Page 2 of Resist

Of course it was. Because who didn’t want to climb twenty effing floors in the middle of the freaking night? God, I hated this. I was in much better shape than when I first joined the Dissenters months ago, but that didn’t mean climbing twenty stories was on my list of crap I enjoyed doing on a weeknight. But I had too…for Jacob.

I looked at the massive Telvian Administration Building and took a deep breath as I did. I knew the plan, but I didn’t like it. We had someone who worked undercover in one of the Admin Buildings. They informed us of an emergency exit door located in the alleyway. But the door had an alarm that would go off if opened from the outside, which would effectively get us caught. The agent believed he could temporarily disarm the alarm, unlocking the door and allowing us to open it from the outside without all hell breaking loose. But the timing had to be perfect.

“Mara!” Wes whisper-yelled at me, snapping my attention back to the present. “Let’s go! We’re almost out of time.” He didn’t give me a chance to respond before he was racing down the alley, searching the building for the door. I trotted to catch up with him. It didn’t take long for us to find it—a big metal door with a single handle—though there was nothing to show it was the emergency exit.

“Are you sure that’s the right one?”

“I don’t see anything else. Do you?” It wasn’t a legit question. He was anxious, and when Wes was anxious, he became a total ass. I breathed deeply through my nose, trying my best to ignore his crappy attitude. Because I was anxious too, and my attitude was rarely any better when I was nervous…especially around Wes.

He wrapped his right hand around the handle as he lifted his left wrist to look at his tab. “Three, two, one.”

Click!

We heard metal sliding and clicking into place. Wes quickly tugged on the door, opening it with ease. We paused for a fraction of a second, listening for any sort of commotion, but the night was quiet. Pulling the door open further, Wes looked back at me.

“Ready?”

I glanced into the space beyond the door. This was it…no turning back. Squaring my jaw, I returned my gaze to Wes. “Let’s do this.”

2: Mission Failure

The building was cooler, thank goodness, because the heat coupled with the exertion of racing up twenty flights of stairs was a lot to get through and not die. I felt as the sweat damped my brow and moistened the valley between my breasts. Wes wasn’t any better off. The hair gathered behind his ear was wet, and his forehead glistened with moisture as he climbed. Maybe a past version of me wouldn’t have thought anything of it. But tonight, right now, my mind wandered into the gutter. Thoughts of beaded moisture dripping down his bare chest. Thoughts of hands sliding over skin, gliding over valleys of muscle. Thoughts of lips…tastes of salt. And then I was shaking my head.

Get a grip, Mara. Jesus!Edith would be so proud if she knew what I was thinking. She was a bad influence. This was her fault. Nothing but her rubbing off on me.Focus. Stay focused.

We were racing against the clock. We only had an hour to get ourselves up the building, download the files we needed, and then get the hell out before the cameras came back on. Anylonger and someone, somewhere, was going to figure out that all the cameras were on a recorded looped feed, repeatedly showing the same imagery so that we could run through the streets of Telvia and the Admin Building without being caught. It was still a tremendous risk we were taking, but one I had to take if I was going to save my brother.

“Psst!” Wes stopped on the landing just above me, a big red sign with a white number twenty on the door. We had finally made it. I slowed my steps as I came to stand next to him when my wrist buzzed. I looked at my tab and saw another message from Edith.

Edith:Guards coming down the hall. Hang tight.

I looked up from my mini-tab and glanced at Wes, who had his gaze on me. Instantly, I felt a flash of heat pump through me. As if I could be any hotter than I already was.Fabulous. I looked away, but I could still feel his eyes on me.

Things had been…weirdbetween us. Ever since the attack of the rebel base, something had shifted in me…in him. Truthfully, something had shifted in all of us, and it was seriously screwing with my head.

The silence stretched between us, and my stomach felt like a pit, butterflies falling and turning inside me. He made me nervous, but he had always made me nervous. At first, I was nervousofhim because he scared me. My first interaction with him was at a river, a hunting knife in his hand, and me wrapped in nothing but a towel, completely at his mercy. Then, I was nervous because he looked so much like his brother, who I was totally obsessed with and desperately wanted to kiss but couldn’t.

Once I learned Wes was Chase’s identical twin, my brain no longer wanted anything to do with him—especially because he was a total ass, like,allthe time—but my body wantedsomething completely different. My body craved wandering hands, delicious lips, and bated breaths. Andthatwas information I kept to myself. No one needed to know about that, especially not Wes.

“Here we go.” His words jarred me back into the brightly lit space.

Jeez!What the hell was my problem? I had to stay focused. I seriously couldn’t afford to eff this up. It had taken some serious convincing on my part to get Sasha to eventhinkabout me doing this mission. And when I finally convinced her, there was a catch—I had to find a team willing to do it with me because I wasn’t going to be allowed to do it alone. I think she thought no one was going to volunteer, and truthfully, neither did I. When the mission came up in our last Council meeting, everyone seemed to avoid my gaze and slip into the shadows.

Everyone…except for one.

My jaw had dropped, and I just about threw a chair at Wes when he stepped up and volunteered. I was convinced that it was some sort of sick joke on his part to make me look like an idiot in front of everybody. But I was wrong. And once he stepped up, Edith stepped forward too. And that was it…just the three of us taking on the Telvian Administration Building. I don’t think I’d ever seen Sasha more upset than I did at that meeting. But what was she going to do? She gambled on no one helping me, and she lost.

“When we exit, we make a sharp right down the hall. There’s a receiver in the ceiling for the air conditioning. You’re going to help me up and then I’ll pull you up with me, got it?”

I licked my lips as I nodded.

His eyes caught mine again, making those stupid butterflies dive, but then he turned away, placing both hands on the door handle. Closing his eyes, Wes breathed out slowly before holding his breath and opening the door.

The hall was dark, lit only by the glow of dim blue lighting on each wall near the floor. The lighting was enough to guide us without our flashlights, though, and a sharp contrast to the white industrial lights in the emergency stairwell we were in. With a quick glance up and down the hall, Wes slipped out the door, holding it open for me as he waved me through. I stepped through quickly and went right, leading the way.

A glance over my shoulder showed Wes closing the door behind me, cautious to keep it from slamming shut. I turned my attention forward, back to the hallway before me. Knowing we had little time left to complete this mission, I took quick steps as I scanned the ceiling for the receiver. My eyes caught the large, square grate, causing my steps to quicken.

Positioning myself under the grate, I lunged forward, extending my right leg. I turned back and caught Wes jogging the final yards toward me, staring up at his target. He remained silent the whole time, stepping onto my thigh, giving him a boost as he reached for the grate and popped it out of place. Using his fingertips, he slid it over, revealing a black hole, and before I knew it, the weight of his body was relieved as he pulled himself up into the abyss, biceps bulging as they strained.

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