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  PROJECT XOL

  BOOK THREE

  AMABEL DANIELS

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 Amabel Daniels

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions

  Dedication

  For Sardinia

  Chapter One

  Cassidy

  Michael raised his gun and aimed.

  My body twitched at the quick duet of pop-pop as Luke dragged me back with him toward the door in the chain-link fence.

  Michael cocked his head to the side, staring at the unfriendly woman who’d given me such a hard time about accessing the sciences archives. My jaw dropped, shock creeping in to freeze me again. This monster stood there, tall and strong. His eyes offered no emotion as he eyed his newest victim as she slumped over her keyboard. Merely cranked his head the opposite angle, popping his neck.

  Blood had stained two holes on his black shirt, the newly wet fabric appearing dense from the ten feet separating us.

  I shot him. I know I did. Somehow, I’d managed to hit him twice.

  Yet, here he stood. Still moving. Continuing his hunt for us without even hunching over or expressing the possibility of pain.

  Dumbfounded, I remained close to Luke. Jingling metal sounded past the deafening drum of my heartbeat. He was unlocking the archive door. Maybe he wasn’t even aware the woman had been shot.

  “There’s no time,” he mumbled, casting a look over his shoulder at Michael considering the woman slumped over the desk. Liquid spread across her oh-so-clean workspace, declaring her blood loss.

  I fell back as he must have unlocked the door with Scott’s key. His hand caught me on the side, sending a jolt of pain where Michael had kicked me.

  Raising his gaze from the woman, Michael offered a calm smile. “How many more people will I need to kill for you to cooperate, Cassidy?”

  Hearing this monster say my name pissed me off. Such a trivial thing. That he was so smug to refer to me by name, like I was a pet, an object of his evil goals.

  “Fuck you.” I hadn’t asked for any of this. And he wasn’t going to win even a little bit by dumping guilt on me. Their deaths were not my fault.

  Luke heaved against me, picking me up and hauling me into the chain-link fenced area. He stumbled, probably taxed and injured even more by having to physically move me. But I refused to take my eyes from the mutant man.

  “Aisle six.” A deep gasp for air shot from his lips. He grimaced as he slammed the door shut.

  Michael laughed, the sound grating on my sanity. He stepped toward the see-through barrier like he had all the time in the world for this cat-and-mouse game.

  “Chain-link won’t stop a bullet,” I retorted.

  Luke snorted, slapping the archive storage key in my hand. Resting his weight against me, nearly knocking me over, he tried to stand and rummaged in the backpack. “I know,” he finally agreed, pulling the guard’s gun out.

  He stepped back, almost falling as his knee buckled. “Aisle six. Case twelve. Go.” One rough shove of his hand on my back and I stumbled forward. As I darted off, I watched as he crouched to the ground, hiding most of his body behind a casing unit.

  I ran, gasping in air at the stitch in my side. Muffled pops from Michael’s silenced firearm volleyed with the full-blown blasts from the guard’s gun.

  “Six… six… six…” I ran, skidding on the bare concrete floor when I went too far. Following the arrows of so many case signs, I went for the aisle I needed.

  “I’ll wait you out,” Michael yelled.

  I tuned out his threat in the distance. That was very possible. He could. And if he was impervious to gunshot wounds, he had every trump card over Luke and me, who were bleeding out.

  “Six.” I whispered the triumph to myself, tuning out whatever taunts Michael tossed to Luke. He—they both had ceased firing and I prayed it didn’t mean the ammo was depleted.

  I trotted down the lined space between twelve-foot-tall shelving units. Bin twelve was right there at my end of the wooden unit. Relief speared through the rapid-fire panic. I allowed one deep lungful of air to calm myself. Finally. Success. I was finally at the right goddamn box!

  With trembling fingers, I slipped the key into the cupboard-looking door. The engraved numbers on Scott’s key corresponded to the placard on the metal lock panel. This was it.

  It turned easily and I held my breath again. Prepared for another disappointment despite the small win of actually getting here. The door didn’t squeal, opening easily. Inside were two cardboard boxes. Narrow, white containers, they sat next to each other. I pulled one out, rushing to read the label. It wasn’t terribly heavy and as I held it in my bloody hands, I remembered seeing a similar box at a garage sale. It had a flapped lid that tucked into the corners. A snug little box that typically held baseball cards.

  Data from Boston U.

  Boston? Would Project Xol be in there?

  I tucked the box under my arm, biting back a cry at moving that arm at all. Blood stuck to the box and I didn’t delay. I pulled the other cardboard case out.

  Project Xol.

  “Thank you.” I shoved the first box back in and hugged the data I’d labored to find. After I slammed the door shut, I ran back the way I came. Something shook in the box but I’d have to wait to see what it was.

  “You won’t win!” Michael yelled again. His roar of anger was louder as I returned to where Luke had been shooting back at him.

  I blinked, trying to hold back on this stomach-clenching, mind-fogging dizziness that was becoming harder to shake. Hell, I was out of shape for running as it was. In this condition, I was screwed.

  Luke sat on the ground, concealed from Michael’s line of sight. He had one knee brought to his chest and he gripped bloody fingers on his thigh. His eyes were squinted almost shut, but as soon as I skidded and dropped to my knees next to him, he widened them. First, he looked at my arm, then the box in my hands. “Got it?” he mouthed.

  I nodded, shoving it into the backpack. “Are you out of bullets?” I silently asked.

  He shook his head. Sweat glinted on his forehead and my concern for him overrode all else. If I had to bet, I’d say he looked like he was two breaths from passing out. But I took faith in the fact he was breathing and had the strength to grip his leg so firmly.

  I crawled over him, staying close to the corner and checked on Michael. He couldn’t have given up the chase. So what was he doing?

  My stomach dropped. I blinked, knowing I couldn’t be hallucinating.

  Michael had his fingers through the diamond-shaped openings of the chain-link metal. Blood dripped in steady drops and splattered the ground as he forced the material apart, slicing his fingers from the force of widening a larger hole near the doorknob.

  No pain registered on his stoic face as he injured himself to get to us.

  “How…”

  Luke grabbed my knee, hoisting himself up. I squatted back to my haunches, gritting my teeth to offer him a prop to pull up on, nearly dropping from his weight. He stood, gun in his hand.

  “I’ve got a couple rounds,” he mouthed to me. “I’ll make them count.”

  There was no other chance to plan and I trusted this man to get us to safety.

  With impressive speed, he walked into the main entrance of the archive area. Michael looked up at our presence and immediately let go of the chain link. Luke stepped forward, blocking me from Michael but I could still see t
he bloodied, unbeatable man duck down, as though to get his gun he’d had to set aside.

  Luke didn’t hesitate. Two shots. Right at his heart.

  I held my breath, my heart racing and my injured arm locked rigid at my side. I fisted Luke’s shirt, using him as my only grip on a lifeline, and leaned into and around him to see.

  Michael grunted. “Fuck…” And he fell back, one hand going to his chest. He landed first on a knee and blood dribbled from his mouth.

  “Come on.” Luke dashed forward with a severe gimp. I followed, fumbling to stay with him.

  He opened the door and stepped to Michael who lay there glaring up at us from the floor. He’d fallen all the way to the concrete now with one arm stretched out. My instincts snapped me back to the present and I stooped to grab the gun he was reaching for. No more surprises from this dead asshole. Or almost dead. I couldn’t even know.

  Luke had staggered to the check-in desk and felt at the woman’s neck. “She’s still…alive.”

  I nodded and went to his side. He flung his arm around my shoulders and I steered us to the elevator. “Maybe we can go to the second floor?”

  He nodded. “Anywhere but here.”

  We slipped inside the metal cage, and as the doors slid shut, the distant whirring peaks of sirens sounded. Maybe someone had hit the fire alarm or some other warning system. We’d only been down here for maybe five minutes, and that was more than enough time for people to have found the two security guards and Ryan on the main floor of the library. We couldn’t leave that way.

  Luke groaned as he rested against the wall. I pressed one hand to his chest, a futile attempt to hold him upright, and edged over to the control panel. Options for a third floor, no second. Whatever. Somewhere other than the basement and first floor. I stabbed the numeral and we immediately dipped and bounced as the car raised.

  “We need to stop the bleeding,” I said unnecessarily.

  Luke licked his lips, breathing hard. “In the car.”

  I nodded, keeping my hand on his chest, reassured at the fast tempo of his heart racing and his hard chest heaving. He was still with me. It mattered so much after the arresting dread of seeing Ryan holding him with a gun at his head.

  With another bump of gravity changing, we arrived at the third floor. Dings rang out our arrival and I tensed as the air moved, the doors whooshing open.

  If someone was waiting for us up here, I didn’t know what to do. Luke still had the gun in his hand, but it’d be pointless if more than one guards waited for us.

  No one was there. Nothing moved in the hallway. I poked my head out and looked left and right to make sure an ambush wasn’t inevitable. Offices lined the corridor we’d come to. I stepped out, crossing the elevator’s sensors that had the doors beginning to shut again.

  “Clear?” Luke whispered on a low sigh.

  I nodded. “I think so.” Keeping one leg out to stop the doors from shutting, I returned to him, offering my less-wounded side. He grunted, stepping toward me. I wrapped my arm around him and he draped his over my shoulders. I bit my tongue at the agony of his added weight against me. Together, we limped out of the elevator and along the hallway. The backpack dug into the spot where Michael had kicked me, but there was no point or time to adjust it.

  Glass-walled meeting rooms were empty, like the department wasn’t present. Most of the wooden office doors were shut and it was then that I recalled it was the weekend. No one was up here. The small blessing gave me a tiny boost of strength to persevere and get us out of here.

  Wait.

  A wisp of music playing in the background sounded. Maybe from somewhere down the hall that cut perpendicular to us. Okay. So, not in the clear yet. A worker might be up here somewhere. Luke had to have heard it too because it seemed like he’d suddenly quickened his pace.

  We came to a stairwell, from what I approximated to be the opposite end of the building. I shoved into its door with my butt and we dragged ourselves into the cement-walled space. It didn’t matter how carefully I tried to guide us, we tripped and crashed every few steps that we descended. It was a small grace that we didn’t flat-out tumble down the three flights like two bags of broken bodies. But standing again on the ground floor felt like heaven. No more up and down.

  Luke thrust the gun into the back of his waistband as I wrenched the backpack tighter to me. He shoved at the exit door and the blinding brightness of sunlight pierced through the dully increasing headache crowding my head.

  “Ready?”

  “For what?” I groused as he held the door open for me. The SUV was parked who knew where from here. But if he was asking me to run, there was no way in hell I could pull off more than a zombie-crawl of a walk.

  He must have sensed the despair in my voice but as he stood there, his arm stretched out to drape around me, I hated myself. I’d bitch and moan about how much this hurt? That I couldn’t run?

  Seeing him waiting for my assistance slapped me. He was waiting for me. My help. And I’d be damned if I let my whining thoughts hold me back from getting him to safety.

  “Let’s go.” I ducked under his arm, bracing myself for his weight.

  I blinked faster as we stepped into the morning fresh air. If it weren’t for Luke stabilizing me, I would have been zigzagging in a drunken fog. Clearing my vision was extra hard in the sunlight, but with the foot-tripping clumsiness in my legs, I knew I was losing too much blood.

  Trees and other landscape-fancy bushes dotted the greenspace in front of us. I couldn’t ignore the sounds of sirens and shouts from the entrance of the library. We’d exited to the side of the building, though, and our location enabled us to simply turn toward where we’d parked. If we would’ve had to pass in front of the library, plenty of first responders would have noticed us lumbering together like two bloodied, war-weary stragglers.

  As soon as we reached the SUV, Luke leaned against the vehicle. I unlocked the doors and opened the passenger side. Half-hoisting and half-dragging him, I managed to aid Luke into the seat. He smacked back to the cushion and groaned, gripping his leg.

  I shut the door, wiping the sweat from my forehead. There wasn’t even time to catch my breath from the all-body fatigue of moving Luke. Without a look to the library, I hobbled to the driver’s side and got in.

  No sooner had I turned the engine over, did my phone ring.

  Chapter Two

  Luke

  Cassidy’s phone rang as she pushed the gearstick into drive.

  “Go. I’ll…get it.”

  Or I’d try to.

  I suspected she had a little more energy and flexibility than I did but we needed to clear the hell out of the area. She jerked a nod at me, her eyes steely and faced forward as she drove.

  Zero was the only person who had her number, so if he called and no one answered, I at least knew who to call back. There was no promise I could shift to the floor and reach the backpack fast enough to answer his summons.

  Clenching my teeth at the stabbing ache in my leg and torso, I groped for the fabric. The handle slipped from my fingers twice, but I lurched forward with a growl and gripped the damn thing. Breathing hard, I sank back to the seat until something else caused more pain. Right at the small of my back.

  The gun.

  Shit.

  The gun. I’d not only handled it but fired it. The ramifications of what I’d done nagged at the edge of my consciousness. My ass would be done for if I was caught. My time in prison categorized me forever as a person who shouldn’t even touch firearms. And here I’d gone and killed a man. Perhaps a cop?

  I blinked hard to chase away the worries stacking up. Not now. I’d freak about it later.

  I retrieved the gun and dropped it to the floor next to my feet. Exhausted from that much movement, I dug into the bag and removed the phone. I slid my bloody finger over the screen and answered it. One more tap set it to speaker.

  “Cassidy!”

  Zero yelled it as I set the phone into the cupholder between me a
nd Cassidy. I closed my eyes, giving in to the clamoring agony in my body and mind.

  “How the hell are you alive? Are you okay? Luke?”

  “We’re here,” Cassidy replied. She inhaled deeply and wiped one hand at her eye.

  “Talk to me.” Zero’s command was firm but direct in the straight-to-the-point manner he had.

  “Not…now.” She breathed deeply again. “We need to stop somewhere and recoup.”

  “Stop the bleeding at least,” I added. I agreed with her incentive to gain some distance first. Then, we could chat.

  “No. Don’t you dare even think about hanging up on me, girl. Don’t even consider it.”

  “I’m driving, Zero. And…”

  “Then drive. Get away from that bloodbath in the library. I’ll talk. Luke? You there? What’s going on?”

  I narrowed my eyes at the dashboard. “How do you know we were in the library?”

  Zero huffed. “Well, I already knew that was the destination. That you needed to go back there for Scott’s data.” He released a growly exhale. “You two drive and I’ll let you know what I am aware of.”

  Cassidy glanced at me and I tried to shrug.

  “Since I knew you were in the area, I linked into the dispatch center for the services around campus.”

  “A police radio?”

  Zero scoffed. “That too. I jumped into their database to see if anything was going to come up with Michael Poole. Just keeping an eye out for you in my own way. I’d tried to get into the library’s surveillance system but the campus firewall was acting like a dick. It took me longer than I want to admit. As soon as I heard the calls coming in for gunshots at the library, I tried something different and hacked into their surveillance feed.”

  I tilted my head to the side, distracted from my pain to at least admire Zero’s reach. It wasn’t getting any easier to take a full breath but I tried to relax for the moment and pay attention.

  “I saw it damn near in live-time, Cassie. Holy goddamn almighty. I saw them jump on you back by the elevator. How they beat you. Then the two guards showing up. I followed it all right up until Michael shot the first dude.”