Torin braced himself, not sure what to expect next. How could anything be worse than being eaten alive by ants?
Hold that thought.
He immediately knew what he was in for as the sound of rushing water filled the dome. He looked down with wide eyes as water shot out from the sides of the pod, rising slowly at first, then faster and faster. Within mere seconds, the water had reached his midsection and completely saturated his pants, weighing him down like an anchor in the glass dome.
This is not good.
Amidst it all, he knew he absolutely could not panic. He waited until the water rose to chin level, which didn’t take long, before taking a deep breath and going under. He had to admit, the water felt good on his burning skin, but his lungs weren’t equipped to hold much air after the ant brigade that had just attacked them.
He opened his eyes. It took a second to adjust to his now-blurry vision, the scenery outside the pod rocking and swaying with the movement of the water. Struggling against the heavy weight of his pants, he swam to the top of the pod, hoping that he’d be able to find an air pocket, but there wasn’t one. He was completely entrapped in this stupid death-defying fish bowl.
His lungs constricted, desperate for air. Panic set in. Small air bubbles floated up from his nose. Dots began to fill his vision. He did everything he could to keep himself from inhaling, to keep as much air in his lungs as humanly possible, but his mind wasn’t strong enough. The floodgates opened as his nose filled with water, his mouth opening in a scream. Liquid waterfalled into his lungs.
This is it. I’m a goner.
Torin closed his eyes as a choking sensation took hold. He could feel his body convulsing, trying to rid itself of water while being surrounded by even more of it. Before all of the oxygen depleted from his brain, he tried to convince himself that it was okay, that he was prepared to die. He could let go.
I’m sorry, Emery. I tried.
Just as another huge wave of water entered his lungs, Torin felt himself float slightly upward. The water level was lowering. With what little strength he had left, Torin catapulted his body up to the top of the pod and came into a small pocket of air. He kicked his feet as hard as he could to remain in the small air bubble, coughing incessantly as the water drained out the sides of the pod into an imaginary sewer channel.
When all of the water had disappeared, he fell to the ground, sputtering and gasping for air. The noises coming from his mouth were what he imagined a dying cow would sound like, but he didn’t care. He swallowed large mouthfuls of oxygen, desperate for more. Slowly, the pain in his lungs waned.
For a few minutes he sat, unsure as to whether or not his body would ever feel strong enough to move. Out of the corner of his eye, he could still see Victor standing there. The man didn’t flinch.
Torin raised his head to make eye contact with the chief once again. The smug look on his face only made him more determined. He pulled himself upright, his legs wobbling. With his chin held high, he stood up straight with his shoulders back, chest out.
Victor chuckled under his breath. “I’m going to ask you one last time and I’d advise you to really think before you respond.” He shifted the remote from one hand to the other. “Will you fix the machine?”
Torin kept his gaze on the chief. His body ached. His mind felt jumbled. His psyche was begging him, “No more!” All he wanted to do was give in and fix the machine. Victor would leave him alone and hopefully let him go in peace. But he couldn’t.
This was bigger than he was.
He stood a little straighter before answering. “No.”
“Is that your final answer?”
Torin took a deep inhale. “It is.”
Victor took a few steps closer, the heat from his breath fogging up the outside of the pod. “I sure hope you enjoyed that last breath,” he snarled, “because it’s the last one you’re ever going to have.”
Torin closed his eyes. Stay calm. He took another inhale to soothe his sore lungs, but was met with opposition. He tried again, but was met with the same resistance. Oh god.
As if his lungs hadn’t been through enough after being stung repeatedly and essentially drowning, depleting oxygen really was the icing on the cake.
His breaths became shorter and shorter, shallower and shallower, until he was pressed up against the glass, gasping for air. Oxygen was leaving the pod at an alarming rate. I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating.
Torin sank to the ground, his body spasming uncontrollably. He could hear Victor’s menacing laugh on the other side. His hands met his throat and he wished more than anything that he had the strength required to squeeze it tight enough for it to be over with. His brain started to shut down, his sight overwhelmed with little black dots. Just as he was about to surrender to the other side, something came into his view. A waterfall of long crimson hair. Olive complexion. Piercing grey eyes.
Emery had come for him.
38
The sight was almost too much to bear.
Torin, on his hands and knees, locked in the same glass pod that she’d been trapped in when Victor had decided to take her on a tour of the chamber’s underbelly. She didn’t know why he was on his hands and knees, but one look at her friend’s face told her that he was close to succumbing to unconsciousness. To death.
The look on Torin’s face was enough to make Victor spin around. “Well, well, well. What a delightful surprise.” He turned back toward his prisoner, who was still kneeling on the floor of the pod, gasping for air. “Lucky for you, it looks like the tables have turned.”
Emery rushed over to the pod and pressed her hands against the glass. She pounded on it as hard as she could, hoping it would be enough to break it, but deep down, she knew better. And she was right. Not a single crack formed from the impact. “Let him go,” she demanded.
Victor chortled. “Now, I could do that, seeing as I have everything I need right here.” He held up a black and silver machine, his eyes gleaming with malicious intent. “But where’s the fun in that?”
Emery’s eyes widened as she looked at the machine, then back at Torin. Fear was written all over his face. For a moment, she wanted to succumb to her panic, to let it take over, but then her eyes landed on something underneath his shirt. She squinted to get a closer look. It was a faint shadow of a horseshoe, barely visible beneath the cotton. The real omega pendant. He still has it. Victor hasn’t gotten to it yet.
“Guards!” the President yelled, his voice echoing throughout the laboratory. “Seize her!”
Emery put her arms in the air to surrender as Mason and Warren haphazardly approached her. Warren grabbed one of her wrists while Mason grabbed the other. They cuffed her hands behind her back, then shoved her in Victor’s direction.
“This way,” he ordered as he walked out the doors.
She turned her head, her confidence fading as Torin’s pod remained in its place. If she’d just thrown her dagger at Victor the minute she’d laid eyes on him, none of this would be happening. But the look on Torin’s face, his crumpled body lying on the floor of the pod, had distracted her. How could it not? Her concern for him had clouded her judgment.
A potentially lethal mistake.
She shifted her gaze to Mason. His hand was on her left shoulder as he guided her down the hallway. He looked at her, and while there was something different in his expression, underneath it all, she could still see Mason. He didn’t look the way her father had when he’d been under the control of the microchip. His eyes were pleading and full of emotion, unlike her father’s, whose had been empty and dark. She looked again just to be sure, but it was hard to tell. It was like Mason was still in there, somewhere, but trapped and looking for a way out. She nodded at him, trying to communicate that she’d find a way to free him.
They reached the common area and Warren shoved her with so much force that she fell abruptly to her knees. She grunted as she swung her head to the side and blew a stray hair from h
er face.
“So,” Victor said as he sat the small machine down on his desk, “you came back. I find it odd that someone who escaped would come back to the very place they were taken captive. Unless of course, you missed us. Care to tell me why?”
Emery licked her lips, her voice cracking as she spoke. “I guess you could say we have some unfinished business.” Her eyes darted to the main entrance. Her father and Naia should have barged in by now. Where the hell are they?
Victor noticed her shift in attention. “Expecting someone?” He whistled and one of the guards emerged with a lifeless body over his shoulder. He grumbled as he dropped it to the floor with a sickening thud.
Emery gasped. She’d know that blonde pixie cut anywhere. Her stomach turned not once, but twice.
They’d gotten Naia.
She looked back up at Victor with the most expressionless face she could muster. “I don’t know who that is,” she lied. Playing dumb could possibly work in her favor, but more likely than not, he’d see right through it. Either way, it was worth a shot.
“I’m sure you remember Naia,” Victor said with a sadistic laugh. He walked over to the motionless body and kicked it lightly in the side. “I was surprised to see her after such an extended period of time. She showed up with this.” He pulled the AK-47 from behind the wall. “I found this a little disturbing, given that she’s just a sweet, innocent girl.” His eyes locked on hers, then narrowed, his pupils slitting like a snake’s. “Tell me, Emery, why would Naia have a gun, and an assault rifle at that?”
She blinked, doing her best to keep her emotions in check. “How would I know? Maybe for protection?”
Victor considered this for a moment, then shook his head. “You want to know what I think?”
Not really, she thought, her mind reeling in fifteen different directions. Where was her father? Had he been captured, too? Had she dug herself into a hole there was no escaping?
“I think you two are on a team,” he continued, his voice steady. “I think you escaped, contacted Naia, and planned how you would take me down. But what you didn’t realize is that I’m the master of cliché strategies. Having been a part of them myself many, many times over, I can sense them from a mile away. I know how to recognize them.” He placed the gun back against the wall and walked over to where Emery was kneeling. He placed his finger under her chin, tilting her face upward. “So much wasted potential,” he murmured to himself.
The sight of him made her want to vomit. The bags under his eyes had shifted from a slight purple to a dark grey. Crow’s feet extended at the corners in all directions. His touch was rough on her chin’s delicate underside, his face and hands more wrinkled and leathery than the last time they’d met. She wanted to spit in his face, remove her dagger, and penetrate the blade so deeply into his eye that it protruded into his skull and sliced right through his brain. A man with such malicious intentions should not have the freedom to think and act on his beliefs. I could do it now and end it. It could all be over with.
“So?” Victor purred, interrupting her thoughts. “Am I hot or cold? From the look on your face, I’d say I was getting warmer.”
She twisted her neck to break the contact between his fingertips and her chin. There would be no use lying to him. She wasn’t very good at it anyway. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I found Naia after I escaped and she agreed to help me.” She eyed her partner’s immobile body. “Apparently, our strategy had some holes that we didn’t plan for.”
“You see, that’s where I’m having trouble. It’s quite unlike you to ignore something so blatantly obvious. So you can understand why I’m hesitant to believe a single word that comes out of your mouth.” He walked back over to the desk and picked up the machine Torin had created. “No matter. I have what I need now, thanks to your friend.”
Emery looked back in the direction of the laboratory. When she’d walked in, there was no doubt in her mind that Victor had been torturing Torin. For how long, she hadn’t a clue. It’d almost seemed as though she’d arrived right as Victor was about to take Torin’s life. She shuddered at the thought, forcing down the bile that was rising in her throat. “Let him go,” she muttered under her breath.
“Who? Little boy-genius?” Victor laughed. “What good would that do me?”
“Your machine,” she interjected, “what if something goes wrong? What if it malfunctions? Who are you going to call on to fix it if not him?”
“Oh, you naïve girl. I won’t need this machine for long. I only need it to destroy this.” He held up the decoy omega pendant. “And this.” He pulled the alpha ring from out of his pocket. The ring glimmered brightly, even in the dim chamber lighting.
Emery drew in a sharp breath. Conflicting feelings overwhelmed her as she laid eyes on the ring: sentiment because it had been a gift from her mother, and terror because of the immense power that it held. She had to think fast. Buy time. Distract him.
“But if there are more keys . . .” she trailed off, hoping she could lead him to a pot of gold that didn’t exist.
“Don’t be crass. These are the only two keys out there. These two are all I need.”
She cocked her head to the side, eyes challenging his answer. “Are you sure about that?”
Victor furrowed his brows as he studied the two keys. He contemplated her statement and, after a few minutes, turned his attention back to her. “I’ll decide what to do with boy-genius later. But right now, we have more pressing matters that need tending to.”
He marched over and seized her by the neck of her shirt, dragging her bound body to the table. With one swift movement, he grabbed a triangular sample of carbon steel from his desk, then delicately placed it on the platform of the machine. He pressed the button.
Emery closed her eyes halfway, trying to shield her face from whatever the machine was about to do. She waited. And waited. But nothing happened.
“Just as I thought. Your turn,” he ordered.
She regarded the machine with great clarity as she realized what Torin had done. In order to activate the built-in disintegration mechanism, Victor needed her identification, her fingerprints. Without them, the omega pendant and alpha ring couldn’t be destroyed. She smiled. Without even knowing it, she’d been right about there being more than two keys. Maybe she and Torin were still on the same wavelength after all.
He had made her the final key.
39
Torin’s eyes fluttered open as he regained consciousness. He was slumped against the glass wall of the pod, arms and ankles still bound by holographic cuffs. His eyes scanned his surroundings as he tried to remember where he was and what had happened. He took a deep inhale, coughing as a bounty of oxygen entered his lungs. It hurt.
Everything hurt.
Using the walls of the pod for support, he pushed himself up off the ground, his entire body resisting the upward motion. His shallow breaths fogged up the dome as he gazed out the fingerprinted glass. His mind traveled back to right before he’d lost consciousness. Had he really seen Emery? If so, was she still here? Or had it all been a hallucination, a side effect of Victor’s torture tactics?
She’s here. She has to be.
Torin brought his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes, the holocuffs zinging his skin. He’d seen Emery, but neither Naia nor the Commander had been with her. If only he knew what their strategy was; at the very least, it would put his mind at ease and prepare him for whatever might happen next.
He looked around the pod, searching for a way to escape. There’s always a loophole. Novak was only human and was bound to make mistakes—there had to be another way out. He knelt back down onto his hands and knees, examining the crevices along the floor. Nothing. He stood up and slid his hands along the glass, feeling for a crack or a seal. Nothing. His hands made his way to the top of the pod, feeling around for an escape door. Still nothing.
This pod is literally more secure than 7S Headquarters.
; Torin leaned against the glass, suddenly remembering something. He brought his hands to his chest, his fingertips grazing the outline of a horseshoe. He breathed a sigh of relief. He still had the pendant.
His ears perked up as a loud thump sounded from just outside the laboratory doors. He looked to his left, his eyes landing on Von. His oversized body suddenly jolted forward like he’d been punched in the stomach, then disappeared from sight as it slunk down the glass onto the floor.
What the hell?
Torin pressed his body against the back wall of the pod, not sure who or what to expect. The laboratory doors opened and in walked the Commander, half of his face beaten and bloody, the other half clean-shaven and polished. His knuckles were white from gripping an M60 assault rifle, the butt of the weapon covered in crimson.
Byron raced over to the pod, limping a little along the way. “Are you okay?” he asked as he came closer.
“I should ask you the same thing.” Torin shook his head from one side to the other. “I’ve been better.”
The Commander examined him closely. “You don’t look so good. What happened?”
Torin kept his eyes glued to the laboratory doors and windows, praying that no one would notice Von’s sudden disappearance and the Commander’s timely entrance. “When Novak found out that he needed Emery’s fingerprints to operate the disintegration machine I’d built for him, he was anything but pleased.” He broke his stare from the door and looked at the Commander, who happened to be grinning back at him, a rare moment for Torin. Definitely one for the books. “He demanded that I fix it, but I refused. And so the torture began.”
“Keep talking,” Byron instructed as he circled the pod. “I’m going to look for a way to get you out of this thing. It seems to be a similar technology we use at Seventh Sanctum Headquarters, for different purposes of course.” He blushed. “It shouldn’t be that difficult to figure out.” He looked up at Torin. “How bad was it?”
The Order of Omega (The Alpha Drive Book 2) Page 18