Jaq’s Harp (5 page)

Harp groaned. The grinding ache suffocating him had no end, his vision had darkened to cocoon him, and he could no longer see his torturer.

Wires banded around his torso, tightening with every pained breath. He couldn’t remember what he was doing, why he suffered. He only wanted the pain to end. Using the only retreat he had, he stilled his thrashing and curled into a ball.

If only Jaq were here, to run her hands through his hair—as she always did—to ease him.

“If you want it to stop, just tell me why you’re here, and I’ll help you end it all.” The nagging voice had said the same thing, over and over, for an endless time.

“My name is John Singer,” he gritted out between clenched teeth.

Where are you, Jaq?

I have to leave you again. I’m sorry.

He wouldn’t say anything to hurt Jaq. There was only one way to be sure. He struggled to his feet and blinked in the blinding white fog. He couldn’t see through the tears. He couldn’t find the ledge.

A thud rocked him, and he fell back to his knees.

The fresh scent of green assailed him. He sucked in a painful breath to hold the fragrance to himself.

“I’m here.” A sweet angel whispered to his soul.

The unmistakable cool of a blade slid along his arm beneath the wires.

Snap.
The pressure around his chest stopped abruptly.

“Get moving. Now,” she shouted.

Jaq shouldn’t be here. He blinked furiously, trying to clear his vision. Stumbling to his feet, he cradled his arms around his chest. Every move hurt.

“Who’s this?” his tormentor snarled.

Harp’s skin crawled. Ochre couldn’t get his hands on Jaq. Never. Possessive and primal rage to protect what was his pounded through him as he, still blind, lunged toward the voice.

He slammed into someone. They both went down. A hard weight dug into him, and sharp needles of pain sent his ribs screaming.

“You should’ve stayed down.” Ochre grunted, wrapping strong, stubby fingers around his neck, and leaned into him with all his weight. Ineffective. The man didn’t know what he was doing.

Thrusting his hands up and out, he broke Ochre’s hold and pushed him off with a timed arc from the floor. Still blind, he slugged toward where Ochre should be.

A satisfying thud ricocheted up his arm when he connected with the solid meat of a stomach. An
oof
of air hissed around him. He punched again, toward the sound of wheezing. Wind whipped around him. Masculine grunts of pain and frustrated cursing filtered through to draw his attention from Ochre. Jaq could take care of two measly guards. She was deadly with a blade. And her roundhouse.

As long as they didn’t have guns. He hadn’t seen guns.

He’d barely had the time to start worrying when her green scent and her soft panting came from beside him.

“We’re out of time. We have to run.”

Slender fingers wrapped in his. Through the fuzz of his clearing vision, he sprinted after her slim form.

The guards struggled up from a pile of limbs on the ground. One got to his feet as they slipped past. “Bitch, not done with you.”

Balancing on one foot and his hold on Jaq, Harp kicked out, tripping the guard.

They raced through the sliding doors and into the Ochre apartments. The light dimmed as they left the sun behind, and he could see clearly again.

Vera stood, disheveled, wide-eyed and open-mouthed in the doorway. Jaq pushed her hard to the side as she sprinted out of the Ochre suite.

A step behind her, he heard when Vera recovered from her shock. She screamed, “Stop. Singer!” But she didn’t follow.

Plaster rained down on him as the boom of a gun nearly deafened him.

The guards had remembered they had guns, and they weren’t good shots.

That could be good or very, very bad.

He tore down the steps after Jaq. Heart pounding, he ignored the signals from his body to collapse. His lungs heaved, every motion still grinding as if his ribs were exposed and rubbing together. But, crazy as it was, he couldn’t help the spurt of adrenaline when he got a good look at Jaq, hair wild, cheeks flushed, a grin thrown to him over her shoulder as she leaped several stairs at once.

“You came for me.” He panted every word.

“You’d have, too.”

He would’ve. He’d have come for her, no matter if the sky was falling around him. “This way.”

Careening across the great room on the bottom level, he pulled Jaq behind him, through the back passage to the garage, and slammed the door behind him. It would only slow the guards for a minute or so since they’d have to search the other rooms along the hallway, but he’d have Jaq out of here in seconds.

“Where are we going?” Jaq kept pace, huffing as she held tighter to his hand.

The largest space on the island, the three-story garage echoed with their steps as the few drivers and workers unloading deliveries all stopped to stare. Harp led Jaq past a row of hovercraft along the back wall to the one he’d already hacked, a sleek little blue number with white pinstripes. It sat toward the back of the garage, several rows of deliveries, security desks, and a maintenance bay between it and freedom. He jabbed his programmed code into the entrypad and the doors slid up. “Get in.”

She let go of his fingers to round the hovercraft, and he fisted his hand to keep from grabbing her close again. When they got out of here, he’d never let go. He slid into the driver’s seat. The doors closed, swishing before silence rang in his ears.

“Hurry. They’re closing the doors.” Jaq slapped on a safety belt and gripped the sides of the plush seat.

“Hold on.” He pushed the start button, grabbed the direction stick and floored the accelerator.

The wide open cargo bay stayed open during daylight hours. Deliveries had to have previous permission, manifests and docking permits before landing. Only trusted drivers were allowed to enter the secure zone. Getting out was easier. He swerved past the screening desk where incoming parcels and visitors were checked. The lone guard there stood, weapon firing, yelling and gesturing to the door operator.

Harp jammed a button he’d hidden under the dash. The signal scrambled the garage door controls, jamming them open for him to escape.

The back of the craft pinged with fire. Glass splintered behind him. The back window cracked. Ochre’s guards had caught up to them. He reached over and pushed Jaq’s head to her knees. “Get down.”

The craft slid on the sleek floor as it rounded the maintenance bay and barreled toward the door, now half closed. It kept closing. His scramble to jam the door hadn’t worked.

“Damn.” He jabbed at the button, but the doors kept going.

“What’s wrong?” Jaq stayed down. She knew to stay out of the way so he could concentrate on getting them out of there.

“They must have updated their codes since I hacked them. The door’s closing.”

She paled, but didn’t move. “You’ll get us out of here.”

“Sure I will.” His hands slicked on the direction controls. “Come on.”

The door moved in slow motion as his vision tunneled to the quickly disappearing daylight beyond. The car wavered and rocked as he threaded past the row of delivery vehicles and slammed his foot down harder on the accelerator. “Come on.”

They wouldn’t get there in time. With the doors barely wide enough to walk through, he banked hard to the side and slammed on the brakes. Air whooshed around them as the hover engines strained.

They slid into the closed bay door with a thunk.

More pinging and shouting slammed through the enclosed cab. Harp glanced out the window. Ochre, his guards, and the garage workers all rushed toward them. His hands fisted, Ochre scowled at Harp.

Harp gunned it, whipping around and toward the nearest exit.

“Harp.” Jaq braced herself on the dash. “You’re heading straight for a wall.”

“When I stop, jump out and run.”

“Right with you.” Her voice didn’t waver or show any fear, though his escape route had closed.

He slammed his hand on the door pad at the same time as he shoved down on the brake. The air from the hover engine warmed the cab as he came to a stop a few feet from the door. “Run.”

They clamored from the craft and bolted toward the exit.

“Shoot them,” Ochre roared behind them.

Putting himself behind Jaq, he herded her back down the hallway.

She looked over her shoulder with a determined gleam. “We have to go back out the way I came. The beanstalk.”

He still didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he trusted her—and Bovine’s tech gadgets—as she ran full tilt through the hallway into the main area of the mansion.

Jaq slipped on the highly shined, waxy tile of the great room, falling hard.

With a twinge in his chest from his bruises, he gripped her elbow and pulled her up. He ground his teeth. They had to keep moving. Throwing her arm around his shoulder, he half carried her across the slick marble floor of the grand foyer. A few of the household staff scurried behind the nearest piece of furniture.

Crack.

The marble splintered at their feet. Dust flew in the air.

A shard dug into his arm.

Jaq grunted. She collapsed against him and nearly carried him to the floor. With all his effort, he ignored the burning in his torso and muscled her onto her feet.

Jaq leaned against him and swiped at the tear in her jeans where her pale skin shone, marred with the bloody cut. A tile shard had scraped her leg in a nasty gash, but thank all that was right in this world, she hadn’t been shot.

“Got it. Let’s go.” Her voice came strained, a heavier burden than anything he’d lived through before in his life.

“Hold on, love.”

They limped along as fast as they could down the hallway toward the banquet kitchen.

The guards and Ochre couldn’t see them now, but they’d only have a few seconds of confusion before they were on their trail again.

Entering the kitchen, he breathed a sigh of relief. Too soon. A burly guard stepped into their path. “Hold it right there.”

Harp drew up short, calculating the best way around the behemoth who snarled at them like a dog. He clenched and unclenched his fists, clearly looking for a fight instead of gunning them down. In his condition, Harp couldn’t take him on. Not and get away before the ones behind had caught up.

His heart sank to his stomach. They had to get out, but he was too spent to get them out of this. The data in his back pocket would stop what was coming, a viral outbreak with Giant Corp holding the only cure—for a steep price. And they had the only proof to stop it. Harp swallowed hard and got ready to get pummeled.

The man didn’t bother to watch Jaq as she pulled away. Harp swayed and sidestepped a meaty fist. Harp swung about, landing a solid punch to the man’s gut. The guard bent with the force of the blow, exposing his gun in a shoulder holster as his jacket opened. Harp reached for it.

The guard stepped back and angled away. Harp’s fingers brushed the grip, but slipped. He dove after him, but the guard swung again, hitting him square in the chest.

Harp’s injured ribs screamed in pain as he staggered back, bent half on top of a counter.

Before the guard came at him again, Jaq skidded a pan across the counter toward Harp. He caught it by the handle, swung hard, and whacked the large man in the side of his head. A loud reverb rang out and the man crumpled as if all his muscles had melted.

Harp dropped the pan with a clank.

Jaq smirked. “At least those things come in handy for something.”

Arms and legs shaking with the strain, Harp bent to remove the gun, stepped over the body and pulled Jaq to his side, so high and tight against him, he lifted her off the floor.

“Out the door…” He shoved the gun in the back of his waistband and sucked in a pained gulp of air. “I’ve set up that lock to jam.”

Jaq panted with the strain of their flight. “It’ll buy us some time.”

They slid the last few feet to the hatch. With a grunt, he lifted it and motioned Jaq through. She jumped in.

“Aw, damn, that hurt,” she hissed, her voice at a small distance.

Good girl, she’d already gotten moving.

He climbed down, closing the hatch as a clamor echoed in the kitchen. He yanked a pre-laid fuse line, setting off a heated spark that melted the lock. It’d give them a few more precious seconds. “It’ll be enough time.”

In seconds, he’d caught up with a limping Jaq.

“Please, please, please.” She stared ahead, the light at the end of the tunnel highlighting the strain on her face. He wanted to take away the pain. “Please let it be there.”

“No kidding. Otherwise, I think this is going to be a short escape. I could put in surveillance and jimmy that lock, but I couldn’t leave a chute here.” Just like he couldn’t have gotten a gun onto the island without setting off alarms. The mechanical elements would have been detected immediately as soon as he’d crossed the security net surrounding the island.

Shouts and clanging filled the tunnel behind them. He put his arm around Jaq’s waist to hurry her along. “Time’s up.”

The platform at the end of the tunnel opened into the sky. He swallowed, hard. Visions of his nanny’s black smock fanning out around her body as she dove for the ground made him take a step back.

Jaq threw him a questioning look. “Are you okay?”

“Did I ever mention I have a problem with heights?”

Her eyebrows raised clear to her spiky blond hair. “How could…”

A splash of green wavered in the cloud behind her, and his mouth fell open. Damn if Jaq’s “beanstalk” wasn’t an actual
beanstalk,
growing from the planet’s surface way up, higher than the islands.

And it appeared that they’d need to climb down the thing. Jaq crouched, ready to jump off the platform.

His mouth ran dry and his ears rang. Or maybe they were shooting at them again. Knees weak, he stepped forward and swayed.

Jaq glanced behind him and waved frantically.

“Let’s go,” she mouthed, but he couldn’t hear her over the white noise in his head.

Her foot stepped into the air. He lurched toward her. He had to save her. She couldn’t jump.
No. Not again.