Chapter 43
Benton led the way down the staircase. It was really steep and narrow. Alix had to be careful that she didn’t trip and fall. It was a long way down to the next level. She was really glad when she stepped off the last step.
Gordon, Olly, and Benton had their guns out and ready. Alix didn’t know why but she got an energy ball ready just in case. They fanned out and searched the room. It was empty except for one door. They moved towards the door and into a dark hallway. Alix was starting to get nervous.
The hallway was narrow, they had to walk single file. Alix decided to send her magic out to see if she could sense anything. She could feel other people and they weren’t very far away. At least this time they weren’t moving towards them.
“We’re close,” Alix whispered. “There’s something not too far in front of us.”
They slowed down and were on high alert. They didn’t know if they were going to encounter Grynn, more infected Nykara or prisoners. Alix saw a light ahead of them. She took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself down.
She gasped when she saw what was in the room. It looked like a cross between a prison and a research lab. There were unconscious people in cells on one side and scientific equipment on tables on the other.
“Alix,” Gordon said getting her attention, “you and Olly check out the cells. Benton and I will keep a lookout.”
Alix went to one end and Olly the other. The first cell contained a woman that looked to be in her forties. The next one was a young man. It wasn’t until the third one that she breathed a sigh of relief. It was James.
“Gordon,” she called, “I found James. He looks unharmed, but I can’t be sure.”
Alix and Olly rejoined Gordon and Benton. They had looked in all eight cells and each one had a person in it. There were four men and four women.
“We need to find a way out of here,” Gordon said. “A way that will allow us to take them with us. Alix, you find a way to open the cell doors. Benton, you stand lookout. Olly and I will look for another exit.”
Alix tried looking for a key hoping that would be the easiest way to open the cells, but after a quick search, she didn’t find one. After a closer look at the cell door, she realized that there wasn’t a place for a key. They must open remotely. She had no idea how that would work so that meant she was going to have to try magic.
She went straight to the cell that held James. She put her hand to the locking mechanism and pushed her magic into it. But instead of her magic searching in the lock it went around it. She tried again, and the same thing happened. That didn’t make any sense. It was like there was a tiny barrier around the lock that prevented her from accessing it. She tried a third time with the same results.
After thinking for a minute, she decided to try a different tactic. She put her hand around one of the bars and felt it with her energy, all-natural metal. She had an idea. She hadn’t ever tried what she was about to do but she was desperate. She held the Power Stone in her right hand and closed her eyes. She thought about the metal melting like ice on a warm spring day.
Her magic was able to penetrate the steel bars. When she opened her eyes, she saw the bars had melted and were now a puddle on the floor. Not wanting to step in the liquid metal she quickly re-hardened it. She repeated the process on the next seven cells.
“Good job Alix,” Gordon told her when she was done.
“Thanks, did you guys find a way out?”
“Yes, there’s an elevator behind that wall of monitors. We should be able to take two of them out at a time,” Gordon said gesturing to the cells. “And I think we should hurry. I’m finding it very odd that we haven’t encountered any Grynn.”
Olly and Benton went to the cell where Alix had seen the woman. They lifted the unconscious figure and removed her from her prison. Alix insisted that they take James on the first trip. With a little help of magic, she and Gordon lifted James from the cot and brought him out of the cell.
They all headed towards the elevator when suddenly the lights went out and they were completely in the dark. Alix was just about to create a ball of light when she heard a voice she hoped to never hear again.
“Well, well, well,” François said somewhere in the pitch black. “We meet again Ashley.”
Alix felt a shiver down her spine when his voice hit her ears. She immediately dropped James, shielded and cloaked. She moved away from the others as quietly as she could. She assumed that François knew where she had been, and she wasn’t going to make this easy on him.
With her heart threatening to beat out of her chest she tried her best to remember the layout of the room and where she thought his voice had come from. With her arms out in front of her, she moved towards where she believed the end of the cells had been.
It looked like she had a little bit of luck left when she finally felt the wall. She just hoped it was the wall she’d been aiming for.
There had been a lot of yelling in the dark and the sounds of people struggling. She hoped everyone was alright. She felt bad for leaving Gordon, Olly, and Benton, but as they kept telling her it was vital that she didn’t get captured by the Grynn again.
The lights came back on and Alix had to blink a few times at the brightness. When she finally saw what the noise had been, she had to cover her mouth to stop her from making a sound. She had no idea how it had happened, but the cells had been repaired and now contained not only Gordon, Olly, and Benton but everyone who had been on the ship with her. The eight people who had been in the cells were now lying face down in the middle of the floor.
She was frozen to the wall at the sight of her friends in the cells but seeing Ben was the worst. He was pounding his fists on the bars and yelling. She wished he would stop, she didn’t want François’s attention on him.
François was whispering something to a guy dressed much like Benton was. When François stopped talking to him, the man left out the door Alix and her team had come through. That made her nervous, well more nervous than she already was.
“You know I will find you,” François said. “You managed to escape last time, but I will not underestimate you again. All exits from this building are blocked and your ship is now under my control.”
Alix didn’t move, she was almost afraid to breathe. She had no idea what to do. Once again, she was alone, facing an unknown number of Grynn in a place far from anything she knew. Being scared wasn’t helping her, in fact, it was stopping her from thinking. She thought about all the people counting on her and did her best to push her fear to the back of her mind.
Freeing her mind to think she tried to analyze the situation. In a matter of minutes, six people had been removed from the cells, the cell bars had been repaired and thirteen people forced into cells. The only people she’d seen were François and one other bad guy. There was no way only the two of them had been able to do all that. But where were the other Grynn?
Alix had no idea how to fix this. In order to do anything, she was going to have to give her location away and if she did that François had a good chance of capturing her. As she was weighing her actions he spoke again.
“I should have known you were a just a scared little girl,” François said. “Too afraid to face me so you just run and hide. I know you are still in this room Ashley, and this is the room you and all your friends will stay in for all of eternity.”
That didn’t make any sense to Alix. There was no way she was going to let him or any other Grynn try and kill her or the people she cared about. She was just about to step away from the wall when the man from before returned. Whatever he said to François made him smile.
“It is time Ashley,” he said. “Say farewell to your friends and the world. Anyone who thought that you would win was either deluded or stupid. No one can defeat the greatness that is the Grynn.”
He made a sweeping bow and started moving away from the people on the floor. The other man joined him, and they disappeared behind the wall of monitors.
Alix was afraid to move, she was pretty sure it was a trap to get her to show her location. She heard what she guessed was the elevator doors open and close. Still, she waited, silent and unmoving. She finally decided to take a chance and use her magic. She sent it out to try and detect if François was still behind the wall where she couldn’t see him. She was shocked that she didn’t feel him or the other Grynn. It was like they’d actually left the room.
Moving away from the wall she kept her shield and cloak wrapped around her. She walked passed the cells and to the wall that hid the elevator. She moved as quietly and as quickly as she could. When she looked around the corner, she was surprised that she seemed to be alone. There was no way he would have left her there to allow her to free her friends. She didn’t understand what was going on.
Just as she started back towards the cells, she heard a muffled boom and the ground shook. A few seconds later she heard and felt another one, this one was stronger than the first. Suddenly, with horror, she realized what was about to happen. She dropped her shield and cloak and ran to the cells. There was another boom and the ground shook so hard this time she stumbled.
Taking the Power Stone in her right hand she gathered as much energy as she could. All it took this time was a thought and the bars on the cell doors disintegrated. She ran to stand by the unconscious Nykara on the floor.
“Get to me now!” she yelled to everyone.
Ben was the first one to her with the others right behind him.
“What’s happening?” Ben asked but she didn’t have time to talk.
The next boom was so strong the walls started cracking and bits of the ceiling were falling down around them. Alix barely had time to do what she wanted. She thrust her energy out and created a solid dome around them. Just as she got it in place there was a huge boom and everything around them exploded. Everyone screamed and fell to the floor. Alix stayed standing in the middle of everyone, she couldn’t afford to break her concentration.
When people started opening their eyes, they were amazed they weren’t dead.
“Did you just save us from an explosion and being buried alive?” Ben asked when he was able to stand up.
“Yes,” she said. “This was all I had time to do. We may be alive but now we’re trapped hundreds of feet below ground. Those explosions were meant to bring the whole island down.”
As everyone got to their feet, they looked around them. It was as if they were inside a snow globe that was buried in the dirt.
“This has to be extremely difficult to maintain Miss Alix, are you alright?” Gordon asked.
“I’m fine for now. I can probably keep this up for a long time, but we need to find a way to get out of here. Think of it like a mine explosion that traps workers, except no one, knows where we are. With this many people, we’ll run out of air before anything else can happen to us.”
Everyone looked at her when she said that. She wasn’t trying to scare anyone, but it was the truth and she needed them to understand the situation.
“It’s going to take more than just me to get us out of here,” Alix said. “François’s intention was to kill us all and he almost succeeded. I don’t care how crazy the suggestion is, start throwing ideas out.”
No one said a word for a minute until Ben spoke. “Do you think you could move us out of here like Candar did the rocks for Stonehenge?”
The rest of the group looked at him like he was crazy. Right now, that didn’t matter.
“I don’t know Ben. Those were just inanimate rocks, not living beings. That would mean moving this bubble and twenty-two people through tons of dirt.”
“Yes, it would Alix,” he said, “But remember what Candar said to you in the letter, you are only limited by your mind, that means anything is possible, you just have to believe you can do it.”
She could hear the confidence he had in her. She thought about never seeing her parents or Shay again. That wasn’t an option, so she’d do whatever it took to get them out of there.
“Ruth, are you able to use your Locator abilities and find the most direct route to the surface?” Alix asked.
“I believe I can. Give me a moment.” Ruth closed her eyes and everyone was silent. She opened her eyes and nodded. “I have it, Alix. Now what?”
“I need you to share that with me. Take my hand.”
Ruth did as Alix asked and jumped when she touched her. “So much power,” Ruth said. “What do I do now?”
“Just think about the way to the surface and push that magic into me. I’ll be able to see what you do.”
Alix saw the way Ruth had found. She’d thought it was going to be straight up but saw that there were large stones and pieces of the building that were going to have to be avoided. She knew what she was going to have to do and it wasn’t going to be easy, even with the Power Stone.
In her mind, she pictured them like a bubble floating up in the water. After making sure the barrier was solid all the way around, she prepared to move them but stopped.
Ben must have sensed her hesitation because he came over to her and looked her in eyes. “You can do this Alix, I have complete faith in you.”
He gave her a quick kiss and wrapped both his hands around the one with the Stone in it. When he did she could feel what he was feeling and she was a little surprised. He wasn’t just saying the words, he believed them completely. She nodded and refocused on moving them to the surface.
When they moved the first foot everyone gasped, that almost made her smile, but she maintained her concentration. Slowly they started moving up. Alix had to close her eyes as she found it distracting to watch the dirt and debris moving around her.
Ben never left her side. His hands on hers were like a steadying force. She could feel the weight of the dirt on them gradually get lighter and lighter. The longer they were in the bubble the harder it was for her to keep pushing. Ben seemed to sense what was wrong and called for Shelley and Gordon to share their energy with her. That extra boost helped give her what she needed.
The slow pace paid off when they finally reached the surface. It was still dark, but they could see the first hint of the sunrise on the horizon. Unable to hold the barrier any longer she let it go. Without Ben there to catch her she would have fallen to the ground. She was exhausted.
Chapter 44
The four Warriors took up positions around the group until it could be confirmed that they were alone. Olly and Sal went to scout the island to check for Grynn.
“Hey beautiful,” Ben said, and he helped Alix to sit down.
“Hey.”
“You were amazing,” he told her. “You saved us all.”
“Thanks to your quick thinking,” she said.
“I guess that makes me the brains and you the brawn,” he said smiling. “Show me those muscles.”
Alix had to smile back.
The group sat there, in the dirt and rubble and watched the sunrise. It was beautiful, and Alix wished it was under different circumstances. When it was light enough to see she realized that François had blown up all three buildings on the island as well as most of the rest of the island. All that remained were craters and piles of rubble.
Olly and Sal returned to report that they Grynn were gone, and so was their ship.
“How are we going to get back?” Ben asked.
Gordon reached in his vest and pulled out what looked like an old-fashioned cell phone. It turned out that it was a satellite phone and he made a call to someone. He told them there was help on the way, but it would be at least a day before they arrived. Then he started assigning tasks to everyone.
They had to find fresh water, something to eat and possible shelter. They also had to assess the state of the eight people who’d been imprisoned. While everyone was busy doing various things Alix rested, trying to get some energy back. Ben stayed with her after explaining to Gordon that he wasn’t leaving her side.
After checking on the unconscious Nykara, Shelley determined that they were all in a c
oma, but she wasn’t sure what the Grynn had done to cause it. Once they got them back to a safe place, they were going to need more help.
It was going to be a very long day. The only food they had were a few protein bars that had been in the guy’s equipment vests. Luckily Alix had figured out how to purify the salt water, so it was safe to drink.
“So,” Alix said to Ben, “tell me what happened after we got trapped by the barrier.”
“We went back upstairs and out of the storage room. Rand and Baxter led the way back to the beach where the boats were, only the boats weren’t there anymore. That immediately put everyone on high alert. We know the boats were secure when we’d left them. Rand, Wills, and Baxter started scanning the area for Grynn. The next thing we knew all of us were unable to move and we were surrounded by about twenty Grynn.
“I tried yelling but realized that not even my mouth would move. I was furious. All I could think about was that I hoped you were still okay. I didn’t feel that anything had happened to you, so I was pretty positive you were still alright.
“The Grynn used their magic to move us to the other small building that looked like a bunkhouse. We stayed there for a while until François entered the room. I just wanted to hurt him the moment I saw him. I heard him say that they had you right where they wanted you and my fury turned to rage. I didn’t know if they’d captured you or what. I struggled to get free, but it was no use, I was bound too tight.
“I had no idea what to expect when they started moving us. It turned out that there was a false wall that led to an elevator. They took us three at a time down the elevator to another room. I had no idea we were so close to you. One of them flipped a switch and all the lights went out. They had on night vision goggles, that’s how they got us in the cells. When the lights came back on, they released the magic and we could move again. And you know the rest.”
Alix hugged him hard. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” she told him.
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