The Fire Unseen

by Andrew C Jaxson

  My breath was a freight train rattling from my lungs, so I held it in. A clunk in a lock, jingling keys, and a metallic whine as the door opened on its hinges. He moved to step through.

  “Hey!” came a shout from directly below me.

  A swear word plastered itself in huge letters across my mind, but fortunately, nothing came out.

  “Grab me some water too, will you?” the guard below us called to his friend.

  “Sure thing,” the other replied, before going through the door without turning around.

  Noah’s eyes were as wide as mine. We were using up our luck far too quickly. We had to move.

  We snuck across the gangways as fast as we could. One flight up, we reached a storeroom Noah remembered. He turned the handle, and ducking inside, we let the door close behind us. I let my breath out, panting as I slumped against the wall. Noah rifled through the shelves, looking for the next stage of our plan. Grinning, he pulled out two sets of robes and two masks. I slipped mine on. It was scratchy, especially the mask, and limited my movements a bit. They made it hard to see, and I wished we could have worn the ones the trainers did, all tight and form-fitting, but we had to try and blend in as much as possible. I should have kept the one from the farmhouse.

  Noah did a twirl and put a hand on his hip. “Does my bum look big in this?” he whispered.

  I giggled, then snorted, then died a little inside that I’d made that sound in front of him.

  He chuckled quietly and looked at me, eyes smiling through the mask. “You’re cute.”

  My face flushed on cue, but he couldn’t see it underneath my mask. We composed ourselves for a moment, then Noah creaked open the door. We could move more freely now, although I still felt like I had a flashing red sign on my head that screamed Enemy agent!

  We moved down to the ground floor and towards the west wing. The basement torture room had been destroyed in the explosion, so Rachel would probably be held in the confinement cells I’d passed on my way to the arena. My family were probably there too, but we needed all the help we could get to retrieve them. The west wing was also where the live-ins stayed, which significantly increased our chances of being caught.

  The guards ignored us, assuming we were live-ins heading for our quarters, and the door was unlocked. This was easier than expected. Noah had worked out a whole script in case we were challenged, but he didn’t need to use it.

  These halls I had only seen a few times before, but Noah knew them better. He hadn’t spent much time in this particular complex before he left, but the layout was similar to the last one his dad was in charge of.

  It had all been put back to normal after the bombs. Row after row of doors led into identically furnished rooms. Two beds, two chairs, one desk, coat rack. Same look, same plan. You could almost hear the precision, the snap of the shoes laid in right angles on the floor. These guys meant business. Compared to the chaotic and overcrowded farmhouse where the Unseen were hiding, it was a wonder the rebels had survived at all against such a well-resourced and organised enemy.

  We turned left into another corridor, then right, then left again at the next junction. Every hallway looked the same. Aside from the faint smell of smoke, there was almost no sign of the bomb blast that had ripped through this section of the building, at least until we turned the fifth corner.

  This corridor was black, the doors half melted. A light fitting swung precariously by one wire, bulbs cracked and blackened. The power was off in this part of the complex, which was good considering the bare wires hanging from the roof like streamers from a huge burned party popper. The floor was swept of debris, but repairs hadn’t started yet. This whole section seemed empty, which was encouraging, although it also meant my family might not be here.

  Reminders of the violence were burned into the floor like crime scene outlines. The bodies were gone, but the floor beneath, where they’d died, was untouched by flame. On several, red stains smeared across their middles made the floor look like a life-size rock painting.

  Six outlines. Six people had died here, burned to death by Rachel’s sabotage.

  No one really wins in war.

  “Where are you taking us?” A voice came up the corridor, scattered fragments of conversation. “Get your hands off her, you son of a—”

  The male voice was cut short by a brutal crunch. A little girl began to cry. It was them!

  The voice belonged to Josh, fighting against his captors, and the girl had to be Skye. I hadn’t heard Mum, but she must be with them! I was a second away from running to them, the urge to see them overriding my survival instincts. But Noah grabbed my hand.

  A moment later, they rounded the corner. There were no doors near us, not any that could open, and nowhere for us to hide. Noah dropped to his knees and pulled me with him. I copied what he did. Head in one arm, he stroked the blackened outline of a body with his other hand. He pretended to cry, and I followed suit. No one would challenge two people mourning the loss of a loved one.

  There was silence now, no more talking, just the shuffle of feet and the clink of handcuffs. I tried not to look so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself, but I couldn’t hold it any longer. I glanced up, trying to keep my eyes empty of any recognition the guards would notice. There were two guards at the front and two at the back, both wearing combat hoods and masks like the trainers, ready for battle. My stomach dropped. One of them was Nathan, a patch covering his left eye. He’d been hiding out here the whole time, probably in the restricted area. I should’ve looked away—he might recognise me—but I couldn’t.

  In the front of the line was Mum, her red hair hacked short like she’d been in a concentration camp. Her face was bruised and swollen, and she was thinner than she should have been after only a few weeks in captivity. Her eyes were dead, like she’d already checked out of existence. There was a cast on her wrist, and she held it close to her body with her other arm. What had they done to her?

  I nearly cried when I saw Skye, but I swallowed to keep it in. Her hair had been hacked to pieces, too. It had been so long, so beautiful, but now it stuck out in chunks, like the back of a hedgehog. She wasn’t bruised, thank goodness, at least not that I could see. Her eyes were red and watery, and tears quietly ran off her face onto her shirt. I wanted to run to her, hold her, and keep her safe from the world forever, and she was only an arm’s length away. Noah’s hand on my shoulder kept me grounded. If I tried anything now, we were all dead.

  Last was Josh, and he was by far the worst. He had a nasty cut on his forehead, a bloodied mouth, his arm in a sling, and he walked with a limp. His shirt was soaked with blood running from his ear, and his eyes were swollen. They were eyes I’d looked into so many times before, but they were almost unrecognisable now, as they burned with hate. As he went past, he spat on me. “Sorry for your loss,” he mocked. “Burn in hell.”

  The guard behind him smacked his neck with a baton, and he fell. He was right in front of me, on his knees. The convoy stopped, and the guard kicked him in the back to force him to stand. Josh looked at me for a moment, right into my eyes, and there was recognition. His eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped, and then he was back on his feet being forced down the corridor.

  “They’re being taken to the Apex,” Noah whispered. “That’s where the executions take place.”

  I panicked. “What do we do?” We couldn’t have come this far to miss our opportunity by a few minutes.

  An ominous bell rang from somewhere deep inside the complex.

  “That’s to call the Kindred to assemble,” Noah explained. “Once they’re in the Apex, the prisoners will be readied for the ceremony. The whole thing takes about half an hour. There are rites, last words, the whole bit. It’s all very civilised, in a sick kind of way. I’ve seen two in my time with the Kindred, so I’ll know when they’re getting close to ... completion.”

  He began a coughing fit that lasted several seconds. The last one was raspy, from deep inside his chest. “I don’t think we co
uld take out the guards escorting them, not directly,” he went on. “Those guys are high levels, Elder Brothers at least. I’m not exactly in top physical condition.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “I’m still pretty shot from last night. The tree was about as much as I could handle.”

  “So our original plan is gone. We can’t grab them and get out quietly. Not now. This has to be big.” Noah stood, and I joined him.

  “How big?”

  “As big as we can get it without killing ourselves or your family.”

  “We definitely need Rachel.”

  Noah frowned. “She wasn’t with them. They must be holding her to get more information, or maybe as a bargaining chip against the Unseen. The other possibility …”

  He didn’t need to finish his sentence; I knew what he meant. We could only hope she was still alive.

  After a few tense minutes, we had a plan. I snapped at Noah a few times, but he knew it wasn’t about him. This was the most stressed I’d been in my entire life. My shoulders felt like they were clamped in a desk vice, and my forehead ached from frowning. My whole body was twitching with fear and tension and adrenaline. Heroes always look so calm in the movies, but maybe they’re just good at faking it.

  Noah seemed a lot less panicked than I did. Maybe he was just faking it too, but it helped knowing that at least one of us had his head on straight. This whole plan banked on Rachel and an incredible long shot.

  One way or another, in less than thirty minutes, we would know if it had worked.

  FORTY

  We picked our way through wrecked hallways to a section of the west wing that remained untouched by the bombs. A few groups of Kindred passed us on their way towards the Apex, and we tried to look like we were going there too. Each time we walked by them, my heart threw up in my chest, sure we would be discovered. In spite of my fear, we passed unchallenged. None of the security cameras had lights on, either, so they were still offline after the blast.

  These confinement rooms were similar to the basement ones Rachel had destroyed. She knew my family were held here, so she must have disarmed the bombs in this section or not put them here in the first place. Our plan relied on the first option.

  Every door was wide open, except one.

  She must be in there.

  Two Elder Brothers guarded the door, one standing at attention on each side. Security had relaxed but obviously not as much as we’d hoped. They blocked our path. “What do you want?”

  I launched into our prepared routine, keeping my eyes lowered so they wouldn’t recognise the distinctive colours. “The Elders sent us to question the prisoner.”

  The outspoken guard frowned. “Regarding?”

  “What is your circle?” I asked him.

  He shifted uncomfortably. “Elder Brother.”

  “This knowledge requires an Arch Elder circle,” Noah cut in, “but I think you can be trusted. We suspect further explosives are still hidden inside the complex. Our time is limited. We’ve been sent by the Fathers.”

  The name-dropping had an immediate effect.

  The guard’s eyes widened, and he dropped his gaze. “I’m sorry, Brother. I didn’t mean any disrespect. Your robes aren’t normally worn by the Fathers’ emissaries.”

  “It’s all right,” Noah replied benevolently, “we are keeping a low profile. With all the chaos of the last few days, the Fathers felt it best to keep things clandestine. We don’t want to cause unnecessary panic.”

  “I understand fully, and thank you for your forgiveness.” The guard was so deeply repentant it was almost funny. I felt like making him grovel and getting him to clean my shoes or something but didn’t want to push our luck.

  “I trust you will keep this information controlled for the time being?” I said, grinning under my mask.

  “Of course,” the guard replied.

  “Excellent.”

  The other, silent guard unlocked the door. His eyes were suspicious, but he didn’t want to get himself in unnecessary trouble by challenging us. Noah met his gaze, staring him down. The guard looked away at a tiny black bug crawling across the floor.

  As the door swung open, I gagged. The room was dark, but I could smell what had happened here. Blood gave off a metallic tang, and there was the overwhelming stench of rotting meat. The rest of the air was filled with a cross between gym sweat and bodily fluids. The room didn’t have a toilet, and Rachel obviously hadn’t been allowed out.

  My eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, and as they did, I only felt sicker. Rachel, or what was left of her, was still tied to the chair. She faced away from us, so I could see the cable ties had cut into her wrists and rubbed them raw. She was stained deep red from the blood that soaked her clothes. There was a pool of it on the floor, as well as small pieces of skin ripped out of her back by some kind of whip. It was still in the corner, little pieces of glass tied to leather straps around a handle. Just looking at it made my skin crawl.

  Her head was slumped forward, and the only indication she was still alive was her slow, shallow breathing. The IV was still in her arm, pumping some sort of drug into her system. The security camera in here looked offline too. I stepped towards her, my feet sticking to the blood on the floor. Noah came around the other side.

  “Rachel?” I whispered.

  No response.

  “Rachel?” This time I prodded her gently on her shoulder, one of the only uninjured parts of her I could see.

  She snapped her head up and looked at me, her right arm grabbing mine, having somehow worked itself free from the restraints. She dug her nails into my skin, and I tried not to scream, not just from the pain but from her appearance.

  She was unrecognisable. Her face was swollen and raw, different shades of purple, blue, brown, and black. Her right eye couldn’t even open. There wasn’t a patch of intact skin visible anywhere. She snarled at me, an awful, primal growl, like a dog tormented by its master. She was barely human, that had been beaten out of her by Dominic and the others. She was pure instinct and rage.

  “Rachel, it’s me, Ari, and Noah’s here too.” I used my free arm to remove my mask, and her features softened. “We’re here to get you out.”

  “Real?” she slurred, with so much hope I nearly cried.

  “Yes, yes. We’re real. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Drug.” She looked at the drip in her arm.

  “Are you sure?” Noah asked. “The bag says morphine. It dulls our abilities, but it’s the only thing keeping your pain at bay right now.”

  She nodded. “Drug.”

  I reached over and turned the wheel so the dripping stopped.

  Noah turned to me. “There’ll be a lag period where it doesn’t hurt. I have no idea how long it’ll last. After that ...”

  Shock was a big deal; they’d told us that in the first aid class I did at school. If the injuries didn’t kill her, the pain could. I took out my knife and cut her other hand free, then her legs. Noah gently pulled out the huge needle. I tried not to watch.

  We helped her out of the chair. She was unsteady on her feet, staggering across the room to the shower in the corner. We had to wash her down; we wouldn’t be able to stay unnoticed if she was leaving bloodied footprints on the floor, not to mention the smell. Noah helped her in, and we both undressed her and washed her quickly. There was no time for modesty right now. She grimaced when the water hit her back. Aside from the gouges in her back and a cut on her head, she didn’t have any other open wounds. That was something.

  There was a small locked cupboard in the opposite corner, and Noah popped it open with the leg of the chair Rachel had been tied to. There were a few sets of robes and masks inside, and a couple of very nasty devices that must have formed part of Dominic’s toolbox. I would make him pay if I ever saw him again.

  We dressed Rachel in the robes, and she winced as the fabric scraped down her wounds. How long would these painkillers last? The mask we gave her was extra large and helped hide her face. If
I looked carefully, I could see the bruising around her eyes, but if she kept her head down, we would be able to move unnoticed.

  Noah checked his watch. “Twenty minutes.”

  We had to move.

  Rachel was in worse condition than we expected. She could barely walk, let alone fight, and the guards at the door were going to be a problem. We couldn’t pretend we were moving her—the silent one was already suspicious. I stared at the instruments of torture arranged neatly on hooks in the cupboard. There were two huge batons with handles, like baseball bats but shorter. They would do.

  Noah and I grabbed one each and stood on either side of the door. Both guards were visible through the window, dutifully staring off down the hallway. With a tied-up prisoner, their job was to keep people out, not in, and as far as they knew, Rachel was still restrained. They didn’t expect the door to swing quietly open.

  There was a synchronised crunch as Noah and I each smacked one in the back of the head. Noah took the gullible one, and he went down straight away, but I didn’t hit the suspicious guard hard enough. He staggered for a moment and turned to face us. He tried to flare but was too dizzy to focus. I panicked and brought the bat straight down on his face. His cheek bones cracked, and he hit the ground. It felt good. And that scared me.

  As we walked, Noah explained our plan to Rachel in hushed whispers. She’d already guessed and was leading us exactly where we needed to be. A few corridors over, she pointed to a small air vent in the ceiling. Noah gave me a boost, and I popped it open. I felt around inside, and my hand made contact with our hidden treasure.

  It was small, metal, and round, with wires coming off it in all directions. There was no big timer to count down—that stuff only happens in movies—but it was definitely what we were after. Rachel had placed bombs all over the complex at first but, like I thought, had disarmed the ones in this wing when my family were moved here.

  We only needed one; we didn’t want to bring the whole complex down on our heads. Thank goodness the Kindred hadn’t found it yet.