door slid open. “After you.” He gestured like a gentleman.
I looked over my shoulder at Ozzie before I took a step out, shame swarming in my gut for hurting him. Ozzie had been nice to me. I was an assassin, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a heart. On the other hand, had I hurt Rhett, I wouldn’t have felt guilty whatsoever.
Being alone with Rhett didn’t seem like a good idea, but from his and his friends’ actions, they didn’t want to hurt me. They could’ve tied me up or locked me in a prison, but they hadn’t.
I met Rhett’s stride. “I’m surprised you have manners.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet.” After taking several steps, he halted. “By the way, I taught you a lot of your techniques. If you want me to prove it, I can. I’ll block every move you make against me.”
“I’ll pass.”
I continued into a large, circular, empty space, dimly lit. No sun. I sighed with disappointment. The layers of floors reached so high, I had to tilt back my head.
“I know what you’re thinking.” He pointed to the ceiling. “That’s not the exit, so don’t think about it. You’ll end up hurting yourself. Would you like to continue?”
Rhett snapped me out of my observations. “Okay.”