Have you seen anything else? Asana inquired, wondering how close they were to the impending battle she’d foreseen.
Nothing of consequence, Chloe lied again. She had, in fact, had a vision of Anna. Lucias would bring her to the compound to punish Asana, for what Chloe could not see, nor could she see what transpired after. That was the way of her visions. Whenever a future involved a choice which could send it in more than one direction, Chloe’s vision remained unfocused until events drew nearer or a definite choice was made. This particular choice seemed to belong to Asana.
CHAPTER 4 - A Plan Comes Together
“Jared, it’s been a week already. Isn’t there something Cami can do? He’s her brother; won’t they at least let her in to see him?” Alexa asked as she flopped down onto her brother’s bed.
“Trust me, she’s doing all she can, but she’s swamped with her duties now and even Father agrees it’s too great a risk until we know more about how the virus is affecting him. They are worried turning him and Layla over to us is a trick; that he’s given them a secret command or something to attack the first chance they get,” Jared replied, putting his hand on her shoulder.
“They are locked up behind impenetrable glass; what will it hurt to just let me see Ethan and Dante see Layla? Or at least tell Ethan I’m alive.”
“Alexa, from what Cami managed to get out of the assistant working for one of the few doctors allowed access, Ethan hasn’t spoken and he’s barely moved since he got here. You have to prepare yourself; he might not even understand if they do tell him.”
“And he might not recognize me when I do see him,” she recited, having heard the same words spoken again and again by people trying to appease and console her. “None of that matters; I’ve told you and everyone else already, our bond will bring him back!” she yelled growing frustrated.
“You realize that’s one of the main reasons they are reluctant to let you near him. What did you think would happen when you told them you want to let an infected vampire bite you? What if you’re wrong, Alexa? You’ll be infected and you’ll put everyone in the compound at risk.”
“Then they can lock me in there, too. At least then we’ll be together, but I’m not wrong and you all know it,” Alexa replied, feeling defeated. She’d shared Chloe’s vision with her brother and father, both also telepaths, so they’d seen firsthand what needed to happen in order for Ethan to be saved.
Jared sighed. The bed dipped under his weight as he sat down beside her. “I do trust Chloe’s visions, but you know how that works; the future is never set in stone. What she showed you was supposed to occur on the day she left, something could have changed; the virus may have taken a stronger hold. We all love you, sis; you have to understand the concern.”
“Of course I do, Jared, but what would you do if it was Cami?” Alexa asked pointedly.
Without even realizing it, Jared was clenching his jaw tightly with his fists squeezing so tight his knuckles were white.
“Exactly.” Alexa said correctly reading her brother’s reaction. They both knew he would take on the world to save the woman he loved.
“Yeah, okay,” Jared said as he started to relax again, “but what can we do? Dante told you that no one can get into that area without Commander Claesson, and it’s not just some code we can pull from his thoughts. We’re talking biometric security here; a retinal scan and full handprint, so unless you’re suggesting we cut off his hand and pop out an eye, we’re going to need to persuade him to let you in.”
“Ugh, if only there was some way I could sneak in when he lets the doctor in. Fucking vampire senses; he’d know I was coming from a hundred yards away, if I could even get that close. The guards in the corridors won’t let me past the training wing,” Alexa said with exasperation as she flopped down onto the bed.
“What about when the doc comes back out? Does the Commander have to open the door?” Jared asked.
“I have no clue; like I said, I can’t get anywhere near there. Why?” Alexa asked, her brows knitted together with confusion.
“I may have an idea, but we’re going to need some serious help. Come on,” Jared said jumping up and pulling her out the door.
✧
“Shit, that could actually work,” Cami said, her mouth turning up in an admiring half-smile as she looked up at Jared. “We’ll need Dante; he’s the only one who can talk Martinez into doing something so crazy, and Jasmine for the guard.”
“Martinez did it to sneak me out on that mission to the human’s farm house. How hard could it be to get him to help us now?” Jared asked somewhat sarcastically. They all knew this was a much more daunting task. Taking Jared off the compound during lockdown endangered Jared alone. Unauthorized access to infected prisoners put the whole compound, hell, maybe even the world, at risk.
“Getting Dante’s help won’t be a problem,” Alexa added. “He wants to see Layla as badly as I want to see Ethan.”
“Therein lays the problem,” Cami added. “Chloe saw you saving my brother, not Layla. The mate bond is a powerful thing. Seeing you may be enough to keep him under control, but Layla and Dante aren’t bonded; she’s too unpredictable. I don’t know if we can trust him in there with her.”
“Are you suggesting we tell Dante that he has to hang back while someone else goes in? Yeah, good luck with that,” Jared stated. Though Dante had been MIA most of the week since Cami had taken over his command, the few times Jared had caught a glimpse of him, Layla was the only thing on his mind and Cami had been witness to more than one shouting match between him and Commander Claesson about the same subject.
No, if anyone was going to get into that room, they weren’t doing it without Dante.
“Fuck,” Cami muttered, moving to the door. “Let’s get this over with. Who knows how much time we have before Lucias makes his next move.”
✧
A loud clang reverberated through the training room as the defenseless training dummy slammed into a metal pole. Dante had taken a page from Cami’s book, spending all the time he wasn’t occupied with Elite business punishing his body and inanimate objects unfortunate enough to be within striking distance. Since he’d been relieved of command, he didn’t have much Elite business to worry about anyway.
The soft squeak of the door opening raked across his nerves like nails on a chalkboard, since he assumed it was another idiot coming to spew the same old bullshit about how they would find a cure, that he needed to sleep, blah, blah, blah. What he needed was Layla and until he could have her, physical pain was the only thing that dulled the ache in his heart.
He didn’t bother looking to see who it was, intent on continuing his workout in the hopes that the intruder would take the hint and leave, but he stopped as the familiar and comforting scent of Alexa hit his nose. She was the only person he could stand to be around because she was the only one who truly understood what he was going through.
Turning to face her, he opened his arms. Alexa walked into them without hesitation. The embrace served two purposes; it provided them both with some measure of comfort and it allowed Dante, as a mirror, to take on Alexa’s ability temporarily. Unlike Chloe, Alexa couldn’t speak into the mind of another who wasn’t a telepath. Speaking directly into one another’s minds came in quite handy, since most of what they discussed involved disobeying Commander Claesson’s direct order to stay away from Ethan and Layla.
Before Cami and Jared had even stepped into the room, Alexa had telepathically relayed their entire plan to Dante. Unfortunately, because her mind was so open to him in that moment, he also knew of Cami’s desire to keep him from going in with Alexa.
Dante glared at Cami pointedly, ignoring Jared who stepped between them protectively. Both men knew that Cami didn’t need anyone’s protection; she could take care of herself being one of if not the best fighter in The Elite, but Jared couldn’t help himself. Sometimes his primal need to take care of the woman he loved, a woman who could easily kick his ass, overrode logic.
> Cami didn’t even get annoyed by Jared’s display. She was starting to find his occasional macho display endearing rather than insulting.
“Don’t worry about Martinez; he’ll do it,” Dante stated, still pinning Cami with his stare, “but you can take your concerns and shove them up your ass. I’m going, too.”
“Don’t fucking talk to her like that,” Jared growled, taking a step towards the much larger vampire. Cami shot between them, stopping Jared before he picked a fight he couldn’t win. While he and Dante were certainly on better terms than before, when they were essentially fighting over Cami, with what was going on with Layla, Dante was pretty much always in the mood for a fight. It didn’t matter if it was against friend or foe.
She reached back and took Jared’s fisted hand without taking her eyes from Dante, in case more intervention was necessary. Jared’s hand relaxed in hers as she spoke, though she could still feel the tension in his body as he leaned into her back.
“Listen, Dante. I get it and it was stupid to think we could keep you out, but you have to understand why we’re worried,” Cami said, craning her neck to look into Dante’s fierce eyes while standing in such close proximity. “You can’t know how you’ll feel when you see her locked up, so I need your word you won’t open the door to her cell no matter what happens. We’re going in there so Alexa can cure Ethan. If that works, it will be proof that curing the infection is possible and it might give the scientists a new angle to work from. Then the Commander might be more reasonable about letting you visit Layla.”
“She’s right, Dante,” Alexa said, softly placing her hand on his arm. The simple touch seemed to dissipate some of the aggression from the air around him.
“You have my word. I’m not going to try and free Layla; I just need to see her,” Dante said, his tone softening as he thought of seeing Layla’s beautiful face again.
✧
Ethan sat on the cold floor of his cell with his back against the wall. He only moved from his position there to retrieve the bags of blood the scientists shoved to him through the tray securely inserted into the impenetrable plexi-glass of his cell. Of course, he had to pay a price for them.
“We need another sample.” Ethan heard in an artificial sounding voice, as the researcher on duty pressed the button that provided the only source of outside sound into the plastic cage.
In a flash so fast it was almost difficult for the waiting vampire to track, Ethan moved to stand before the man who jumped back several inches, unable to hide his fear despite the several inches of unbreakable barrier that stood between him and the infected vampire they all feared.
With the touch of another button, a small round piece of the glass slid over. Having been subjected to the process several times a day for the past week, Ethan slid his arm into the slot, never taking his glowing red eyes off the throat of the other vampire. His fangs descended to their full length as he watched the steady strum of the scientist’s abnormally rapid pulse. A part of him was excited by the man’s fear and he inhaled deeply to take in the scent of the emotion, which seeped through the small opening, before a silver cuff clamped down on his arm, locking it in place.
Ethan didn’t even flinch as the cold metal burned into his flesh; the pain was nothing, he was nothing. He had lost everything. A wife destroyed by his own hand. A daughter stolen by the one he hated most in the world, but was bound by blood to serve until his last breath.
The nervous vampire made quick work of drawing the required sample of blood. The opening closed from the outside and Ethan’s arm was released. He collected his offered reward from the tray and made quick work of the three bags of red liquid. The beast inside him paced, anxious and dissatisfied. It wanted to hunt. It wanted fresh blood; to feel the beat of its victim’s heart as he drained every drop of blood.
But as quickly as the monster started to rise, a calming presence enveloped his mind and overwhelming grief gripped what was left of his heart.
Alexa. he thought, sinking back into his normal spot. He continued to feel her as strongly as ever, and though he knew it was only in his mind, she was the only thing that allowed him to hold on to the tiny shred that remained of who he once was. At the same time, feeling her in that way was the worst form of torture. He often wished it would stop, that he could just give in to the beast and his bloodlust and never look back, but he’d promised to hold on as long as he could for her, because it is what she would want.
There came a point with all infected when, while they resembled who they once were and were basically in control, they no longer had any humanity. No remorse. No love. They followed orders without question and they took what they wanted from whoever was unlucky enough to stumble across their path and never looked back. For most, it occurred as part of the initial transformation; but for Ethan, it was different.
As had become the normal progression of his silent torture, his thoughts turned to Chloe, and the scene of her giving herself over to Lucias replayed in his mind. For the briefest of moments he tried to convince himself that he will rescue her, hoping in some way that it will give him redemption for his sins against Alexa, but his beast’s low guttural laugh mocks him. He was powerless to act against his master, so he would remain just as he was; a feral animal in the cage it deserved.
✧
After seeing the pain his friend had been in for the past week, and knowing how powerful Chloe was, as Dante suspected it didn’t take much persuading to get Martinez to agree to help them, and Layla was Jasmine’s best friend, so she was in without any hesitation.
He stood completely still; concentrating on the impenetrable mist he was casting over himself, Dante, and Alexa as they waited for Jared’s signal.
With Cami still being allowed access to all areas of the compound, except the lab where Ethan and Layla were being held, it was easy enough sneaking the veiled trio to within a few yards of the final door they needed to pass through. For two days after devising their entry plan, Cami had been watching the Commander and the scientists who were allowed access to Ethan and Layla, carefully noting the amount of time that passed between Claesson opening the outer door and the scientist exiting, which they were able to do simply using the general access code for most doors to the compound. This was a lucky piece of information Alexa was able to pluck from one of the unsuspecting vampire’s minds when he wasn’t making much of an effort to keep up his mental shields.
“I’m so nervous,” Alexa whispered, so quietly that Dante wouldn’t have been able to hear if he weren’t a vampire.
“You don’t have to whisper, Alexa. Martinez’s mojo blocks the sound, too,” Dante said, feeling rather anxious himself, more from the thought of seeing Layla rather than the worry of being caught. As far as he was concerned, there wasn’t much the Commander could do to him that was worse than what he was living through already.
“I know; it just feels weird talking with the guard so close,” Alexa said a little more loudly, as she continued to watch the guard talking to Cami and Jared.
Cami had concocted a reason to enter the corridor so they could chat with the guard and distract him while the others snuck in. There was a soldier tasked with delivering blood to the various guards posted around the compound and, while he’d been making his rounds near the residential wing, Jasmine lured him into her quarters where Cami hit him with a powerful sedative dart. Cami hated involving anyone else, but she couldn’t very well risk discovery by shooting the unsuspecting vampire in the corridor, which was in plain view of the security cameras. The soldier was visiting from another compound and eager to impress the Commander, so there was no way he would deviate from his duties without a little help from Jasmine, whose talent was in persuasion. A little memory manipulation and the soldier would be convinced he’d spent the missing time thoroughly enjoying the pleasure of Jasmine’s company and, since he would have had to abandon his duties in order to do so, his silence was all but assured.
With the original courier securely restrained in
Jasmine’s bathroom, Cami took his delivery and met Jared before heading to the containment unit. The guard didn’t bat an eye when she explained that the regular courier had been called away for a special training session in preparation for an imminent attack on the compound. With everything that had happened over the past few weeks, the fear of attack hung heavy in the air of every vampire community, including the compound.
Absolution of Fate (Fate Series Book 3) Page 3