Unwanted Blood (Harper) novel Chapter 71

Chapter 71

288 (Vouchers

Harper’s POV

The alarm was still screaming when the footsteps hit the corridor. I bolted to the windowbseveral guards were sprinting across the lawn, torch beams cutting through the dark. Jumping was out of the question.

I turned back. My phone was still clutched in my hand, the recorder running. The old man lay in the bed, watching me. His cracked lips curved upward.

“You can not get out,” he said.

“Not necessarily.” I pulled the door open and ran.

Two guards were coming from the far end of the corridor, their flashlight beams sweeping the walls. I turned the other waybbut footsteps were already rising from the stairwell. I was boxed in.

Then a hand shot out from the corner at the top of the stairs, grabbed my arm, and yanked me into a narrow gap between the wall and a recessed doorframe.

I collided with a chest. Adrian’s. His hand clamped over my mouth and shoved me deeper into the passage. Then he stepped back out and pulled the hidden door shut behind him.

I stood in the dark, listening to his voice drift through the thin wood.

“She went west. With me.”

Then his footsteps fast, purposeful carried away in the opposite direction.

I pressed myself against the damp wall and listened to the chaos outside. Guards shouting. Boots pounding. The crackle of radio static bouncing off the corridor walls. My hand was still wrapped around the phone in my pocket. The recorder was still running.

I didn’t know if I’d make it out alive with what I’d captured. And I didn’t know if Adrian was coming back.

The passage was narrowbbarely wide enough for my shoulders. The air was stale, thick with the smell of old plaster and something like wet earth. Somewhere behind the wall, a pipe dripped. I counted the drops. It was the only thing keeping me from pacing.

Finally, the hidden door pushed open. Adrian stood in the frame, shirt sleeves rolled to his

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Chapter 71

288 Vouchers

elbows, breathing harder than usual he’d clearly taken a long way round. He looked at me without speaking, then tilted his head toward the corridor.

Come out.

I stepped into the shadowed corner of the second-floor landing. The guards had withdrawn to the outer perimeter. The estate was quiet again, at least in this wing. The alarm had stopped ringing, leaving behind a silence that felt heavier than the noise.

His eyes swept over me head to toe. It seemed like he was thorough checking for injuries. It was strange since he don’t need to care me. We are enemy.

Then he spoke. “You got it.” Clearly, he knew what I had done.

I didn’t deny it. “You knew I was coming.”

Adrian leaned back against the wall, still not looking at me. “Yeah. Just wasn’t sure which day.”

“Why?”

He was quiet for a moment. “From the beginning, I knew you weren’t the type to give up. You compromised too easily before. It fooled everyone else. It didn’t fool me.”

I stood there, not sure what to say to that. The corridor stretched out behind him, empty and dark.

“My father’s been playing dumb these past few days,” he continued. “He thought you were investigating him. So he was using you to figure out which side I’m on.”

“So you let me in not to help me, but to signal your position to him?”

Adrian looked at me. “If I was signalling a position, I wouldn’t be standing in this corner talking to you.”

I didn’t push further. I glanced down the corridor into the shadow at the far end, then lowered my voice. “You let me go. How are you going to explain that when you get back?”

Adrian’s tone was flat. “He and I are going to settle that account sooner or later. That’s not something you should be worried about.”

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