I shot the lights and cameras out with the crossbow, reloading the weapon with mechanical motions, and I picked up the bolts as they dropped to the stone floor. Once the room was enveloped in darkness, I put on the goggles and waited for my eyes to adjust.
Finally, I painstakingly climbed the rope hanging the closest to the door and waited.
***
I heard the footsteps before the door opened. I tilted my head to the side, listening hard. Three pairs.
A beam of light flooded the room down the middle as the door opened. Aden lay unmoving in the center of it.
“Scott, we should wait on the others,” a man said.
“Shut up, you idiot! Get behind me! She’s mine!”
I smiled slightly. They wore night vision goggles, bulletproof vests, and helmets, but I knew those helmets; they left a vulnerable spot just at the base of the neck.
High with an eerie calm, I flung both knives as I dropped to the ground. The two men alongside Scott went down. Scott whirled around, and before he could fire his semi-automatic, I shot the crossbow. The bolt pierced him at the base of his neck, and he fell to the ground.
There was no time to think or to rejoice. I slammed the door shut and loaded the crossbow with another bolt. I put on Scott’s helmet, smelling his blood and sweat, and fitted the night vision goggles against the headgear. I quickly donned his bulletproof vest as well.
I turned to the door with Gage’s gun raised and stepped back into the darkness as the door opened once again.
I didn’t think; I only acted.
My finger squeezed the trigger. My enemies wore bulletproof vests and helmets, so I aimed for those vulnerable spots at the neck.
I was almost horrified at myself for my accuracy. Bodies went down. Blood sprayed into the air. Bullets whizzed everywhere. Agony sliced across my shoulder, knocking me back.
Out of ammo, two enemies left. Guns on the floor out of my reach.
They used the open door as a shield. I heard them talking frantically to one another. Escape. This wasn’t what they’d signed up for. They were going to try to escape.
I threw the empty gun to the ground. Crossbow in hand, I ran forward just as the door moved. I fired, and the bolt found its mark. The other man panicked and screamed. He started to run, but he tripped over one of the bodies. I sprinted toward him as fast as I could with my wounded leg, closing the door before he could crawl through it.
I stood over him, trying to reload the crossbow. I didn’t possess enough strength. My fingers fumbled.
The mask blocked his face, but I imagined his frantic eyes as he positioned his fingers on the gun. He raised the gun, and the gunshot echoed off the walls.
Stunned, I waited for the pain.
But it didn’t come.
I turned my eyes away from the dead man. Disbelief seeped inside my every cell. I pulled off my helmet and goggles.
Light blazed in a corner of the room, making it hard to see. Someone with night vision goggles was leaning inside from the woods entrance. The person gestured to someone above with their gun and effortlessly jumped to the rope hanging from the ceiling near the entrance. The person slid down the rope and ran to me while others followed.
The person lifted me in their arms and crushed me to their body. I breathed in the smell of the person’s dark clothing.
“Gage?” I said in bewilderment, the crossbow dropping to the ground.
He squeezed me tighter, my pain nonexistent at his touch.
“Are you all right? Are you hurt anywhere? Ashley, I’m so pissed at you. . . .” He pressed his lips to my forehead.
“Why are you here? How did you know?” I asked.
Gage took off his goggles and tossed them aside. His lips came down hard on mine, searing.
Light flooded our faces, and I pulled away to see Shane shining a flashlight at us. His face was hard and angry as he looked at me.
“You are the biggest idiot I’ve ever met,” Shane said, but I could tell by his voice that he’d been worried.
Viola and Lacey were beside us now with their own flashlights, throwing the light around the room. They tensed when the lights found Aden.
Gage and I looked at one another, both of us refusing to look away. I didn’t need to look around to see what everyone else saw. I didn’t want to see the bodies, the blood.
I didn’t want to see Aden.
“It looks like Ashley’s done most of the work,” Lacey said darkly, all humor leeched from her voice.
She came over and shook me once before pulling me into a rough embrace. I hissed when her movements put pressure on my wounds.
Gage sucked in a breath as he tore his eyes away from my face. “You’re hurt.”
My shoulder was on fire, and I looked down at it as Viola examined me. She ran the flashlight over my body as blood trickled down my arm.
“The bullet only grazed her. Oh, Ashley, you’re so pale! How could you do something so reckless?” Viola breathed as she gathered me carefully into her arms.
I hugged her back and shifted my weight to my good leg, suddenly unbearably dizzy as the adrenaline left my body. I trembled in her arms and started to fall to the floor. She caught me, and Gage took me from her. He gently placed me on the floor.
“Her leg,” Lacey said grimly.
Shane handed Lacey his gun, and she aimed it at the woods entrance. Viola aimed her gun at the door as Shane hovered near my feet. Shane and Gage studied my leg as blood seeped out of the tied shirt. Gage cradled my head, and I could feel him breathing hard behind me. He was shaking.
Shane untied the shirt and sucked in a breath. A strange sound came from Gage. Shane looked to Gage as he retied the shirt.
“We need to get her out of here. That leg needs stitches. She is losing too much blood,” Shane said.
“I can’t leave now!” I protested angrily, trying to hold back the shock that was threatening to drown me. “Look around you! See all those bodies? Do you see Aden? You know what that means? That means the Master is here, and he is defenseless! This is it! If we don’t act now, he’s only going to get away!”
“Did Aden betray you?” Gage asked in a deadly voice.
I squirmed to get up, but he held me down. “Does it look like he betrayed me? Look at him! We owe him this much! Gage, please!”
I knew without looking that he was shaking his head. “We have to get you out of here, Ashley.”
“No! I did not kill of all these people just to turn around and leave the job unfinished! And how did you know I was even here?”
“I had Shane put a tracking device in the dagger underneath the gem,” Gage said. “I know you, Ashley. I had a feeling you were going to pull something like this, and I knew you wouldn’t leave that dagger behind.”
I smacked Gage’s arms and scrambled up, turning to glare at him. Gage’s eyes blazed, and he pulled something white and square from his pocket with shaking fingers.
“Don’t you dare look at me like that,” Gage said through clenched teeth. He crushed the letter into my hand. “You’re the one who betrayed me.”
Pain shot through me, and my face crumpled. Gage looked away.
“Ashley,” Lacey said. “I woke up, and Aden was gone. I woke everyone up, and we gathered what equipment we had and came here.” Her eyes flicked to Aden. “I knew we would be too late.”
“It had to be me,” I said. It was the only thing I could think to say, and it was the truth. I shoved the letter inside my pocket.
Gage’s face darkened. “We have to go,” he said harshly, but his hands on me were gentle as he lifted me up off the floor.
I struggled against him. “The Master!” I shouted.
Faces flitted across my vision. My father. My mother. Ariel. Aden. If I left the Master alive, I would be betraying them all.
Gage’s gentle touch hardened, and he shook me slightly. “So help me, Ashley, if I have to incapacitate you to get you out of here, I will. I have enough sleeping medicine to knock you ou
t for days.” He inclined his head to the pack on his back I’d failed to notice before.
“Screw you,” I hissed to him, my anger muddling all reason.
Gage’s eyes flashed briefly, and he looked to Shane. “Everyone grab a vest and put on the headgear; we don’t know how many more there are.”
Quickly, they donned the bulletproof vests. We all put on the helmets, pulling the bloody, protective garments off of the bodies without hesitation. Gage took off his black jacket and zipped me up in it, although I knew he realized my shivering was from blood loss and not the cool air. Lacey and Viola grabbed guns from the fallen bodies, handing one to Shane and me.
“Give me your knife,” I told Lacey as I eyed the blade at her side. She handed it to me. I slid the knife inside my sleeve, wincing when the metal brushed my hurt wrist.
“I can walk,” I muttered when Gage picked me up again.
“Did you even look at your leg?”
“Fine. But I won’t leave Aden.”
He shifted my weight against him. “We can’t carry him, Ashley. I’m sorry.”
“You’re carrying me,” I argued, my vision blurring. I’d never felt so weak in my life, and I hated it. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold my gun, and I knew I was on the verge of passing out. I’d finally exhausted the final reserves of my strength.
Shane went to Aden’s body. “I’ll carry him. Ashley—”
His words cut off abruptly as a crackling sound echoed around us. We all looked to the door as black smoke curled up from the cracks.
“GO!” Viola screamed, shoving Gage forward.
I held on tightly to Gage as everyone sprinted for the woods entrance.
“Aden!” I shouted, looking back at his body despairingly.
“Hang on to me,” Gage commanded.
He started to climb the rope, Lacey frantically trying to keep up with him. We reached the door, and Gage tried the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. He swore and pounded the metal.
“It’s locked from the outside!” he cried in disbelief.
“Lacey, go back down!” I ordered.
I remembered the gas trap surrounding the woods entrance, and new fear filled me. I also remembered how the Master had killed off most of Merciless.
But it seemed like the Master was choosing a different method; he wanted to burn us alive. I understood his message to me. I would never escape his fire. Not the fire inside of me or the fire outside of my body.
Gage landed hard, but he didn’t stumble. With me still in Gage's arms, everyone ran to the door that lead to the hallway.
“Limit your breathing,” Gage said to me.
“Everyone hang on to each other!” Viola said as Shane opened the door.
Thick, black smoke immediately rushed into the room. Everybody began coughing. I hid my face in Gage’s chest, my eyes watering. The headgear was useless against the smoke.
I knew the exact moment Gage stepped into the hallway. Orange glowed at the corners of my vision. Heat licked up my skin, and I bit my lip to keep from screaming.
I knew what it felt like to burn.
“Gage,” I managed to say as he raced through the flames.
He squeezed me to let me know he’d heard.
“I’m sorry. I love you,” I said against his chest.
He squeezed me again and continued coughing.
I counted Gage’s heartbeats. If I had to die now, it was the last thing I wanted to hear.
One. Two. Three.
The ends of my hair sizzled.
Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.
I heard Lacey cry out.
Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two.
Several explosions sounded behind us. The ground shook, and my ears rang.
Seventy-five. Seventy-six. Seventy-seven.
A door slammed under me. It took me a while to realize that the air I was breathing was cool and clean. I ripped off the helmet to take in more air, and everyone else followed suit.
I lifted my head away from Gage’s chest. Monitors and machines clung to the walls. Some of the screens were blank while others showed various parts of the farm.
We were in the basement of the farmhouse.
We were all breathing deeply, gulping the fresh air greedily. Viola coughed so hard she vomited. I looked around desperately, trying to see if everyone was all right. The worst damage was a long burn on Lacey’s forearm.
“We can’t linger here,” Shane sputtered between coughs. He was streaked with black. “Someone will be heading this way to lock us in. We only beat them to the punch.”
Gage kissed my face, most likely reassuring himself that I was there. “I know. Let’s go. We’re almost out of this.”
“Aden,” I moaned, but if anyone heard me, they ignored me.
Viola studied the monitors, but there was no one to be seen. She disabled the screens before gesturing to a narrow window with watery eyes.
“We should go through this way. I’m not comfortable going through the house,” she said.
Gage went to the window and unlocked it. “Ashley, can you climb through on your own? We’ve got to get out of here before the Master blows the entire farm to bits.”
My head swayed limply as I looked up at him, fighting unconsciousness as fiercely as I’d ever fought anything. I nodded as his eyes blazed into mine.
“Carefully, but hurry,” Gage murmured to me before hoisting me up to the window.
I slid through the opening. My nails bit into grass as I pulled myself forward, Gage pushing me from behind.
Under normal circumstances, I would have seen them.
Chapter 19 Revenge
My gun was pried from my hands, and I was drawn up roughly. I cried out as someone’s fingers bit deeply into my wounded shoulder. Something cold pressed against my windpipe.
“Ashley!” Gage screamed.
I focused my sight and saw Carol’s graying hair and Cain’s bulky mass. The Master’s voice sounded behind me.
“All of you come out now and drop your weapons, or I’ll slit her throat.”
Gage scrambled out of the basement, covered in ash, the hem of his shirt burned. His eyes were green fire. He trembled with rage as Shane, Viola, and Lacey came out of the window, ash-covered and wary. They dropped their guns, all of their eyes on me. Gage threw his backpack to the ground, and I heard glass crack.
“All of the weapons!” the Master yelled.
He shook me violently and pressed the knife harder against my throat, quickly running his hands over my body as he checked me for weapons. I angled my arm against my side, and his fingers just missed the small blade hidden in my sleeve.
Gage pulled a dagger from his boot and flung it to the ground, his face bleached of all color. Viola and Shane took their knives from their belts and placed them on the ground. Immediately, Carol and Cain gathered the surrendered weapons with triumphant faces before going back to the Master’s side.
My eyes grazed my surroundings, and I ignored the swirling black dots hindering my vision. I took in the spacious backyard, racking my rapidly shutting down brain for a plan.
A light caught my eye, and I stared at a heat lamp hanging above a strange flower that glowed green. Unconsciously, my head tilted to the side. The plant seemed important, but the metal at my throat grew colder, and the flower was forgotten.
Finally, the Master laughed. It was the sound of a madman, and I shivered in revulsion as he held me.
“You actually thought you could get away? And go where? And do what? Resume your lives as if none of this ever happened?” the Master asked.
“You seem confident for someone whose companions are all dead,” Lacey said. “You’re going to start over with just Cain and Carol? And you burned Headquarters along with all of the equipment, so good luck.”
I heard the Master’s teeth clench, and I could picture his black eyes flashing.
“I will rebuild. It would have been worth it had you all burned like you deserved, but this way is
satisfying all on its own. And the pawns can be replaced more easily than you might think.”
I wetted my cracked lips. We had to buy more time. My knife was useless at the moment; I just needed the Master to move to his right.
“Your pawns sucked. They went down easy, and so did the members who were stupid enough to follow you. They were disorganized and obvious, and you’re clearly not fit to lead anything. I’d be ashamed,” I croaked.
The metal kissed my skin, and hot blood trickled down my neck.
“Ashley!” Gage stepped forward, one hand reaching for me.
“Stay where you are, boy! Mark my words, before this day is over, you will beg for death. But don’t make me kill her first.” The Master’s breath was warm against my ear. “I want her for last.”
Gage lunged forward, but Shane grabbed him and pulled him back.
“Stop, stop! He’ll kill her right in front of you, Gage,” Shane said.
“I’m going to rip your heart out!” Gage screamed at the Master.
Tears dripped down Viola’s cheeks. Lacey was staring at the scene as if trapped inside a nightmare, her every feature frozen. Her chest wasn’t even moving.
The Master laughed again, and the movement angled his body. “I’d like to see you try, boy. I’ve come too far to let people like you stop me.”
I trembled in rage. “People like us? What about you? You’re insane! You killed your father. You killed your wife and your son!” I said, picturing the dying light of Aden’s eyes. The memory sharpened my senses, and I registered that my enemies were finally in a position where I could target all three of them.
“And I’d do it all again!” The air echoed with the vehemence of the Master’s response.
My eyes found Gage. I stared at him hard, willing for him to understand what I was going to do.
As always, Gage seemed to know the very inner workings of my thoughts. He looked at my sleeve, obviously remembering when I’d demanded Lacey’s knife. Ever so slightly, he nodded.
“I’ve sacrificed too much! I’ve come too far to be stopped now!” the Master raged, his chest heaving against my back. The man was drunk on power, on control. More blood trickled down my throat.
I tilted my hand back discreetly. I closed my fingers around the hilt as the knife slipped securely into my hand.
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