Page 15 of Capture of Capricorn

“I’m thinking it’s more dangerous than that.”

“Only if I lob it at someone’s head,” she quipped.

He laughed. “Have you tried that?”

“No, but not for lack of wanting.”

“How long will we be kept in time out?” he asked.

“Depends. Sometimes a few hours. The longest was two days.”

“Two days?” he grimaced as he glanced around. “I might die of boredom.”

“Or embarrassment. That’s our toilet.” She pointed to a hole in the floor.

“Like fuck,” he swore. “I am not squatting over a hole to drop a deuce.”

“Then you’d better clench tight.”

At her rejoinder, he chuckled again. How novel. Most people didn’t appreciate her brand of humor.

“What do you say we blow this joint, Beauty?”

“Would love to, but not sure how you’re going to manage that. Locked room. No key. We’re stuck unless you can walk through concrete walls.”

His lips quirked. “Not quite, but I do have an idea.”

While she remained fairly sure it would fail, she already had nothing to lose. “Go ahead, pretty boy. Dazzle me.”

CHAPTER 5

Thus far,Capricorn’s capture hadn’t gone the way he’d expected. For one, from the beginning when he’d handed himself over, no one roughed him up. The soldiers who took him into custody simply zip-tied his hands and told him to wait, which he did, leaning against his bike in the scorching sun. Within ten minutes, a Jeep had arrived. He was loaded into the passenger seat and zoomed to the entrance to the underground bunker.

No one important came to greet him, although the soldiers did keep their weapons trained on him the entire time. They’d led him inside and, with a brisk pace, delivered him to the bowels of the installation to a room with a few chairs, where he was told to wait.

Wait for some gas, apparently. The room had filled with a fog that put him to sleep, and he woke strapped to a medical bed in time for the first set of needles. Those taking samples wore hazmat gear, making them faceless. Also voiceless, since not one would speak to him.

“Hey, so who’s in charge?”

No reply.

“What’s your name?”

Nada.

They had taken blood, hair, and tissue samples, as well as measurements. Circumference and length of his limbs. Blood pressure. So boring, but also a tad worrisome. Would they discover anything of import? Capricorn wasn’t entirely sure how his genetics would appear if analyzed. He left the sciency stuff to other people.

After spending a few days as a guinea pig, he really questioned why Sage advised him to be captured. He also behaved, being the model prisoner, running on the treadmill when asked, doing chin-ups over and over until the guy with the clipboard sighed and said, “How many can you do before tiring?”

“How many do you want?” he’d replied.

Things only finally became interesting with the introduction of Zora, who arrived with the artifact he sought. A woman with a sassy attitude, the fullest, most kissable lips, and an ass he totally wanted to grab.

Why had Cetus nabbed her? By her own admission, the discovery of the orb happened by accident. The fact she specialized in metal proved interesting, but surely, Cetus had their own specialists. Yet, they’d taken her, tasked her with studying the artifact, and now had her locked in a cell with him.

Was she a plant meant to seduce him into telling secrets? They’d chosen well, as she was certainly his type. However, he got the impression she truly hated the situation. But that wasn’t why he planned to take her with him when he left. For one, the fact she’d found the orb did make her a person of interest, and secondly, if she truly were a victim of circumstance, most likely she’d be killed by Cetus once they had no use for her. For some reason, he didn’t want that to happen.

Escaping, though, wouldn’t be easy. He couldn’t starbeam until he exited the concrete installation and had access to the open sky, which required him extricating himself from the cell.Alas, he didn’t have a magical power that could unlock doors. Nor a weapon to fight the soldiers that surely waited outside. Minor details like that wouldn’t deter him. The time had come to act.

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