Click. Click. Click.
Letting loose a little growl of frustration, Evie tried to tune out the rest of the room to better hear the rhythmic sound. Was it getting louder? She tested it, wandering farther to one part of the room, then the other. Waiting for the noise to go from faint to blaring where it was the loudest. If her building suspicions were correct—and they were—the noise would lead her right to her desk.
Well, not exactly, but close.
A small croaking sound permeated the air over the clicking, and Evie looked down to find Kingsley sitting beside the tip of her shoe. Wide eyes searched hers, trying to convey something he couldn’t express.
“Well, hello, my lovely friend.” Evie slowly knelt to the ground and held out her hand, and the frog did the smallest hop into her palm. “You must be more careful when hopping the office floors, Kingsley. If you found yourself squished under a wayward boot, how would we all go on?” She smiled at him, forgetting the clicking only for a moment before it struck once more.
Kingsley seemed to hear it, too, because the frog leaped from her palm and toward the one place Evie had hoped she wouldn’t have to look. Through the doors beyond her desk, into the boss’s office.
Sighing, Evie walked toward the door, now slightly ajar, and pushed it all the way open.
Her instincts were screaming at her to not move a step farther. But it was as if a string had been tied between her and the mysterious noise, one that would not be broken until she found it.
The large space seemed smaller without The Villain inside. The desk didn’t give her the same heart-palpitating feeling she normally had when she saw it, most likely because a certain someone wasn’t occupying the chair behind it. She should leave. She was going to leave.
Until Kingsley leaped onto the desk with another one of his signs. And this one showed a singular word that chilled her. Danger.
A small voice in her head told her that she should heed the frog’s warning. She shouldn’t have been in this office without permission, anyway, and she certainly shouldn’t be rustling through his desk for what probably was just a broken clock or…perhaps a particularly noisy weapon?
But it was too late to listen to small voices when her own was screaming at her, LOOK INSIDE THE DESK. IT’S NOT LIKE THE FROG WILL TATTLE.
“Ugh,” she muttered, the word echoing in the quiet as she rubbed her head. When she walked closer, her nerves steeled themselves, despite the odd sense of satisfaction at finally finding the source.
She bent low, the skirts of her dress brushing the floor. Reaching a hesitant hand up, Evie grasped a small, cool object, carefully bringing it out and holding it up for inspection. The clicking was now screeching at her, though the object itself looked very unassuming.
Turning it over, Evie’s moment of victory was fast replaced with overwhelming fear.
“Of course,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. Sighing a ragged breath tinged in annoyance, she said to only herself: “Of course it’s a bomb.”
Chapter 8
Evie
Everything seemed to move slower at first. The air stilled along with her as she stared down in abject horror at the little device sitting against her palm.
Then her heart began to catch up on the moment of impending doom, and she felt it pound so hard that she gasped for breath. Her free hand flew up to clutch at her chest, begging it to slow. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t do anything.
The device was gold and rectangular, a tiny timepiece dangling lightly off the bottom. With a shaking gentleness, Evie moved her hand to turn the round timepiece over. When her eyes found what they were looking for, her already cold blood froze solid, binding her stiffened limbs tightly together.
Three minutes. Only three minutes before the small gold-tipped arrows pointed to the twelve on the top.
A ringing began in her ears, one so piercing that it made her want to throw the device to the ground and squeeze both of her hands to the sides of her head. A ragged breath escaped her lips along with a light sob.
She was hysterical and—
She was wasting time.
Get rid of it!
She clutched the device, peeking at the timepiece once more.
Two minutes and thirty seconds left.
She thought about tossing it out the window, but Blade and the dragon trained directly below The Villain’s office window, so that option was out. Maybe if she could contain the blast, perhaps she could spare just a few people. Keep the castle standing at the very least. She looked up to see Kingsley watching her with a new word on his tiny sign. Run.
Throwing the doors open with one hand, Evie exploded into the main office space, ignoring the people stopping to stare at her. A few caught sight of the device in her pale fingers and gasped, diving out of her way as she searched for a place to get rid of the thing.