It’s time to go to work.
I drop the useless scalpel and tackle A to the ground easily, knocking his knife from his hand. Then I beat his face. I slam my fists into him and relish every bone that breaks under my power. When he’s unconscious, I grab the knife I divested him of and slam it into his chest as life and air leak from him.
Spattered with blood, I climb to my feet just as another attendant jumps on my back. He drags his blade across my neck. Idiot. I reach behind my head and heave him over my shoulder, smashing his body to the carpeted floor with a thud. I drag my blade across his throat, giving him what he intended to give me.
The attendant I knocked out with my heel is rousing. One thing I learned working for Caelan is you never leave someone alive that wants to kill you. It’s surprising how many people make that mistake whether out of compassion or weakness. I’m neither compassionate nor weak. I drive my knife through his heart before spinning to find the other bearers.
Forty and another blade are stabbing other attendants while two others are pinned to the ground, fighting to get away from the men that have them pinned. I plunge a knife in the base of the neck of one attendant while kneeing the other one in the head.
The dead one falls to the side as a female blade scrambles from beneath him. The attendant that got the knee falls on top of a male blade. I go to remove the attendant from him just as the tip of a knife appears in the attendants back while the blade rolls out from under him.
He kicks the attendant for good measure and then retrieves the knife from the corpse.
So three out of the four of the blades are good with violence. The female is shaken up, but doing well considering. The blade who just killed his attacker pulls her beneath his arm and kisses her forehead.
I cock my head to the side, never before noticing that they’re together.
Interesting.
I open the door to the service hallway and find it empty.
“Alannah!” I bellow, sprinting into the space.
“We’re fine,” she assures me as everyone appears from the stairwell.
They were hiding.
I keep jogging toward my woman. I know I’m covered in blood, mostly naked and seething with rage, but I need her in my arms. As I reach her, those big blues look up at me like they always do. Needing me.
I pull her against my chest and squeeze her tight as the rest of the bearers wait for us to get out of the way.
“Guns next?” Alex asks after I kiss my woman’s forehead.
“It’ll be another shield,” I respond.
“We’ll stay in our groups. It’ll make it easier to move together when needed,” one of the vests states professionally. Like a cop. I shake off the realization that I hate cops and nod my agreement with his suggestion.
We’re in this shit together.
Thirty-five rushes past me with Thirty-nine’s limp body. I chase after him, towing Alannah in my wake.
“We’re losing him,” she says with sadness.
“No. We’re not,” I snarl.
Thirty-five is sitting on one of the plush chairs in the hallway as the blade couple strips the least bloody attendants of their white scrubs. Alannah leaves me and races over to Thirty-nine, rubbing his blue legs vigorously.
The deserts walk up to her and say, “Let us.”
I don’t know how they work, but I’m hoping they maintain a high body temperature. They pick up Thirty-nine’s seemingly lifeless body and pin him between their much larger frames. Then they wrap their arms around each other, encasing him.
We all wait in silence. I’m good with waiting. I need a break. I haven’t trained like I need to in order to be fighting this hard.
Alex nudges me and holds out a pair of lightly bloodied scrubs.
“I like you and all, but I’m not a fan of watchin’ your dick,” he snarks.
I snort as I look down to see my white underwear are completely see-through.
“You like it,” I joke. “You just don’t wanna admit it.”
I tug the pants and shirt on as we enjoy a moment of lightness. I’m sure it’s not appropriate to be standing around ten dead bodies teasing each other, but it feels good. I’ve never been one to follow social norms.
Laugh when you can, Kane. If you swallow your laughter, the gods will give you a shitty sense of humor.
I nod at Sorcha’s poetic words as Thirty-nine rasps, “You’re squishing me.”
Alannah jumps into doctor mode, taking him to a chair and checking him over. I sweep the area and find Thirty-seven still cradling the barely conscious necktie with the burns as the blizzard holds his hands to her wounds.
Once my woman’s content Thirty-nine is okay, she moves to where the blizzard is treating the necktie. She reaches her hand out to me with an insistent look on her face.
“Scalpel,” she barks when I don’t read her mind quickly enough. I find the one I dropped earlier on the floor as I make my way to her.
“I may be in scrubs, but I’m not a nurse,” I tease, handing her the scalpel. “Would you wanna play doctor with me sometime?”
“Weird question,” she grumbles without looking at me as she cuts the melted sweatpants away from the necktie’s legs. The woman screeches in pain as Thirty-seven cradles her closer to his chest, soothing her as best he can.
I know those two weren’t fucking before this. Thirty-seven is my friend, and if he were getting pussy, he would’ve shouted that shit from the rafters. But the way he’s holding her, if we get out of this, he’ll be banging the necktie soon.
Once Alannah has cleared the debris from the wounds, the blizzard goes back to cradling the necktie’s calves. She winces and wiggles before settling into Thirty-seven’s embrace.
“Better?” the blizzard asks after a few minutes pass.
“Much,” she replies through a sigh.
“The water was a good thing,” Alannah tells her, but it’s Thirty-seven who’s listening. “With what he just did and some antibiotics, you’ll be just fine.”
I pull my woman into my arms and kiss the hell out of her until the building shudders.
“Explosion,” I mumble against her lips.
I take this moment to look around and assess the situation. With a quick head count, there are twenty-two of us including Alannah and myself. Four died in the stairwell. That means five bearers stayed behind. Two neckties, two fish and a vest. I don’t wish them any ill will, but I’m doubting they’re alive now. I have to focus on keeping the rest of our group whole. Now that we’ve had our break, tended to the injured and rustled up some good knives, it’s time to move.
“Ready?” I ask the stupid question.
Still the polite group I’ve come to appreciate, they all kindly agree. Thirty-seven struggles to his feet with the necktie. I can only imagine how he kept her alive in the stairwell. He looks spent, so I offer, “You want me to take her for a bit?”
“I’ve got her,” he growls in a proprietary way that has my eyebrow quirking at him.
He meets my eyes and that cocky grin stretches across his face as he settles her over his shoulder once again.
“This one’s mine,” he says easily, nodding at my woman with an indication that I’ve got my hands full. He’s right. My hands are full in the best way possible.
I smirk at him before moving to the head of the group to explain what we’re doing next.
“We have to go to the end of this hall, crawl through an access tunnel and then up an emergency hatch. We’ll try to take it slow.”
There are nods all around as I turn and move in the direction of our salvation and surely more attacks. I keep the two knives I procured in the holsters I took off two of the attendants. Those were important kills and even more important weapons acquisitions.
I feel more confident as we pass Alannah’s apartment without incident. But that eerie silence is creeping around me again.
The calm before the storm.
At the end of the long hallway, we come to an air
return vent. It’s large. Five feet by five feet. Forty, Thirty-six and I make quick work of removing an inordinate amount of screws before yanking the painted metal away from the wall.
I squat down and peer into the long, shiny metal tunnel. We won’t be able to see and from what Jeff explained, we’ve got a few football fields in length to crawl through before we get the emergency hatch.
I brace my hands against the bottom and give it a firm shove, testing its strength. There’s no give, but we can’t all be in here at once. That’s not the concerning part.
“It’s hot,” I huff, looking up at Alannah as she hovers next to me.
“How hot?” one of the fish asks.
“Scalding,” I grumble before climbing to my feet.
“Does your skin burn?” I ask the deserts.
They nod with disappointment.
“The four of us will have to shuttle everyone over,” I inform the dragons. “Take one of each as best we can. But one blade and one vest go over first, and one of each stay here until the last run.”
They all nod. Thirty-seven puts the necktie down and whispers in her ear as I grab Alannah.
“If I put my hands in there, I’ll get the shield and then I can help,” she tries to convince me.
“You can put your hands in if you want. I’d rather you have the shield with everything we’re dealing with. But you’re still pregnant and tiny. There’s no way I’m lettin’ you carry anyone through that tunnel,” I instruct, palming my son through her shirt.
Alannah has a little blood on her from me holding her after the knife fight. I hate seeing the red on her milky skin. It reminds me of how good she is and how depraved I am. But all of that internal struggle washes away as she looks up at me with those needy eyes. I pull her tightly against my chest, breathing her in.
Once the dragons are ready, my woman removes herself from my arms.
“Don’t,” Thirty-nine says in a panic as Alannah kneels and lays her palms on the searing metal.
“Ahhhh,” she hisses as her delicate flesh burns.
“Make her stop!” Thirty-nine demands as Alex wraps an arm around his waist.
“She’s okay,” he soothes.
All of the bearers are watching her, worry and confusion marring their features. I crouch down beside her and run a comforting hand up and down her spine. She peers over at me with a small smile on her crimson lips, holding her palms up for me to see.
There are blisters and burns covering her skin, but as I stare at the damage, it begins to disappear. I help her to her feet and hold her hands up for the other bearers to witness what’s happening.
Gasps fill the air as they catch sight of the miracle in front of them.
“How?”
“That’s amazing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What does it mean?”
All of those questions and statements filter around us as I press a proud kiss to Alannah’s cheek before sinking to my knees in front of her. I whisper to her belly, telling my son how proud I am of him. He kicks me a few times in response. I know he can’t hear me and that we’re not actually communicating, but I allow the good feeling it causes in my core to spread regardless.
“I don’t know why and neither does anyone else. My son is protecting his mother,” I explain my limited understanding as I climb back to my feet, pulling Alannah’s body snugly under my arm.
A strange silence settles over the bearers. They’re looking at Alannah and me with reverence and pride. I feel like a king who’s just been crowned after a bloody takeover. Something about this moment tells me these people will follow me wherever I go and do anything I require. It’s a heady feeling that I don’t know what to do with so I simply smile.
When the moment is over, I kiss her once more and pass Alannah to Alex before getting on my hands and knees in front of the tunnel.
“You first,” I instruct the vest who I’m certain is a cop.
He nods and climbs on my back without question as the dragons load up with a fish, a desert and a blade.
I head in first giving a very heavy man a horsy ride. The heat radiating around us is suffocating. It takes less than a minute before the vest’s sweat is dripping off his body, causing a pool to form between us.
There’s very little clearance between the vest’s back and the top of the tunnel, forcing me to stay low as I move. Our shoulders are skirting the sides and he hisses a few times when we brush against the hot metal.
I should have brought the flashlight. Not that I would still have it after the explosion, stairwell flood and knife fight, but it would be useful as we move through the pitch black. Though, a part of me is comforted by the dark. A brief relief within a womb.
A low whirring sound is getting louder as we move. A fan or a blower. If we have to contend with the blades of a turbine or anything like that, we’ll never make it. I wish we would’ve taken the main stairs the rest of the way out. J and I discussed it, but I decided going this way would provide us more cover and fewer opportunities to be ambushed. That’s not working out so well.
It’s too late to turn back.
Finally, the tunnel widens out a bit before we come to an open concrete room. It’s round with rebar rungs leading hundreds of feet up the shaft toward what should be an emergency hatch.
The vest steadies himself on his feet as we help the dragons and their bearer cargo out of the tunnel. Everyone but me is drenched in sweat. All of their clothes were already wet from the stairwell, but the red cheeks and panting breaths are an indication they’re now also soaked in sweat.
It’s cooler in this room where a massive fan is churning beneath our feet. I check the area for any way the metal grates we’re standing on could be removed and find they’re soldered together and buried into the concrete. There’s no magic button Canyon Nine can push to suck our bodies into the fan blades.
The dragons are peeling out of their sweat suits along with the bearers. As the dragons try to wipe themselves dry with their discarded clothing, I talk things through with the bearers.
“Don’t start climbing yet. We need to stay together.”
“Agreed,” the vest responds in his cop-like voice.
I never noticed the individual traits of the bearers before today. If I’m honest, I didn’t spend much time with these people. I was in the lab most of the time, and when I was in the common room, I kept to Alex and the dragons.
I’m not a social creature by nature so that much interaction was a big step in life for me. There’s a small piece of regret threading its way through my body as I realize I may have squandered the chance to create more relationships. It’s fleeting.
I have five friends in here plus Jeff—if he’s still alive. I won’t regret anything.
Regrets are for the weak-minded.
Those are Caelan’s words flashing through my mind. He’s a believer in making the right decision first. It may not feel right for everyone else, but if you do what your gut says, it’s right for you.
I believe that.
I have to.
I drag my drenched shirt over my head. The vest soaked my back pretty good. I don’t care. It doesn’t affect me, but the other bearers will continue to sweat on me, and I don’t need wet clothes hindering my movements.
“Be back,” I grunt and make my way into the black tunnel.
“You guys doin’ okay?” I ask my friends.
We’re moving twice as fast without having to worry about who’s on our backs. This is still going to take some time.
“Sweatin’ balls, but we’re good,” Thirty-seven responds for the group. “Glad it’s dark, so I don’t have to stare at your ass.”
I snort.
“I’ll give you a private show later,” I snark.
We all chuckle until screams filter into the area. My crawling turns into a crouched run as the shouts and wails get louder. The metal vibrates under our heavy feet, but it does nothing to dampen the sounds of fear and fighting.
Light begins to fill the tunnel, and I try to hurry my feet as I see men in white scrubs fighting bearers. There are no gunshots, just the sounds of flesh slapping and crunching.
I leap onto the back of an attendant as soon as my feet hit the carpet. He’s got a garrote wire in his hands. Motherfuckers. I grab his head and snap his neck. A quick kill. I hop to my feet and search for Alannah in the mêlée. I spot her just as a wire wraps around my throat from behind.
The person trying to choke me is shorter, forcing my head backward. I take two sweeping steps back, smashing his body into the wall before threading my fingers under the wire. I easily pull it away from my throat and turn around to face my attacker. I plunge my knife into his gut and drag it up until he’s limp.
As he slides down the wall, I pivot and find my woman.
My tiger.
She’s straddling an attendant, smashing her fists into his face like a pro. It’s a horrifyingly sexy scene to witness. I move to retrieve her from her assault when Thirty-seven is attacked from behind with a wire. He struggles and stumbles as the garrote slices into his skin.
I rush at them, knife at the ready when Thirty-seven’s necktie leaps on the attendant’s back, gouging his eyes with her fingers as a primal scream escapes her throat. The attendant loosens his grip enough for Thirty-seven to break free.
An attendant rushes at me, getting a chest full of knife before he can reach me.
“Alannah!” I bellow, striding to help Thirty-seven as he beats the shit out of the attendant who still has the necktie on his back.
I see a flash of Alex running at my woman before scooping her away as I nudge Thirty-seven out of the way and ram my knife into the attendant’s stomach, stopping when I touch his spine. Thirty-seven yanks the necktie to his chest, kicking the attendant’s lifeless body away as I spin to find Alex passing me Alannah.
I hold her at an arm’s length, checking her from head to toe as she assures me, “I’m fine. Just pissed off.”
“What the fuck happened?” I snarl at Alex before stabbing the attendant Alannah was pounding. Then I drag Alannah up my body and cradle her to me as her arms and legs wrap around my waist.
Misunderstood Miracles Page 17