Sin and Sacrifice (23 page)

He stood next to a bank of
machines with his arms crossed over his chest, sandy hair loose
around his broad shoulders. The bastard didn't look worse for wear,
though she knew there was an injury under the long sleeved black
shirt somewhere. She thought his expression was
almost—accusing.

Frozen, feeling like a deer
in the headlights, she couldn't fathom how he'd found her this
fast. It cost her precious seconds of getaway time.

Lurching up, she left the
water on the table and briskly walked the other direction, leaving
the cafe behind. Running in a casino was no good. Security would be
on her in a second, making his job easier.

She wove between bodies,
trying to get lost, glancing back only to see him stalking with
what looked to be a casual enough gait in her wake.

Oh god. Christian was
probably somewhere, ready to cut her off.

How had they found her so
fas-- a tracker. He'd probably slapped one of those ugly black
trackers on her back in Egypt.

“
Excuse me. Pardon me,”
she said, moving quickly around the main lobby for the doors. It
was riskier to be out there but she'd take her chances over the
idea that the Templars long reach could sway the security here to
turn her over if they asked.

Or, he could just pose as
the CIA agent again.

Panicked, her thoughts ran
wild, even into sarcasm.

She felt trapped,
suffocated. Like there was no where she could go to get away from
them. Years ago, Minna had predicted that one day, the time would
come when they would have to go back to the Garden of Eden just to
survive. Technology would catch up with them, leaving them no
alternative but to seek refuge in that hidden sanctuary. As
beautiful as it was, as peaceful and safe, Evelyn wasn't willing to
concede defeat yet. Especially not without Gen, Alex and
Minna.

Straight from the doors,
she broke into a run. Several people outright stared. All she cared
about was that no one tried to stop her. Rushing headlong, she
navigated the pathways, refusing to look behind her to see how much
ground Rhett had closed between them. Making it to the sidewalk
that ran along the Strip, she didn't turn down it; instead, she
darted right into traffic, one hand slapping down on the hot hood
of a car that barked its tires and screeched to a sudden halt. The
driver swore at her in two different languages.

“
Evelyn!” Behind her,
Rhett shouted her name.

Too close. He was much
closer than she thought he might be already.

Spurred on, she leapt away
from that car and around the nose of another, enduring another
round of curses from a driver who'd not been paying attention
thanks to a scantily clad woman on the other side of the road.
Nearly knocking her down, he stood on the brakes and
scowled.

Evelyn only caught fleeting
glimpses, breath short in her throat, her path through the vehicles
hectic and bold. They were drawing attention with their mad
scramble. She didn't care.

Making it to the other
side, she pushed through people, hearing his footsteps behind her.
Closer.

“
Evelyn!”

She didn't even look
back.

The bastard.

Ten steps later, just as
she was about to cut up through the property of another hotel, she
felt an arm like a steel band grab her around the middle. In blurry
glimpses, she saw people staring and whispering behind their hands
even as a rough palm closed over her mouth.

Rhett risked looking like
he was kidnapping her all so she wouldn't let out a scream and draw
even more attention. Kicking wildly, she struggled while he growled
near her ear.

“
Stop it. Just settle down
for a second.” Bodily manhandling her, he stalked to a taxi sitting
on a side street and yanked open the back door.

“
Hey mister, I'm waiting
for--”

“
CIA. They'll have to
catch another ride,” Rhett said to the driver, pushing Evelyn
in.

CIA her bloody
backside!

She screamed against his
palm, making such a ruckus that several people stopped and frowned,
looking on the verge of interrupting. Rhett's CIA announcement kept
a few that might have intervened away. He was
unbelievable.

Jamming her foot against
the seat, she tried to make it harder for him to get the door
closed. He snarled, pushing at the back of her knee with a hand to
bend her leg, thus forcing her across the seat whether she wanted
to go or not. Rhett snapped an address she didn't recognize to the
driver. His tone brooked no argument. Cheek against the cushion,
furious at his greater strength even when injured, she bit his
hand. The taxi lurched forward.

“
Man, this ain't right--”
The driver, casting worried looks in the rear view, started
protesting the rough treatment.

“
Shut up and drive or I'll
have you brought in for impeding an arrest.” Rhett glared at the
driver until he looked away.

Impeding an
arrest
. The nerve.

Evelyn clawed at his arm,
kicked his leg. She wasn't going down without a fight. The weight
of his body suddenly came down over hers when he spoke near her
ear.

“
You're making it worse.
Stop fighting me. I'm not going to hurt you.”

She lobbed sarcastic
insults against his smothering hand. Evelyn didn't believe him.
Wouldn't believe him. What she needed to do was save her energy for
when the taxi stopped. Stilling, breathing hard, she saw glimpses
of shiny buildings and racing lights as the taxi took back streets
through the busy city.

Rhett's breath was warm on
her ear.

“
I don't know what you
think you know, but you're wrong. Listen to me, Evelyn. I can help
you if you'll just take a few minutes to hear me out.”

Along with his good looks,
Rhett had talent for persuasion. She desperately wanted to believe
him. She wanted to believe that their chemistry wasn't a figment of
her imagination and that there was a very real, very good
explanation for all this.

His deception was too raw,
however. Too new. Too shocking. She couldn't just forget thousands
of years of being hunted. Of death. The Templars had instilled fear
into her very foundation.

And he was one of
them.

She ranted at him in her
mind, the words muffled into his hand. He meant to subdue her by
placating her until he had her in some other basement in a place no
one would ever find her, so they could continue the torture they'd
started.

Eveyln felt bile rise up
the back of her throat at the thought of Rhett hurting her like
that.

Pinned against the seat by
his bulky frame, she could only wait out this part of the ride.
Nothing he said changed her mind. Somehow, an opening would present
itself when the taxi stopped and then she intended to escape
him.

Before it was too
late.

“
I have information about
one of your friends—your sisters. Whatever they are. You need to
settle down. This is serious, Evelyn.”

The low gravel of his
voice, the levity in the words shot a stab of fear through her. She
hadn't expected him to take that tack, to use her sisters as a
bargaining tool. What had they found? What had they
done?
Did they have the
girls in their possession? Were they going to use them as hostages
and threaten their lives if she didn't tell them where the Garden
of Eden was?
It was one thing to endure
their torture and another to know that if she didn't cooperate,
they would take it out on Minna, Genevieve or Alexandra. Disgusted
and afraid, she swallowed down a thick knot of
apprehension.

“
I mean it, Evelyn. Don't
try anything stupid. You need to listen to me,” he said, speaking
too low for even the driver to hear.

The cab came to a
stop.

“
Say anything about what
you've seen and I'll bring hell down on your head,” Rhett
threatened the driver.

She felt him shift and saw
a glimpse of money transferred across the front seat. Rhett
manhandled her back out of the car and she was momentarily blinded
by the sun gleaming off the metal side of a warehouse. He trapped
her against his body with one arm around her shoulders, hand still
across her mouth. Evelyn struggled against him to no effect. Even
with one arm and his injury, he was all power, too strong for her
to break free from.

When he turned her away
from the taxi, she caught a glimpse of the Union Plaza. They were
downtown somewhere, probably on the outskirts judging by the
distance to the hotel, where old buildings and train tracks sat
useless and empty.

All of it happened in a few
seconds, a blur of turns and awkward steps that brought them to the
door of the warehouse. She could tell it had been abandoned a long
time ago by the debris clustered against the base of the walls and
the extreme state of the chipped white paint covering the
outside.

He opened the sliding door
with a squeal that had the same effect as nails on chalkboard.
Evelyn winced at the ear piercing sound. He guided her inside and
closed the door behind them.

The taxi took off with a
bark of tires. Evelyn wanted to shout at the driver for not even
attempting to help her.

High, rectangular windows
lined the top of the building, allowing late afternoon sunlight to
pour down on the pocked cement floor. She saw dust motes filtering
through the mellow glow. There wasn't anything else inside the
warehouse except two mismatched folding chairs and a folding table
sitting between them. Evelyn took it all in just before Rhett let
her go.

Spinning around, glaring,
she brought a hand up to her mouth where his had clamped across
it.

“
You have
some
nerve kidnapping me
right off the street and bringing me here--”

“
It has nothing to do with
nerves and everything to do with your survival. I couldn't very
well have this conversation out on the street or in your hotel room
where you could scream us into a bad situation that I don't want to
explain to the local authorities,” he said, bringing a hand up to
briefly rub at his shoulder.

The same shoulder she must
have shot. Faced off with him, she kept a cautious distance between
them. It hurt, his betrayal and deception. As angry as she was,
there was also pain.

“
What did you expect
considering that you lied to me the whole time about who you really
are.”

“
And how do you know
exactly who or what I am? I know, I know,” he said, taking his hand
away from his shoulder. A spot of red dotted his palm. Blood. “You
saw the tattoo. But not many people know what it is or what it
means anymore.”

Breathing harshly, she
glanced around for other exits. Some other way out. There were two
other sets of doors far across the warehouse, the same sliding kind
he'd brought her in through.

“
Don't even think about
it,” he growled when he saw her looking. “Don't you get it yet? I'm
on your side.”

“
My
side? I hardly think so!” she shouted, pacing behind one of
the chairs. She rubbed at her forehead and scowled at him. “You
know damn well what the tattoo means.
You
know who and what I am, as well,
so stop playing like you don't.”

Rhett threw his hands up.
“How many times do I have to tell you that I have no idea why those
men grabbed you?”

“
Liar. You're
one of them,”
she
accused with a point of her finger. For the first time in years,
her bravado felt as fragile as glass. She had to keep swallowing
against a growing lump in the back of her throat. It was all just
too much.

He took a stalking step
closer. Evelyn took one back.

“
How do you know that? We
don't talk about who and what we are to anyone else. How do you
know what the tattoo means?” he asked again, quieter.

“
Why do you keep
pretending--”

“
Just answer the question,
Evelyn, for god's sake. Can't you just answer me honestly and clear
the air?”

“
You want honest when you
can't give it yourself? What a crock, Rhett.” She paced the same
three foot line, back and forth behind the chair.

“
I played at being a CIA
agent to gain your trust, yes, but also because I had no idea what
was going on. What happened to you? That's not how we do things,”
he said.

He surprised her by
admitting he wasn't a real CIA agent. She frowned and stopped
pacing just behind the chair, like she needed some sort of physical
barrier between them.

“
How could you not know?
You knew where to find me. You were probably one of the ones
who--”

“
Don't suggest I was one
of the ones who tortured you again. I knew you were there because
we'd followed the men who
did
torture you, like I said, but we had no idea what
they were up to. Or why. When I heard what was going on outside the
room they had you in, I acted first and thought later.”