AGENT 23 BLACKOUT (Agent 23 Book 1)

CHAPTER 27

With the woman known as Zero gone, Agent 24 plods toward me with a jack-o'-lantern smile across his face. As I fumble with the keys to the handcuffs, he pounds his fists into his open palms, one at a time, over and over. If his intent is to cause my heart rate and blood pressure to blast into orbit, then he's chosen his method of madness wisely.

As he starts toward me, I snag a key. They're on a tiny ring, both made to unlock the cuffs.

My jittery fingertips jumble into a topsy-turvy set of extremities, but my thumb mashes the key head against my forefinger, clamping down on it like a vise-grip.

It takes a few desperate stabs at the oblong hole before I force the key home.

I twist the metal sliver one way, then the other, but the key doesn't turn.

Agent 24 slows his advance and sighs. "It'd be too easy to kill you while you're cuffed to the pole. So, hurry, would ya? I've got somewhere I need to be."

I plunge the key deeper into the hole, twist it and hear it click. The cuff unlocks and snaps open.

With adrenaline spiking through my veins, I stumble away and stand, swiveling on my heels to face the ruthless assassin.

He checks his watch. From where I stand, I glimpse red numbers counting down.

"You have twenty-two minutes and three seconds." His eyes widen. "Uh-oh, as we speak, it just dropped to twenty-one minutes, fifty-six seconds, and counting. Time is running out."

I backpedal, turn and scamper off toward the rear of the vast warehouse.

"You can't get away!" Agent 24 says. "I have the key to the exit door. You have to go through me to get out of here. There's no other way."

He cracks his knuckles as I scan the back of the large space for anything that'll help me defeat him. At first glance, I see nothing promising. But because I was facing the other way while cuffed to the pole, I didn't take in the rest of the warehouse. On both sides, long concrete ramps lead up to another level, a loft of sorts with controls to an overhead crane. A cable with a metal hook as big as my face hangs down five feet off the ground. Midway between the two ramps, the cable holding it, runs up to a wench mounted on a steel cross beam. Behind the crane, two doors catch my attention, big enough for a semi-truck to drive through, but a hefty chain with a padlock binds them together. I'm not getting out that way.

I concentrate on the steel cable and the dangling hook. I imagine Agent 24 winding the cable around my neck and hanging me until I'm dead.

"Times a ticking," he says.

His words stall me before I dash up the left ramp. I have to turn and fight. I don't have a choice.

As Agent 24 taunts me, a resolve burns inside me. I can't run. Kayla and my dad need me. I have to do whatever I have to do to win this battle. He has the keys and the device my dad created. Those are the two things I need to save them. As my jaw sets with determination, a plan forms in my head. I have to incapacitate Agent 24, get the key to the door, and then use the signal blocker to save my dad and Kayla. I can't choose, but must save both of them. And I can't kill Agent 24. I'm not a murderer.

Truth be told, I'm not sure the signal blocker will work, but I have to try.

I grind my teeth, summoning grit and fortitude. What I need is to channel the same confidence I had during our fight at the old fort.

What I need to do is channel Agent 23.

Agent 23 is me. It's not some alter-ego.

It's me. I'm Agent 23, with the skills given to me from The Collective's failed attempt to control my mind.