CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

Bomb at Every Door

Inside The Lazy Hammock Hotel, two guards tried to attack us. I mean they tried to attack us. I told Rhuk to fuse their shoes to the floor so they couldn’t come after us. As soon as they realized their predicament, they tried to reach for their guns or their cell phones. I jammed their firearms while Rhuk melted their phones.

Striding further in, I cut off video surveillance every time I noticed a camera. I probably wouldn’t be able to find them all without the Other Christian in the same way I couldn’t stop every hair from growing out of my forearm without the help of King Christian. When I felt the circuitry in my mind, it was too complex. There were a lot of wireless devices too. It was a shame the Other Christian was unavailable.

I smoothed out the concern lines on my face. I should have come in alone. One of those bombs was going to go off and I might not be able to protect Max, Brandon, or Christian for that matter.

I turned to the guards and spat, “How have you guys survived in this place?”

I hadn’t noticed at first, but both of them had minor burn wounds on various parts of their visible skin.

“The pay is really good,” one of them explained.

I hummed and hawed, looking at the guards like I wished they were dead, but not quite owly enough to make them dead myself. “Okay, security guards…” I started. “Uh… I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I know it was your job to stay here and mind the fort, but if you stay, I’ll kill you. If you leave here and try to tell anyone about what happened here, I’ll kill you.”

While I gave that meandering speech, I spoke to my tiny diamonds. They weren’t up to much, so I assigned them a few jobs. First, they had to cancel any alarm either one of the guards might have triggered. When the guards left, they had to follow them around for the duration of our visit to The Lazy Hammock Hotel, and if they tried to talk to anyone about our visit, they were to pull the air out of their lungs. I wasn’t too concerned if the little diamonds killed them.

“What if they try to write something about it?” one of the tiny diamonds wondered noisily.

“Then have a firm conversation with whatever they’re using to write with. I’m sure you know how to do that. You’re a bossy little diamond, aren’t you?” I said in my head.

The diamonds in my earring heard me and clamored against my throat as I finished telling the guards to stay out of our way.

The two guards stood there stupidly for a few seconds before one of them dropped his gun. Rhuk unstuck his shoes and he walked out. A second later, the second guard followed him.

As I watched them go, I thought of how different this situation was from the receptionist with the shotgun at the compound when I had been imprisoned there. Everything was different now.

Thinking of the old compound, I suddenly made the connection. I said my thoughts out loud. “The obstacles in this place were designed to show how good Max is at his matter manipulation. If he can’t defuse the bombs, they intend to measure his healing abilities by watching him heal his burn wounds. Except, this place is beyond his skill. Christian, take Max and Brandon out. I’m going to bring this building down.”

“What about my family?” Max shouted as Brandon started pushing him toward the door.

“I’ll get them out. Get ready, Max. I may throw one or two out a window.”

I got to have one glance at Christian as he was the last one to leave.

“This isn’t what I wanted from you,” he said, his expression igniting with delight. “But it’s more beautiful than I expected. Rip this place to the foundation.”

I smiled, but the confidence wasn’t there.

Christian closed the door, leaving me behind and I prepared to wield the power of a god. “We need to cut off all the power in the building. We need to cut the circuitry.”

“That isn’t going to disarm all the bombs.”

“I know. I’m not trying to disarm the bombs. I’m trying to kill all the cameras and audio equipment.”

“There is way more equipment in here than makes sense. There are multiple audio and video feeds in each room. Some of it is wireless, but a lot was hardwired in case there was a problem with the wireless equipment. I’ll have to melt each wireless device individually. It’ll take forever. And it will be hard to do without setting anything on fire. The whole place is flammable,” Rhuk warned.

“Do your best and try not to burn the prisoners.”

While Rhuk did that, I felt the place out. It was empty of guards. There had only been the two guards at the front door. Dr. Bobby didn’t need guards with explosives set at every step. Without moving from my place on the floor, I found the instructions that had been left for the guards. Max’s siblings and wife had been beaten by the guards when they arrived, but after that first meeting, that wasn’t their job. The prisoners were given their complete rations for the day at dawn. It was too difficult for the guards or Bobby to navigate the building. The Incinerator delivered meals and accompanied any visitors because he was the only one who could move from room to room safely.

All the prisoners were kept in separate rooms in order to make them as difficult as possible to rescue. Max’s brother, Carl, had blown up his door once and had been burned quite badly. Max’s sister, Mara, and his wife, Sabrina, were both in better shape.

“I’ve prioritized the surveillance equipment in the prisoners’ rooms and in here,” Rhuk said. “I think doing the rest might be a waste of time if we’re in a hurry.”

“The Incinerator should be here soon. He’s bringing breakfast with him. Hungry?”

Rhuk laughed.

I licked my lips. “I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have prioritized the surveillance equipment. You said before that each prisoner has a ring around their neck with an explosive attached to it. I should have sent you to kill those first.”

“If I could do that, I would have done it already, but I don’t think I can,” Rhuk said slowly.

As soon as I heard the explanation, I knew Rhuk was unhappy. It wanted to be able to do everything I asked it to do.

“I have to do it?” I said the words like they were obvious.

If I was a real god, I would have been able to do it from where I stood in the lobby, but I didn’t feel confident. If I could see the mechanisms, I felt like that would give me the edge I needed to disarm the bombs.

I stood up. “So, now the best thing is just to go to their rooms, open the doors, and hope that nothing terrible happens?”

“Something terrible might happen. I don’t understand everything I’m seeing. The parts of the neck cuffs don’t understand what they’re a part of either. A god needs to interpret them.”

That was kind of a slap in the face. I took it on the chin. It was true, I could see how elements could work together for certain things, but it was complex and for me to see how it could all work together would take ages, like reading War and Peace. I could do it, but it would take forever.

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I was just so young and so new at all this, but there was no one else. I had to try.

I decided to start on the third floor, disabling every kind of explosive I could sense on my way, but it was terrifying because there were too many. I had a very real fear rolling in my belly that I was going to miss one. It wasn’t for me that I feared. If anything happened to me, King Christian would solve my problem in the twinkling of an eye. It was for the prisoners.

I worked on Sabrina’s door for a full ten minutes before I got it open, realizing that it absolutely would not have taken The Incinerator that long to open the door when he delivered her morning meal. Maybe it would have been faster just to wait for him and make him do the work for me.

When I opened the door, Sabrina was asleep in bed. I approached and before I realized what was happening, she kicked me in the stomach. I recovered quickly. “Do you not want to be rescued?”

She was on her feet, ready to fight me when she realized I was not who she expected. She was very pretty, but she had bruises up her arms and legs.

“Has The Incinerator been visiting you with a little more than food?” I asked.

She stared at me like she didn’t know what to do with me.

“Can you hold still for a minute? I want to try to remove your necklace.”

Very amenable to that, she sat with me on the floor. I sat behind her and she held her hair out of my way.

“Who are you?” she asked while I looked at the bomb.

“I don’t have a name today, but you’re lucky I’m the one rescuing you. There is no one better qualified.”

I said that to make myself feel more confident, and to a certain extent, it worked. The bomb itself looked like a metal ring, very like the one that had been around my ankle. As I examined the parts in greater detail, I understood why Rhuk and the parts inside it were confused. What was around her neck was not a bomb. It was almost a bomb. A few of the chemicals were mysteriously missing.

Once I was convinced it was completely harmless, I ordered it to snap off her throat and fall to the floor.

“Max is waiting outside,” I told her.

She gasped and rushed to the window.

Her window would work as well as any other. “Come away from the window,” I said. “Stay near me and don’t run off.”

As soon as she was behind me in the hall, I told Rhuk. “Light it.”

The window in her room burst into flames. Shards of glass shot into the room. I brushed the crumbs that reached me off me like water droplets. The curtains had been soaked in something combustible and instantly caught fire.

“It would be easier to put the fire out if everything in this room was not intended to burn,” Rhuk complained as it smothered the fire by removing all the oxygen in the air around the flames.

“Do what you can to cool it,” I told him. I turned to Sabrina. “Are you afraid of heights? Big jumps?”

She looked horrified.

“Max is waiting outside with some friends. They’re standing under the window. If you jump, they’ll catch you.”

She backed away. “I can’t see my husband like this.”

“That is the safest way out,” I advised her before I headed toward Indra’s room.

Sabrina chased after me and stood by me while I concentrated on Indra’s door. This was why I wanted her to leave via the window. I didn’t want her to watch me work. I disabled one explosive in my head while she stared at me. “Don’t lean against the wall,” I said as she continued to follow me. “I can throw you out the window if you don’t have the nerve to jump.”

“Don’t throw me out the window. Who are you?” Sabrina asked again.

“Stop asking,” I told Sabrina while simultaneously speaking to Rhuk about the explosives attached to the hinges of the door.

“Do you know my name?” she asked.

“The people who were holding you captive had you on their lists as Sabrina. Is that right?”

She nodded.

Her clothes were blood-stained, though not ragged. I remembered my time at the compound with a smirk. “What does a girl have to do for a fresh set of panties? Am I right?”

“What?”

I pushed my joke aside. “If you don’t want to jump out the window, why don’t you tell me about The Incinerator while we pass the time?”

“I’ve been here for four months,” she admitted, trailing off.

“You need to see a doctor after you leave here,” I advised.

“I’ve seen one almost every day.”

“Not every day?”

“I don’t know.” She looked at me suspiciously. “What are you doing? You’re just standing there. How is that supposed to help?”

“Is someone there?” Indra called from the other side of the door.

I glared at Sabrina. “Stay away from the door,” I called back to Indra. “I’m working on disarming the explosives, but I might trigger one by accident.”

“Like you did in the other room?” Indra asked.

“That was the only way to open the window. You were supposed to jump through it,” I replied. “I’ve almost got the door open.”

“But you’re not doing anything!” Sabrina hissed.

“Don’t be annoying!” I hissed back. “I’m waiting for something. You’re going out the window with Indra once I get this door open.”

She said something in protest, but I didn’t pay attention to her.

“It’s clean,” Rhuk said.

I thanked my rock internally and opened the door to Indra’s room.

The ring around Indra’s neck did not look like Sabrina’s. Were they different?

My eyes went up to Indra’s face, her fine features, dark hair, eyes, and skin. Indra was the nurse who had unlocked level three healing. She was a brunette, half Middle Eastern and half Filipino. She was also tiny and barely came up to my shoulder.

“Hi,” I said. “We’re in a hurry, but I got her necklace off. Mind if I have a whack at yours?”

“Please!” the little nurse replied noisily. She collected her hair to the side.

I got behind her and looked at the cuff around her neck. There were exposed wires and one glance at it showed me that it was not a fake, but a real bomb that could literally blow her head off.

I was about to snip the wiring with my mind when Rhuk spoke up. “I don’t know what you did to disarm the last bomb, but this one is easy. If you’ll allow me, I’ll do it.”

I nodded and Rhuk broke it apart.

“Let’s go,” I said urgently.

“Who are you?” Indra asked.

“I’m the rescue team.”

“All by yourself?” she asked, incredulous.

“Uh-huh,” I muttered, knowing it sounded unreasonable.

I led the two women back into Sabrina’s room and showed them the window and the men waiting on the ground. “Jump,” I said to them.

Indra glanced at the sword in my chest. Without a doubt, she could see it but was wise enough to say nothing. She got up on the ledge, saw the men waiting to catch her, and leaped instantly like a cheerleader who was used to being caught—she fell back-first. Christian and Brandon caught her together and neatly placed her on the ground.

“Can you believe that girl?” I shouted down. “Amazing jump!”

The men on the ground congratulated her.

Indra probably fell with no fear because she could heal herself if the guys on the ground failed to catch her.

I turned to Sabrina. Obviously, she still did not want to jump. One of her hands was on her pelvis. I suddenly realized that she’d been abused.

I put my hands on her shoulders and said, “I get it. Something’s wrong with your body. You don’t want to see your husband like this. You want to see a doctor, have treatment, and time to heal before you see him.”

“Please don’t throw me out the window,” she pleaded.

The men on the ground and Indra were calling her that it was safe to jump. Max’s voice rang out above the sound of the others. “Jump, baby!” he shouted.

I couldn’t heal her myself, but I felt a surging like a ripple beginning from my heart that spread through my whole body. Doctor Christian could use me to heal her. He wanted to heal her.

“I can heal you,” I said, allowing the white lie to slip off my tongue. She didn’t need to know the mechanics of how the healing would take place. Someone greater was going to heal her through me, but there wasn’t time to explain. “If you agree, I’ll heal you the same way your husband moves matter. Can I?”

She bit her lip and nodded.

I didn’t have to dip into the Red Forest to access his power. I didn’t have to do anything. I felt his energy pulse through me and he healed Sabrina the same way he had healed Trinity.

She exhaled pleasantly, feeling the change in her body instantly. She blinked away the tears in her eyes. “Who are you?” she asked again.

I didn’t know how to speak to her after I did that because it wasn’t like I was the one who had done anything. I had merely opened myself up to the part of Christian inside me who could perform that miracle.

I smiled and answered, “I’m the person who pushed you out a window.”