Eternity Crux by Jamie Canosa Read Free Book Online Page B

think that’s funny?” His thick fingers dug into my shoulder blades and I practically dangled against the wall.
    “No. But this is.” I yanked up my knee, catching him right in the family jewels, and hit the floor hard as he howled like a wounded bear.
    His taser was clipped to the back of his belt, completely exposed as he curled over himself trying to ease the pain. I snatched it without a second thought and lit him up like the Fourth of July. His large body flopped and spasmed on the floor at my feet before falling still.
    My stupid conscience chose that moment to make a rare appearance, forcing me to waste several precious seconds checking to make sure he was still alive and breathing, before swiping his key card and letting myself into the containment facility. I’d never actually been inside the cells before. They were . . . awful.
    The stench alone was disgusting, wreaking of fear, and blood, and sweat, and other bodily fluids.  Holding my gag reflex in check, I crossed the filth ridden floor, scanning cage after empty cage. Alone in the last cell lay a heap of flesh and cloth.
    “Sayer?” I used the key card to open the barred door and crept slowly inside, afraid it wasn’t him. Afraid it was . “Sayer, is that you?”
    The red of his t-shirt peeked through in small areas beneath the layers of grime, and his face was nearly unrecognizable, but I’d know him anywhere.
    “Sayer!” I dropped to my knees beside him, resting a shaking hand on the back curled protectively away from me. “Sayer, it’s me. I’m here. Sayer, look at me!”
    He didn’t move. Not a muscle, not a sound, nothing. He lay there as still as . . . “No.” No, no, no, no, no. “Sayer. No, Sayer, please . . .” My arms folded round my middle and the rest of me just sort of folded over them until my head came to rest on Sayer’s shoulder.
    Tears carved scalding paths down my face, puddling in the crook of his neck.
    “Aura?” His voice was so small—barely a wisp of sound—that I believed I’d imagined it. “What are you doing here?”
    “Sayer?” I bolted upright, backhanding him by accident in the process. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re alive?”
    “I’m alive.” His attempt to roll over left him flopping onto his back with a groan.
    “Come on. Let’s get you up.” It took some effort—more on my part than his—but we got him into a sitting position, which was one step closer to him walking out that door.
    Blood dripped from a fresh gash below his left eye and from his lips, split in so many places they looked like they’d been put through a shredder. A cut along his scalp left his hair matted with dried blood and muck from the cell floor. His clothes were torn and stained, and every bare inch of skin that I could see bruised and swollen. My fists itched for payback as my eyes continued to leak. “You’re kind of a mess, you know that?”
    “You don’t look so great yourself.” Lifting his arm looked painful, but he did it, sliding his thumb across my damp cheek. “You shouldn’t be here, Aura.”
    “Neither should you. That’s why we’re getting you out of here. How badly are you hurt?”
    “I think I can walk.” It wasn’t what I’d asked, but I’d take that bit of good news for now and deal with the rest later.
    “Then let’s go.”
    He stumbled and limped on his right ankle, but managed to move across the cell.
    “You’re alive.” The fact was still registering in my brain. Part of me—a rather large part I’d chosen to ignore—was convinced he was dead. Especially after finding that locker empty. He’d given them what they wanted, so . . . “ How are you still alive?”
    “It doesn’t matter.” Sayer shook his head and winced through another step.
    “Sayer, they obviously wanted something from you. Recently, judging by the fresh bruises all over your face. But you gave them the file days ago. What else could they possibly have wanted . . .?” I trailed off as