“In my vision I remember what the room looked like,” I say. “She wasn’t in the bunker so we need to get to the elevator.”
“Get us there.”
I go to the other side of the room where the dead guard lay, and I peek through the small opening of the door. “I’m not sure we will have a lot of company,” I say. “Most are probably fighting off the greyskins.”
“Lucky for us,” Jeremiah says.
I take a step out into the hallway. Red lights illuminate it, and our footsteps are loud on the metal. I try my best to remember the way to the elevator. That day when Olivia called on me to meet with her feels like ages ago. I feel like I’m visiting a place that I haven’t seen in years, yet it was only a few days ago that I fled these walls.
There are several twists and turns along the metal, ship-like corridors, but finally we come to a set of doors that is nothing like the rest of its surroundings. If this is the same set of doors (and I’m sure it is) then the hallway on the other side will be bright and look like a hospital. I reach for the doorknob, but it’s locked.
I look back at the other three and tell them to stand back. I point the gun at the door handle and cover my eyes with my other arm. The bullet shatters the lock to pieces and the door swings open for us. This is where I hesitate.
“Waverly, what are you doing?” Jeremiah asks. “We’ve got to move.”
“I don’t remember,” I say. “There are about six or seven turns, I think. I’m not sure where the elevators are.”
“You’ve got to think,” he says.
“Let’s just go,” Stephen says. “We can find a guard or something that will tell us.”
Jeremiah likes Stephen’s idea. I lead the way, gun up in the air, but I feel vulnerable. The fact that I’m leading the way almost feels like I’m helping too much. What if I can’t kill Jeremiah? What if he escapes me? It will be because of me that he becomes the new leader.
I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.
We are vigilant as we walk, and Jeremiah stays right behind me. We make a few turns, and I’m not sure they are the right ones. But Stephen was right about finding a guard. On the other side of the hallway, a guard stands with a rifle in his hands. He’s talking on the radio to someone. The four of us press our backs against the wall.
Jeremiah leans in and whispers in my ear. “Wait here. I’ll take care of this.”
He stands from his crouch and walks slowly toward the guard. There seems to be no sound from his footsteps, and the guard keeps his back to us. The man doesn’t even move before Jeremiah presses his gun against the back of his head.
“Drop the gun and radio,” he says.
The man does so without hesitation. “Please don’t kill me.”
“Shut up!” Jeremiah yells. “Where is Shadowface staying?”
“I don’t know.”
Jeremiah points the gun at the guard’s foot and pulls the trigger. Blood splatters across the floor as the man falls backward, screaming in horror.
“I expect an answer this time!”
“Fifth floor!” the guard cries. “It’s the room with all the guards surrounding it.”
“Where’s the elevator?”
“Down the hall. Two left turns.”
“Thank you,” Jeremiah says, pointing the gun at the man’s head and finishing the job.
I shut my eyes tightly as the second shot rings out. I hate the sight…the feeling. Death surrounds us. Seeing Jeremiah able to just kill the man so callously makes me sick to my stomach. But it also makes me wonder if I have the guts to do the same to him and Olivia in just a couple of minutes. I’m not sure I can do it. I can’t sit here and say that I’ve never killed anyone, but it’s not an easy thing to do. I killed Scarecrow because it was ‘kill or be killed.’ I can kill greyskins because they are already dead. But can I actually look Olivia in the eyes and shoot her? Can I do that to Jeremiah?
I’ve got to think of Evie. If I don’t end this, she will one day die because of this man. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I could have killed Jeremiah and Olivia and didn’t do it.
Just as the guard described, the elevator appears after two more left turns down the hallway. Luckily, we see no more guards. When we press for the elevator, we wait for it as it ascends from the bottom floor. When we get in, Jeremiah presses the fifth floor button. He takes a deep breath as the doors close. He looks at me.
“I’m putting a lot of trust in you,” he says.
“When this is over, I’m hoping you won’t forget those that helped you get here,” I say. I don’t know why I say it, knowing that I’m going to try and kill him myself. I wonder if he knows.
“I won’t forget any of you,” he says, though not with a smile. Instead he seems callous…almost angry. I’m guessing he suspects something.
“I’m just ready to get all this over with,” I say. “Shadowface deserves to die. I’m happy to be here when it happens.”
Jeremiah looks like he’s about to say something when the elevator dings and we all hold up our pistols. We almost immediately see the group of guards all standing at attention outside Shadowface’s door. The four of us don’t hesitate to open fire—the guards never see us coming. Before any of them even get a chance to shout an order, they are dead on the ground. As we surge ahead, my heart pounds out of my chest. For at least the tenth time tonight, I look at Ethan for encouragement, but I forget that he doesn’t know anything of my plan. Still, this time he looks at me and nods in affirmation. I know he’s not telling me that everything will be okay, but I don’t need that from him. I just want to know if he’s got my back. As we near the door, I feel apprehensive. Jeremiah holds up a hand and looks at me.
“You said she was alone?” Jeremiah asks. “It’s only Olivia, right?”
“Yes,” I say.
He looks at each of us. “Let me go in alone,” he says. “We have a history—a past. I want to take her myself.”
“We’ll be your backup,” Stephen says.
This is where I can change the future. This is where I can end it.
“No,” I say, turning the gun on Jeremiah. His eyes widen at me, first in confusion, then in obvious anger.
I swallow, wondering if I have the guts to do this. I point the gun downward and pull the trigger, the bullet hitting Jeremiah in the leg so he falls to the floor. Then I point the gun at his chest. “I’ve seen what you are to become,” I say through clenched teeth. “You are a monster. You murder. You eat people’s flesh.”
“I should have never let you touch me,” he says. He winces at the pain in his leg. “Go on,” he says, tossing the gun to the ground. “Shoot me through the heart. If that’s what you really want to do.”
My finger presses against the trigger with just enough pressure to keep the bullet in the chamber. Can I do this? Can I just kill the man in cold blood?
“Waverly, what are you doing?” Stephen asks.
“Don’t do it, Waverly,” Ethan says.
I can’t listen to them. They don’t know what I know. They can’t understand. For Evie’s future, I’ve got to do this.
I pull the trigger and a look of shock spreads across Jeremiah’s face as the bullet passes through his heart and out his back. He falls to the ground, the surprise never leaving his face.
“Why did you do that?” Stephen yells.
I turn the gun toward them both. “Drop your weapons and get over there,” I tell them shakily. My fingers are so unsteady as I hold the gun I’m afraid I might accidentally shoot one of them. They do as I order, tossing their pistols about ten feet away and sitting against the wall, staring at Jeremiah’s body.
“Jeremiah and Shadowface are both evil,” I say. “Once you have a Starborn power like mine, you can judge me. Otherwise, I just saved our futures.”
I walk away from them and stand next to the door, knowing that Olivia waits. I take a deep breath, looking down at Jeremiah’s body. One down. One to go.
I open
the door wide, carrying my gun in the air. A woman stands on the other side of the room, staring out of a floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the mass of death in the compound five stories down.
After a moment she turns to look at me, only a slight notion of surprise on her face. My heart beats so fast I think I might have a heart attack. I’ve already changed the future, so I don’t know what is supposed to happen now. It’s all up in the air.
“Waverly,” she says, turning from the window. She carries a silver-handled pistol in her right hand, but she doesn’t raise it.
“Drop your weapon,” I say.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she says, ignoring my command. “I’m disappointed by you. You lied to me about what you saw of the future. I suppose this is what you saw, but you didn’t want to tell me. I suppose you knew I would kill you if you told me the future.”
But this isn’t what I saw. I saw her in a firefight with Jeremiah that ended with him and me dead on the ground. But all I have to do is pull the trigger. What am I waiting for? Why haven’t I already killed her? This could be over right now!
“What do you plan to do once my brains are splattered against the back of this window?” she asks. “Do you plan to take my place?”
“Never,” I say. “I just want to stop corrupt people like you from ruling the world.”
“You speak from ignorance,” she says. “I suppose your dear Lucas felt the same way.”
“Don’t talk about him.”
“And who do you think should take over?” she asks. “Jeremiah?”
“Jeremiah is dead,” I say.
“You think so?” she asks, a smile forming at the side of her mouth.
“I just killed him, yes.”
“You might want to make sure,” she says nodding at the door behind me.
It feels like a trick to make me look behind me, but I can see him in the reflection of the window. A figure stands in the doorway, his gun gripped tightly in his hands. I spin around to look at him. The bullet should have passed through his heart. There is no reason Jeremiah should still be alive!
He holds his gun up, but not at me. He points it at Olivia. “There’s something you don’t know about me, Waverly,” Jeremiah says, not moving his eyes from Olivia. “You’ve got to shoot me in the head for me to die.”
“What?”
“Well, that makes sense,” Olivia says with a smirk. “He’s more greyskin than man, anyway. An infection he’s been fighting for more than three years now.” She shakes her head, sticking out her lower lip. “So pitiful the way you live, Jeremiah. Still haven’t found a Starborn healer yet?”
“Shut up,” he says.
Olivia notices the look of confusion on my face. “Oh yes,” she says. “Waverly, you are standing in a room with the two most evil people in the world. First, the man who created the virus, and was foolish enough to let it pass on to him, and of course the one who uses the virus to her advantage.”
“How are you not dead?” I ask Jeremiah in horror.
“Long story,” Olivia says, “but he’s lucky enough to have the blood of a Starborn inside him that lets him live through it. Frankly, I would rather be dead than live the way he does.”
“Shut up!” Jeremiah screams. He lets off a shot, missing Olivia by a foot and the window behind her shatters into a million pieces. I watch as she dives for cover behind a desk and Jeremiah fires again and again until his gun is empty. Olivia hears the clicking and raises to point her gun at Jeremiah, but I don’t give her the chance. I bring my pistol up and close one eye as I aim for her chest.
One shot does it.
Blood squirts from her shoulder and she spins through the air, landing next to the shattered window as her gun falls stories below. With Jeremiah out of bullets and Olivia on the floor, I can safely say I made the right call.
I point the gun at her head as she composes herself and gets to her knees, her feet dangling over the side of the building. She looks behind her briefly, seeing a mass of greyskins under her. If the fall wouldn’t kill her, the hungry greyskins would.
“You don’t want to kill me,” she says. She winces in pain and points at Jeremiah. “He’s the one you should kill.”
“Both of you should die,” I say. “The world didn’t deserve what you did to it. How many innocent people died because of you?” I take a step forward. Olivia dips her head and closes her eyes, scared of the bullet that’s about to go through her brain. “Look at the greyskins below you!” I yell. “Do it!” Olivia turns her head slowly, staring down at the greyskins. I take a deep breath. “Those people are like that because of you, Olivia, and now, you’re going to join them.”
She turns and looks at me, terror in her eyes. I clench my jaw, lift my boot, and kick Shadowface in the chest. Her screams can be heard throughout the entire compound as she falls to her death. In the darkness, I can’t see if she’s dead on impact or not, but either way, the greyskins converge on her as if they are starving.
I turn quickly to find Jeremiah staring at me from the other side of the room. His gun is empty, his chest drooling dark blood. I have changed the future. Now it’s time to make that future secure. One where Evie won’t have to worry about Jeremiah. She can live her life without fear of him.
“So this is it?” he asks calmly.
“I knew there was something different about you,” I say. “Your obsession with Starborns. I only recently figured out that you made the virus in the first place. But here you are, suffering from the infection.”
“It’s a horrible life,” he says.
“Immortality?” I ask. “Is that the blood you stole from some innocent Starborn?”
Jeremiah nods.
“And to sustain yourself, you eat people? You lust after flesh just like a greyskin?”
He nods again. The more I learn the sicker I feel. Part of me just wants to run out of this room and never look back. But I can do that when I’m finished with my job here.
But before I pull the trigger, a thought enters my head. I’m about to kill the man that created this virus. Might that mean he knows the cure? Or at least he could find one?
“Just kill me,” Jeremiah says. “I will never find a healer.”
“I just have one question for you,” I say. “Can you find a cure? Do you know how to stop the virus?”
He looks at me for a long moment. At first, I think he’s going to lie to me to try and stay alive longer, but he just shakes his head. “There is no cure. There will never be a cure.”
Though my hands are shaking, I have confidence in my aim. I point the gun at his head, already feeling relieved that both Olivia and Jeremiah will become forgotten history. I pull the trigger.
Click.
No!
A curse passes by my lips, and Jeremiah’s features soften. He takes a deep breath and takes a step back.
I pull the trigger three more times, hoping the gun was just jammed or something, but there’s only a clicking noise. I spent my last bullet on Olivia.
“Another day then, perhaps,” Jeremiah says as he turns around quickly.
I want to chase after him, but there’s nothing I can do. I rush out into the hallway and I look at Ethan, tears falling down my face. He looks angry. He looks like he wants to go after Jeremiah, but he’s fixed to the floor like some invisible weight is holding him down.
“Give me a gun!” I shout at him, but his stare remains fixed ahead. I look at Stephen. “Please!”
“You made us toss our weapons!” he says angrily.
I watch Jeremiah as he gets to the elevator and pushes the button to go down. He takes one last look at me, and our eyes meet as the doors open. I don’t have time to go for a gun. What could I have done differently? I didn’t know a shot to the chest wouldn’t be enough. I didn’t know he was a greyskin!
The elevator door closes, and I fall to my knees, weeping.
Chapter 24 - Mitch
Taylor stabs himself through the heart with a long kn
ife, just like I told him to. When I came up on him inside Shadowface’s building, he meant to grab for his gun and shoot at me, but a simple thought stayed his hand.
The long dark hallway felt foreboding when I first walked through it, and it was difficult to see very far ahead, though whatever guards that were left were killed easily enough. All I had to do was take control of the first guard I saw and command him to protect me and kill anyone that came within view. There were one or two that showed some resistance, but my man proved a valuable asset before I ordered him to shoot himself in the head.
Taylor is the last guard between me and Olivia’s office in the basement of the building. Though I already know that my mother isn’t here, this is where Samuel is and I care more about confronting him than Olivia.
I never knew my mother, and I never cared to face her. I always knew it would be my father’s actions that would end her. It was his right. She was his rival after all. However, it seems that Waverly stuck her nose where it didn’t belong and took that joy away from my father. I don’t care. All I wanted was for Olivia to die, and that is what happened.
I didn’t really see what happened, but by possessing Ethan’s mind, I know that my father is coming here. I know his plans. He’s going to sit at Shadowface’s desk, declare himself the one whose face no other has ever seen, and try to rule the world. I’m sure his plans are to eventually find me and eliminate me, but he has no idea that I am already here. I know he suspects I have my hand in today’s events, but he won’t expect me to be here waiting for him.
Taylor struggles to breathe as he pulls the knife from his heart. I feel sorry for him. He is a good man serving a bad person. He should have never put himself in this position. He closes his eyes and takes his final breath, allowing me the opportunity to walk through a set of double doors. I close them behind me and find myself in front of another set. The light around the edges tells me that the room will be very bright. I smile at the cleverness of my mother—making the journey to her office dark so that one will be blinded upon entering. I squint my eyes in preparation and step into the office.
The Starborn Ascension: Books 1, 2, and 3 (The Starborn Saga) Page 68