If she had anything to say about the episode, she kept it to herself. We ran through the mostly deserted parking garage, our flashlights bobbing around until we found the stairs just to the right of the elevator. Carina stepped next to me, her hardened skin reflecting bits of light.
“That could be a problem.” She pointed at a dead keypad to the left of the door. “With the power out, the door might be locked and stuck that way.”
I nodded, only half hearing what she said. My thoughts were stuck on a few minutes ago. Was I really going to hit her just because she stopped me from getting that barricade up? Did she keep her rock skin on as protection for any danger we might come across or for me?
“Guess we just try it, then… I don’t know.” She grabbed the handle and pulled down. The thing came completely out of the door with a few bits of its guts still attached. The door inched open a bit.
“Something broke it?” I asked, finding my voice.
“Or somebody.”
I nodded at the unspoken implication. Her dad. If Marc had been there, no wonder the guards were on edge. I pulled the door open and shined the light inside. It illuminated a concrete stairwell. The other half of the door handle was crumpled in a corner. “Come on.”
We took the stairs up a flight and paused at the first-floor landing. Carina touched my arm to stop me. It was nothing more than a gentle brush before she pulled her hand back.
“How are we going to go about this? There are too many floors.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Let’s stop and think about this.” She paced the floor. “We’re not sure Nathen is even here, but if he were, we have no clue where.”
“If this were the movies, it’d either be a higher floor or down in a sub level or something. If that’s the case, we’d have to find different stairs. These only go up.”
“This isn’t the movies,” she said.
“I know that,” I said defensively. I pointed at the door. “Maybe there’s a building directory or something out there in the lobby.”
“I doubt Teenage Holding Area will be listed on it.”
“I just meant—”
“The door handle,” she cut in, her eyes lighting up.
“What about it?”
“This one is intact.” She grabbed the handle and gave it a little tug to make sure. It remained firmly attached.
“So, we look for messed up doors?” I asked, catching on.
She nodded. “It’s a place to start. Let’s just take it slow and keep an ear out for any noise.”
Ignoring the ‘slow’ part of that, I moved up the stairs with ease. My abilities allowed for endurance that stretched far beyond a normal person. Carina’s did not. She was breathing harder after a few floors. By the time we reached the seventh, she was puffing, but carrying on like a trooper. It was on that floor when I started pausing longer on the landings to test the doors. On levels two through six, I barely took the time to yank on the door handle as I passed. I knew the little periods of rest would do her good.
By the tenth floor, I was forcing myself to move with agonizing slowness to allow her to keep up. I tried to not think about the fact that if I were alone, I could have been up and down those stairs already. I paused to yank on the handle. It wobbled a little but held on. I started toward the stairs to go up another floor.
“Conor, wait,” Carina breathed.
I opened my mouth to tell her to wait there while I went to check the last few floors, but she stepped to the door. She grabbed the handle and wiggled it. It rattled in the door. She glanced at me and I stepped back to her.
“That’s different,” I noted belatedly.
She pulled down on it and the door clicked open. She glanced through the inch of space between the door and doorframe, allowing just a sliver of light through. She made a strangled noise and pulled away from the door.
“What?” I whispered. I peeked through the opening and had to do a double take. I guess I didn’t want to believe those were bodies lying around, but there wasn’t much doubt as to what the dark, motionless lumps were.
I stepped back and took a deep breath through my nose and blew it out of my mouth, trying to quell the rise of nausea. Mr. Walker’s body was bad enough, but there were at least five or six that I could see with just the glance.
“We may have found what we were looking for,” Carina said. “But if Nathen was in there…”
She let the thought hang unfinished between us. I felt heat rise up the back of my neck. If something had happened to Nathen, I’d tear this city down to find whoever was responsible.
A crash from somewhere on the other side of the door made me catch my breath. Carina and I froze, listening. If Marc was still in there, maybe it wasn’t too late to save Nathen. I turned back to the door, but she grabbed my arm. When I looked at her, she shook her head. I pointed at my eyes with my index and middle finger, then turned them toward the door. Her jaw worked, but she let go.
I pulled the door open a few more inches until there was enough room for me to squeeze through. The stairwell opened into a large, open area full of comfortable looking furniture. Well, furniture that might have once been comfortable. Most of them had received the same treatment as Carina’s house. To the left was a wall full of offices that had been separated from the main room by glass. That glass now lay shattered in pieces on the floor for the most part. Straight ahead was a large reception desk with a hallway leading to more offices.
I kept my light off the floor, ignoring the bodies that lay strewn around the best I could. I waved Carina back as I stepped into the space, but she ignored me, staying close behind. We crept around the areas we caught glimpses of dark lumps.
A grunt and thump in an office caught our attention. Without really meaning to, I shone my flashlight in that direction. As soon as the lights shone through the window, the noises stopped.
Carina grabbed my arm and yanked the beam away. I clicked it off with a chagrinned smile. If that was Marc, we were in trouble.
It didn’t seem like it was her dad, though. He would have burst out of that office and charged us at the first glimpse of my light. Who was in there, then?
I waved Carina back again and stepped forward. She followed.
We crossed the large reception area until we stood just outside the office. The window was intact, but the door stood ajar. I turned to Carina and held up a hand, putting as much pleading in my facial expression as I could. She hesitated a moment before nodding and moving back a little to take up position behind an overturned red chair.
At least if Marc were in there, I would be able to distract him long enough for her to get away. I turned back to the office and let out a shriek of surprise as a dark form burst out of the office and barreled into me. I fell back, smacking my head on the tiled floor and my flashlight spun out of reach.
My attacker rolled over me and back away.
I ignored the popping lights in my vision and rolled over. I pushed myself to my feet and prepared for a fight.
“Wait!” Carina yelled.
Her command cut through the pain and fury that pounded in my head. The moment of hesitation was enough to see the attacker with Carina’s light on him.
“Nathen?” I blinked.
“C-Dawg!” Nathen’s bright smile split through the darkness.
Chapter 34
4:42 a.m.
“What happened here?” Carina asked.
“Stuff went down like crazy,” Nathen said.
I stood behind him, trying to figure out how to get him freed. His hands were handcuffed to a chair back. The crash we had heard was him trying to get free. All he had managed was to break the back loose, but his wrists were remained cuffed to it.
The most obvious solution seemed to be the only solution. I snapped the wooden slates with ease. He rolled his tight shoulders.
“What happened?” She asked again.
Nathen glanced at me. In that brief look, I knew I had been right abo
ut Carina’s dad. He had been here. What did he want? Why would he trash Sterling’s offices, kill some of their men, and leave? Had he left?
“We need to get to Lindström’s building,” Nathen said, side-stepping the question.
“Why?” I examined the cuffs on his wrists. After a moment of contemplation, I twisted the metal at its weakest spot, the pivot point that connected to the two pieces. It snapped and fell to the floor. He lifted his other hand for me to do the same to the cuff on that wrist.
“That’s where your family is,” he said.
I froze. “How do you know?”
“I overheard it. When this place was attacked by…” he paused, glancing Carina’s direction. “There was a lot of yelling. Lindström’s, er, people were looking for your family for some reason. They were here, but Lindström took them.”
“You just happened to overhear that?”
“You can go ahead and say it,” Carina said at the same time as my question.
“Say what?” Nathen asked.
In a flash, I grabbed him by the collar and snatched him off the ground. I spun and pushed him to the ground. I knelt over him, his shirt balled in my fists.
“That is not something you just overhear!”
He flinched at a bit of spittle that sprayed across his face.
“This ain’t a movie.” The echo of Carina’s own statement didn’t escape me even with the amount of rage fogging my brain. “You don’t just happen to overhear information like that.”
“Get off,” Nathen hissed.
“Conor…” Carina started.
“Tell me where they are!” I yelled at him.
“I just did!” He yelled back. “Now, get OFF!”
The last word hit me like a ten-foot ocean wave. I flew up, hit the ceiling, and fell back to the floor in a rain of ceiling tiles. I pushed myself up to a kneeling position, glaring at Nathen.
Carina stepped between us. “Conor! He just told you where your family is.”
“Are you sayin’ I had something to do with this?” Nathen demanded. “C’mon, man, I know you ain’t that stupid!”
“You’ve known Nathen forever,” Carina insisted. “You know he wouldn’t do anything to hurt your family.”
“You don’t think it’s too much of a coincidence that his family just happened to leave right before all this started?” I yelled over her shoulder at my friend. “Now, they’re tucked away safe while mine is who knows where.”
“Maybe you are that stupid,” Nathen said.
“I’ll rip you apart,” I snarled through clenched teeth.
“Bring it on, Superman.” He beckoned me with a hand.
I growled something incoherent and tried to push past Carina.
Her slap landed like a smack from a granite countertop. With my jacked up strength, it shouldn’t have affected on me, but it snapped my head back and rocked me on my feet. Carina wasn’t strong, but her stone skin added a bit of umf to the hit. I stared at her through watering eyes.
“Stop it!” she yelled. “This is Nathen we’re talking about. We’ve known him forever. You know he wouldn’t have anything to do with this. You’re being a stupid, bull-headed idiot! Try thinking with that thick head of yours for once, Conor.”
That stung worse than the slap. It was effective, though. Anger retreated, leaving embarrassment in its place. I nodded.
“Good,” she snapped. “Now, do you want to go get your family back?”
I nodded again.
“Good,” she said again. “Let’s go then.”
She spun on her heel and marched toward the stairs, leaving Nathen and me to hurry to catch up.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“Ain’t a thing,” he said, brushing it off with an ease I envied. “But, just so we’re clear, I could have taken you, Superman.”
“That one’s already taken.”
5:01 a.m.
“From what I figure, Lindström double-crossed Sterling,” Nathen filled us in as we zigzagged down the stairs. “They were surprised when, er, Lindström’s men showed up here.”
“Just say it, Nathen,” Carina said.
“Say what?”
She stopped and turned to look up at us a couple of steps higher. “It was my dad. He did this. He killed those men.”
We stood silently in the stairwell. Carina’s flashlight created shadows on her face, giving her a haunted look. Her eyes never wavered, though.
“We don’t know that,” I said lamely. It was pretty obvious it had been her dad. The tell-tale destruction had his signature written all over it.
“Yes we do,” Carina insisted with a glance at Nathen.
I looked at him, too. He squirmed and refused to meet either of our eyes. After a moment, he gave one quick nod, still staring into the dark beyond our flashlights.
Oddly satisfied, Carina turned and we continued down the stairs.
“Anyways,” Nathen went on after we went down a flight, “he came in demanding to know where subject 642 or something was.” He was still unable to name Carina’s dad.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“No clue, Bro. Those Sterling jerks told him they didn’t have the subject whatever and he went absolutely bananas. Then, well, you know.”
I pushed away the memory of those broken shapes on the edges of our flashlights.
“I ain’t too proud to say I hid in that office. I tipped over that chair I was cuffed to and scooted under a desk.”
We went down another flight.
“I waited until the noise had died for a while before I dared to even breathe. Once I was certain I was alone, I wiggled out from under the desk and smashed the chair against it to get free. That hurt, by the way. If you care,” he added with a smile. “That’s when I saw your lights.”
“So,” I said, trying to put everything together, “Carina’s dad came looking for something and Sterling didn’t have it?”
“Those dudes were pissed, too,” Nathen said. “They kept sayin’ the deal was they got to keep the kids and he told them he’d take whatever he wanted.”
“The kids?” Carina called up from a few steps in the lead. “Us?”
“I guess,” Nathen said.
“They know about us,” I said. “That’s got to be the only reason they would be trying to capture us.”
“Luckily, he went berserk before they could tell him they had me.”
“Yeah, lucky,” Carina murmured.
We made it to the bottom of the stairwell and eased our way into the parking garage, making sure nobody was around. We stopped to regroup by the door.
“What now?” I asked. One of our objectives was to find Nathen. Mission accomplished. My family was still out there, though. Not to mention Carina’s dad. We still needed to figure out what happened to him— what had turned him into a monster.
“Lindström?” Carina asked.
“Makes sense,” I said. “But, what if your father is there?”
“I hope he is,” she said. “I can get to him. I know it.”
“You sure ‘bout that?” Nathen asked. “From what I saw, he seemed pretty far… um, gone.” His voice faltered.
“He’s still my dad,” she insisted.
“Nathen’s got a point,” I said reluctantly. “What about what happened in Mr. Walker’s office?”
“I was caught off guard. Now that I know what to expect, I can be ready to deal with him. I can get to him.” She set her jaw and folded her arms across her chest.
I glanced at Nathen. He shrugged.
“Either way, we’re going there. That’s the next place to look for my family,” I said.
Carina’s face shifted from determination to realization. “What if they’re here, Conor? We only searched one floor.”
“They’re not,” Nathen said.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“After the attack, everybody bugged out. And I do mean everybody. It was like a herd of elephant rolling down those stairs.” He jerk
ed a thumb over his shoulder at the door we had just exited. “At first I thought it was thunder, but it just kept going and going.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re not still here,” Carina pointed out.
“They’re not,” he insisted. “Trust me.”
“What aren’t you telling us?” I asked.
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