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.
With sudden resolve, I turn as a massive fist soars toward my face. Agent 24's balled-up knuckles crash into my chin—a sledgehammer of pain that whirls me around like a human tornado—that dies out as I crumble to the floor and spin away. The lower half of my body rolls up the concrete ramp while my torso and head spiral in mid-air.
Gravity drags me off the ramp and pulls me head-first to the floor. As the concrete rushes up to meet me, I tuck my chin to my chest and allow my back to absorb the impact.
After I finish my roll, I spring to my feet and pivot to face Agent 24 as he rumbles toward me.
"That was a cheap shot." I wipe the blood from my chin, trying my best to get rid of the pain while exuding confidence. "Got anything better than that?"
"That's the spirit. It's about time you toughened up and—"
I jump and twist in the air, catching him in the mouth with a roundhouse kick. His body lurches sideways with the blow. After I land and gain my balance, I say, "Not bad for a teenager."
Agent 24 growls and shakes his head. With a frustrated grumble, he steps forward and hurls a wind-sweeping hook.
I faint backwards as his fist whips past my chin, missing by half an inch. Quickly, he reloads and launches his trademark upper cut, intent on decapitating me, but I slip to the side and counter with a hook to the gut. He gasps as my knuckles find a weak spot in his stomach, but the punch brings me too close to his body.
With a grimace, he snatches my arms and draws back for a headbutt.
But before he crushes my nose, I use my body weight to drop to the floor.
Now, below him, I only have one option.
I draw my foot back and thrust it between his legs, slamming the sole of my shoe into the sweet spot. He's still wearing a cup, but the kick forces the hard plastic into the outer area surrounding his groin. As he reels from the pain, I scramble away and dash for the steel hook that dangles from the end of the cable between the ramps.
I look back as Agent 24 stretches out for me.
Sprinting for the hook, I let it thud into my chest as my legs pump in stride, and like a pendulum, I swing until my momentum lifts me off the ground. When I reach the apex of my swing, gravity pulls me back, and I spin around, driving my feet into Agent 24's face.
I follow through with enough force to topple the big assassin.
With the pendulum swinging backward, I allow the cable to yank me clear of danger. And I land on my feet, poised for more action.
I am Agent 23.
As my opponent struggles to stand, a gash bleeding from his cheek, I stroll toward him to finish him.
I rear back to swing—but he blocks my right cross and jerks me toward him.
He baited me, taking advantage of my over confidence. He made me think he was on his way out, when in fact, he was waiting to counter.
Instantly, my elbow crumples into his chest and my hand slips beneath his jacket, finding the handle of his pistol. Realizing his mistake, Agent 24 shoves me away and latches onto the weapon's barrel as my finger slides across the trigger and pulls it by accident.
With the gun muzzle pointed up, a round bursts from the suppressor and hits Agent 24 in the side of the head. The bullet ricochets off his skull and punches a hole in the nearest wall. He stumbles backward, somehow alive, with his hands locked around the gun barrel.
I stare with my mouth agape as he ejects the magazine from the pistol, yanks back on the slide to empty the chamber, and then slings the gun across the warehouse. It bounces off the far wall and hits the floor. It's then I remember Zero's rule for Agent 24; he can't shoot me with his gun. He must kill me some other way.
Agent 24 slaps a palm to the side of his head to staunch the blood flow. When his hand pulls away, something shiny appears under the skin, and I do a double take as I discover there's a silvery layer of metal beneath his scalp.
He winces and groans. "When I was in the Marines, I had a titanium plate put in my head after an IED explosion nearly killed me."
I sputter an incoherent reply as I recall thinking of just such a possibility when Kayla was trying to shoot him with the tranquilizer darts.
"You're going to pay for that." Agent 24 stomps toward me, fuming, a glare of vengeance in his eyes, his words hanging in the air like acid.
At that moment, doubts creep into my mind, clawing at my newfound confidence, making me wonder if I can ever win this battle and survive for what I have to do next. That's when I glance at the assassin's watch and glimpse the countdown: sixteen minutes and thirty-nine seconds left to save Kayla and my dad. I shrink away, realizing I may have less time than that; I'm going to die and there's nothing I can do to stop it.