by S. L. Eaves
“Guess we have that in common,” I manage to quip despite the undue pressure on my neck.
All the while thinking: Don’t drop the key. The camera is off. Keep him distracted so you can unlock the cuffs.
He brings his other hand to my waist and runs his fingers along the hem of my jeans.
“You think I don’t take what I want? That I’m not man enough for Brixton?” He leans in, his lips against my ear. “That I can’t make you scream like Tyler did?”
I try to look nervous, let him think he’s getting to me, that he’s in control. He needs to feel in control so he drops his guard enough for this to work. His adrenaline is pumping and all I can hear is the rapid beating of his heart. I struggle to keep focus as I slip the key between my fingers.
Just don’t drop the damn key.
He begins unzipping his jeans, looking away just for a second, hands occupied.
I move quickly, bringing my hands together, twisting the key in the lock. It clicks open, but he doesn’t notice. He’s turned his attention to my jeans. I keep my hand in the cuff and fumble with the other one until I hear it click.
The sweet click of freedom. I bring my legs up, wrapping them around his waist. He looks up smiling.
“This is what you wanted all along?”
“You could say so.”
I bring my arms down, elbows striking first, knocking him backward. I drop my legs, heels hitting behind his knees, causing them to buckle. He falls backwards and I’m on top of him, hands pinning him down with a clear shot at his throat. His screams turn into gurgles as I drain the life out of him.
I want to kill him slowly, take my time enjoying the sweet taste of victory. Then I think how fucked up it is to want that, to enjoy this. To never feel more alive than when taking the life of another is the curse that rewards our destruction with blinding ecstasy.
The decadence of demise.
No one should live for moments like this.
Owen fully drained, I release my vise-like grip, retract my fangs, and stand. I do not allow myself time to admire my work. Instead I take his phone, his gun, and grab the black box. I zip up his jeans. Seems like the dignified thing to do. After all, he was nice enough to leave the cell gate open for me.
Chapter 26
I clip the cigarette-sized box to my waistband and push in its sole button. A fizzing sound emerges and a pulse of light radiates northward. I take a cautious step and the air ripples.
My turn.
Recalling the first time I tried one of these shields on my first mission with the DIA, I know from the rippling effect that it’s working, but it still takes some getting used to as I make my way past the security cameras and up the steps. I walk slowly past the guards knowing that the technology isn’t perfect and—given that these men are more familiar with it than me—I’m expecting they’ll detect my presence.
I reach a dead end. Well, not so much a dead end as an unanticipated roadblock. The only way to get to the other side of the building is to pass through sliding glass doors, doors that require a key card to activate. Owen’s key card has gotten me this far, but now I have to get the doors to part open with a guard standing right in front of them.
Swiftly, I slide the card, the doors part, and I glide through them. The guard hears the beep beep “all clear” from the card scanner, sees the doors part, and jumps to attention. I back away slowly and watch as he steps between the two doors, looking up and down the hallway, then shrugs and resumes his post, muttering something about faulty wiring.
Owen’s gun goes back in my waistband. That guard doesn’t know how lucky he is.
It takes some searching without the aid of blueprints, but I eventually find the surveillance room. I peer through the window into a sad little dark room with monitors cycling through various feeds. A guard sits attentively watching. I take Owen’s phone out of my pocket. He has the building’s security settings still open on the phone’s display. How convenient.
Time to put our plan in motion.
I click some buttons to deactivate as many of the security settings I can, though I’m not sure what—if anything—it’s accomplishing. Lastly, I turn the prison camera back on.
As I watch through the window, it takes about thirty seconds for the image of Owen’s body splayed out on the cell block floor to appear and a fraction of that time for the guard to spot it. I watch his body go ridged as he frantically fumbles with his hand-held comm.
“Brixton report to the security bay immediately; there’s something here you need to see.”
His tone is muted through the door, but I can sense the urgency as I watch him frantically scanning through the camera feeds for the culprit.
I step aside, flattening my body on along the hallway wall as I see her emerge from the stairwell and walk swiftly into the room. For a moment I consider putting a bullet in her head. She’d never see it coming. But I told the DIA I’d bring her in alive. Captured and tortured is my preference too. Plus, blowing my cover now would be the selfish, reckless sort of behavior that’s gotten me into trouble in the past.
High-pitched yelling emits from the room, followed by the sound of something breaking.
Then she sprints out at full speed, screaming to her guards to be on high alert. Two men fall in stride with her, keeping pace with the vivacissimo click of her stilettos. Once they turn the corner for the stairwell, I duck inside the security room. The guard is standing, flustered, and jumps when the door bursts open, a perplexed look as he spins around to find no one there. Then a faceless creature snaps his neck.
I punch a number into Owen’s phone; the seconds before the first ring feel like hours.
“Yeah?” Rex’s voice is eager with anticipation.
“Owen’s dead in the cell block Quinn pulled me out of. Brixton and the guards are occupied down there in the basement level.”
It occurs to me he likely has no clue who Owen is.
“We’re a go, guys,” I hear Rex call out. Then to me: “Okay, good. The others with you?”
I look at the screen and see Crina and Marcus in one of the labs with doctors attending to them.
What the hell happened? How long was I in the cell?
“They are temporarily indisposed. And still no sign of Javier or Xan.”
I hear gunshots in the background.
“We just took out the guards at the gate. We’re heading towards the compound.”
“Good. I see three guards at the loading dock. Two patrolling the perimeter…”
I scan the monitors. Where is Xan?!
“And a pair on the main floor waiting to greet you when you enter. The rest are in the basement with Brixton, I think. I’ll take out as many as I can on my end.”
“Good luck. We’re pulling up now. See you inside.”
“Over and out.”
I hang up the phone and allow myself a minute to watch Brixton cradling Owen’s body before I dial the only other number I have memorized.
“Agent Sullivan.”
“It’s Lori. We’ve invaded Trion. If you want what’s inside, it’ll be yours for the taking within the hour.”
“You’re serious? You’re inside?”
“Check my tracker if you don’t believe me.”
“It’s dead.”
“Oh right. Well, triangulate this call, work your magic.”
“I believe you.”
“Then 10-4 or whatever it is you guys say. I might not make it out, so consider this a courtesy call. My team is doing what they can. Remember, the vampires are on your side. Make that clear to your men.”
“Deal. But Abrams wants Brixton alive.”
“I know, but, well…then you better hurry.”
I hang up and scan the panel on the desk for some sort of master code to unseal all of the security doors. Not that the glass doors will stop us, but it’d make life easier. I push a big red button and the screens go black. Did I just turn off the cameras? Well, that helps too. I continue down the row of bu
ttons until the display panel reads “Disarmed.” I shrug and head for Brixton’s office.
The amount of technology in Brixton’s office puts the mansion’s War Room to shame. I wonder what someone of Jiro’s talents could do with this level of technology. Distracted from my search for the others, I can’t resist the urge to duck in her unmanned office to see what secrets it reveals.
I study the monitors decorating the walls. I didn’t get a chance to appreciate them earlier. Satellite images. From drones? Can’t tell. At first I think I’m pulling up the same feed, then I realize the monitors are showing separate feeds. The locations are different, but the actions are identical: lots of humans in exoskeletons committing murder. I am not talking shooting some poor soul in the head. I’m talking flipping bearcats and shooting down helicopters. Is this all Trion at work? It’s an impressive—and alarming—amount of destruction.
It’s easy to understand why Marcus wants this technology. Oh right, I need to be getting down to that lab.
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
I turn to see the exoskeleton I’d been admiring on screen staring right back at me. Up close it is downright shocking. The arms look bionic, despite common sense telling me she didn’t chop her arms off in the past couple of minutes and upgrade. Not that I’d put it past her.
No, she’s still in there. And she’s staring right at me.
Understanding my confusion, she points at the orange lens in her eyepiece.
“Yes, I can see you.”
“Right…well, I see you stopped for a wardrobe change on your way up from the basement.”
“You will pay for Owen.”
“I expect you’ll want revenge.” I turn off the box, somewhat relieved I don’t have to fight her through the annoying rippling. She walks slowly towards me. I resist the urge to retreat. Was there a tutorial on the slasher film walk that I missed?
“Thing is, I was counting on it,” I manage, maintaining composure.
I move to strike first. I have Owen’s 9mm tucked in the small of my back, but I opt for close combat, darting left then right to get a feel for her reaction time in that suit. It’s good. It’s damn good.
The first shot misses, but just barely. She moves so fast I don’t even see her raise the gun till it’s firing. When I move to disarm her, an electric impulse jolts me off her suit. I hit the ground, roll to my feet, and spring up, dodging her fire like a gopher trying to dodge a mallet at a carnival game. I dive behind her desk—a glass desk, which provides practically no cover—and I pull out Owen’s gun and attempt to return fire. Except the trigger won’t budge.
“All of the guns in the compound are fingerprint responsive.” She states, laughing at my ineptitude.
I flip the glass desk and hurl it towards her. She raises her empty hand, open palm, and shatters the table on contact. Impressive.
Now the room is full of weapons. I waste no time, scrambling as I grab the biggest shard of glass off the floor. She has barely moved, relying on her weapons to fend me off. My speed is my greatest asset as I dodge her fire and jam the glass into her leg as I race past. Humans always expect something dramatic like a shot at the heart or head. What really throws them in when you go for the ankles or elbows or something exposed and unguarded; something they don’t value as highly. But they should.
She drops to one knee and I go in for the kill. I slip my arm around her neck from behind, channeling what little jujutsu I know to flip her backwards. Her legs kick out and she lets out a gasp as I roll sideways and pin her to the floor. Glass crunches under our weight.
Moving both hands around her throat, I jerk her sideways in an attempt to snap her neck. From this angle and with her suit’s protection extending to her jawline, I can’t do much but choke her. She tries to wrestle free. Electric impulses from the suit shoot through my arms as I try to maintain my grip long enough to incapacitate her.
Suddenly a long sliver of glass slices through my shoulder. I jump up, releasing my hold. There’s a foot-long, several-inch-wide piece of desk perturbing from my right shoulder. Prohibiting the use of the arm.
I yank it out as she gets to her feet. Heal quickly, dammit.
“Now would be a good time to reconsider. We don’t need to be enemies, you and I.”
I laugh, “You’ve been trying to kill me since before I ever met you. Yeah, I think the line’s been crossed.”
“Well I’m sorry you feel that way, but all my actions have been in self-defense. You haven’t left me much choice.”
We circle the room, daring one another to make the next move.
“Who told you I get…premonitions?”
“Owen. If it was some big secret, you probably shouldn’t have told the DIA.”
I didn’t. But I mentioned it in passing to Tyler. Pillow talk. In the context of it being a burden, not a gift. And he took that information to the others. Damn; in the end, I couldn’t even trust him…Can I blame him, though? Shoe on the other foot, I’d have probably done the same thing.
She limps noticeably from the wound in her leg. This will slow her down. I am just biding my time, hoping she’s out of ammo.
“My offer still stands,” she continues. “At the very least I’m going to need a lot of your blood for the next phase of my project. I’d rather not spill it all over this room.”
She’s frantic. She played her hand too soon. Something must have happened that forced her to turn on Marcus and the others before taking me out, before she got the immortality she so desperately craves.
Emotions are getting the better of her, a weakness I’m happy to exploit.
“Don’t you mean Owen’s blood?” My crooked smile makes her shiver. “I mean, I haven’t had my own blood coursing through these veins in a very, very long time. But Owen’s…his tasted so sweet.”
She opens fire, screaming as she shatters dozens of suspended monitors. I run in one sweeping, blurry arch across the room, then turn and slide across the floor, scooping up more glass. This time going for slightly more lethal than the leg.
A retractable stiletto appears from her wrist. A tiny wooden stake. I spot it just in time. I leap up and drive the glass into her throat seconds before she connects with the stake. And misses the heart, fortunately. The stake slides from my arm as she falls backwards, clutching her neck.
I watch as blood bubbles from her throat and she spasms on the floor like a fish on dry land. It’s less satisfying then I’d hoped. And Abrams won’t be pleased. Not looking forward to explaining this mess. My arm aches from where the stake punctured my bicep. As I watch it heal, I smile at the thought that Brixton will never get to experience this.
Time to pay Marcus a visit.
Chapter 27
It doesn’t take me long to find the lab. I should be prepared for this sight, but seeing it through a camera lens doesn’t have the same effect as up close and personal. The three doctors in lab coats immediately raise their hands, dropping bloody instruments to the floor. They retreat slowly to the far corner.
“Brixton forced us.” A balding man in wire-rimmed glasses points to the cuff on his ankle.
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean you’re on my side,” I sigh, Owen’s gun trained on them. They don’t know I can’t use it. I step back into the doorframe, leaning over to check if the hallway is clear. It is.
“Okay, get out.” I step aside, gesturing at the doorway with my gun. “Smart play here is to hide in your bunks till your rescuers arrive. Because it’s not me.”
They shuffle briskly, hands still raised.
“Do something stupid and you won’t make it out of here alive. It’s that simple.”
When they reach the corridor, the youngest doctor breaks into a sprint. Can’t say I blame him.
“Don’t let them go!” Marcus’s voice implores as he lurches his body upwards, the restraints doing their job. “Look what they’ve done to me! They must pay!”
I step further into the room and look around as I approach Marcus. It is al
most refreshing to see him in such a vulnerable state; more so if I didn’t also despise the person who put him here.
Waving the gun carelessly, I gesture from him to Crina.
“Well, there’s only time to save one of you, so who’s it going to be?” I laugh, watching his eyes burn yellow with panic. I add dryly, “Just kidding; I have time to save both of you. I just don’t fucking want to.”
“Lori, together we can stop this,” Marcus pleads.
“Oh yeah? And how do you plan to do that? Both hands tied behind your back?”
I tap his arm and point to his hands on the other table, submerged in some type of gel for preservation. I am enjoying this.
“Those bands around your arms look painful.” I examine the doctor’s handiwork. The metal clamps are lined with sharp spikes. I can see their bases before they disappear into Marcus’s arms.
I cross to the other table where Crina is lying, semi-conscious. I flick some buttons on the box by her feet. The metal restraints spring up; aside from the wounds left by the spikes, she appears otherwise unharmed. She stirs. I give her a shake.
“Hey, you okay?”
Crina sits up slowly, rubbing her head. She eyes the wounds in her arms with the same “Where’d they come from?” look that a hung-over person gives their one night stand.
“I just saw you like what, an hour ago? How did this happen?”
“Don’t know.” She looks from her arms, now healed, to the table. A pool of blood rests where her head had been. “I remember feeling a shock. Then I think I took a blow to the head…Xan! Where is Xan?! They had him!”
She jumps off the table in attack mode.
I place a hand on her shoulder. I honestly don’t think he’s still alive, but no way I’m telling her that.
“The others are here. They are looking for him; him and Javier both. We’ll find them,” I try to reassure her, but my voice lacks conviction.
“Brixton’s men attacked us all, Crina! She betrayed us!” Marcus struggles to keep his voice level, tone measured.