The doorway past the television stretched into a long hallway, utterly dark. Kade flipped down his goggles and heard the sound of Blane doing the same.
Their steps made no sound as they moved, as quickly and as carefully as they could. Kade could taste the bite of adrenaline and feel the rush that always came from yet another situation he had to outwit. He once thought he’d never tire of what had once felt like an addiction. But he’d also never thought he’d have to do the kinds of things he’d done. Maybe one of these times he’d say screw it and let the chips fall where they may. But Blane was with him, so losing this game wasn’t an option. Not tonight.
The hallway ended abruptly, opening into a cavernous space. Through his goggles, Kade could see a huge rock wall looming above them. Man-created outcroppings of toeholds jutted out at regular intervals, an invitation to climb up. And at the highest point, stretched across the face of the wall, was Brandy.
“What’s he trying to do? Fucking crucify her?” Kade’s furious questions were a whisper in the dark.
“She can’t be breathing well,” Blane replied. “He’s slowly suffocating her. We have to get her down. Now.”
“Can you climb?” Kade asked, because he sure as hell couldn’t. Heights weren’t his thing. Why climb a wall if you could just go around it?
“Yeah,” Blane answered, already shrugging off his backpack. “But there isn’t time to use a harness.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Blane’s face was grim as he continued taking off equipment, making himself as light as possible. “She’s going to die—horribly, I might add—because of us. I’m not going to let that happen. Not if I can help it.”
“Dude, you’re not Superman. You fall from there, it’s not like I can catch you.” Kade watched Blane and tried not to listen to the sick feeling in his gut.
“Then I’d better not fall.” He started for the wall.
Kade’s hand shot out to grip Blane’s arm as he went by. “You fall, I will kick your ass,” he said.
Blane’s lips twisted in a grin. “Good to know. Now go around back and find the other way to the top. They had to get her up there somehow. And watch out because it’ll probably be guarded.”
“And you don’t think they’ll just shoot you off the face of that wall?”
Blane shook his head. “Nope. They won’t expect it. And with any luck, they won’t even see me in the dark.”
And with that, he was gone. Kade watched him for a moment as he hit the bottom of the wall and started up. He hadn’t known Blane could climb, but then again, there were a lot of things about his brother that he didn’t know.
He moved quickly, scaling the wall with far more finesse than Kade could believe. Under pressure, on a deadline, and in the dark—formidable obstacles even without the prospect of the climb.
Maybe Blane was Superman. Which would make Kade…the Robin, Boy Wonder?
No fucking way.
A back way, Blane had said. Another way to the top that would take more time to find than they had, or rather, than Brandy had.
Skirting the outside edges of the room, Kade kept one eye in front of him and another on Blane’s progress up the wall. It scared him somewhere deep that he didn’t want to think about what might happen if Blane lost his grip. There’d be nothing to break his fall.
Unless Kade got to the top and dropped a rope.
He moved faster.
A small room that looked like an office with glass windows was off to his left. Trying the knob, it turned beneath his hand. The door squeaked a little as he pushed it open, and he flinched. Nothing like announcing his presence. He might as well blow a whistle and yell out, “Here I am!”
The office was full of climbing equipment. Kade grabbed a thick rope that had been wrapped in a large coil and slung it over his shoulder. The rest of it was unfamiliar to him and he wasted a precious few seconds staring at it before deciding, Fuck it. At least he knew how to work a rope.
Two doors were in the very back, one leading to a closet, the other a dark, narrow staircase.
Hello, deathtrap.
Knowing he might be stepping directly in the line of fire made him pause, but not for long. Blane was waiting. He’d be tiring quickly and could lose his grip at any moment.
Kade stepped through the door.
***
Blane’s muscles were screaming at him.
It’s been too long since you did this kind of shit. Are you out of your fucking mind? You’re not twenty-five anymore! You’re a lawyer now, for chrissake.
He ignored the voices inside his head, pushing onward toward the top. Each fingerhold and toehold was a few more inches to where Brandy was.
The goggles were a hindrance, but he had no choice. The darkness was both his friend and enemy at the moment. If they saw him, he’d be a sitting duck. And getting shot in the back wasn’t the way he wanted to go.