Arise (Cruel and Beautiful World Book 3)

by L. Stoddard Hancock

  Deryn stayed close to him, her heart thumping in her chest as she realized this was it. Their one and only chance to save Xander, not to mention themselves.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, Talon hesitated for a moment. There was no window in the door that would let them see if anyone was beyond it.

  “Hold on one second,” said Izzy’s voice through their earpieces. “It looks like I may be able to activate heat sensors. And ... there!”

  Deryn looked at the map she still held. Several small red dots appeared.

  “I didn’t realize Saevus had this technology in his home,” said Izzy. “Stay close together as one dot if you can. Anyone monitoring might not think twice about one extra body, but two is worth questioning. Looks like you’re in the clear near your door. I have the camera monitors pulled up and I’ll make sure they never catch sight of you.”

  “Thank god your friends recruited her,” Talon whispered.

  Deryn nodded in agreement. When Neo and Odette had recruited Rees, it was really only because they knew he could get Izzy on their side. Her parents both worked at the Government Lab in security development and helped create Utopia’s whole system, including the S.U.R.G.E.s. They were executed when it was discovered they had Outsider relatives. Izzy barely escaped to the tunnels, only surviving because of her knowledge of the robots sent to hunt people like her.

  She was the reason Neo and Odette had a S.U.R.G.E. under their control. She also sent Finley off with notes to her undisclosed sources in the lab, helping them create the Repeller guns. President Saevus had created one hell of an enemy when he chose to kill two innocents for sharing blood with people they had never even met.

  Knowing Izzy was there watching their backs was perhaps the only thing that gave Talon enough confidence to open that door, letting his sister return to a place he had always wanted to protect her from. Other than their father, the two of them were the most wanted people in Utopia, and they were willingly stepping directly into the snake pit.

  According to the red dots on the map, there were no people between them and their destination, but a few open doors might expose them to people in some of the side rooms.

  Talon and Deryn hurried toward the elevator they needed, stopping as they approached a room with two red dots inside. Peeking around the corner, Talon saw the door was closed. They continued on.

  And then they were approaching Saevus’s parlor. Deryn’s heart quickened as they stopped outside of the room that haunted her dreams. It was the room where she had lost her freedom, her innocence. That day had forever changed her, breaking the girl she’d once been into a million pieces on that very floor.

  But that Deryn was gone.

  She would not give Saevus the satisfaction of breaking again by the simple presence of a room. Xander needed her and she needed to stay strong. She could do this, no matter what demons she had to face.

  There were three red dots in the room. Talon stood in the shadows and glanced around the corner, catching sight of President Saevus, facing the fireplace with Barath Voclain and Wenton Pace giving updates on the preparations for Xander’s execution. All three had their backs facing the hallway the Leon siblings were hiding in. Talon took Deryn’s hand and ushered her to the other side. That was it. The last of the red dots. Their pathway to the elevator was clear.

  The two of them walked quickly but quietly, not daring to say a word. And then the elevator was in front of them. As they approached it, the doors slid open.

  “You’re good to go,” said Izzy’s voice in their ears.

  Talon and Deryn practically leapt into the elevator, both of them letting out sighs of relief as the doors shut and the floor beneath their feet began to move.

  “We still have to climb twenty-two floors,” said Talon with a small smile.

  “And twenty-one of those floors are probably safer than the one we were just on.”

  The two of them had just started to laugh when a very loud bang rattled the entire tower.

  Deryn looked at Talon, panic filling her eyes. “Was that -”

  “What the fuck was that?” shouted Neo’s voice in their ears.

  “Team Eve, do you copy? Was that our bomb?” demanded Odette.

  Silence.

  “Team Eve, do you copy?” she repeated.

  Nothing.

  “Does anyone see them on their map?”

  The elevator jerked to a stop.

  “Team Leon, red dots are swarming the tower. They’re calling the elevator. Get the hell out and stay out of sight!” ordered Izzy as the doors slid open.

  Deryn pressed her earpiece as she and Talon ran forward. “What floor are we on?”

  “Fifty-seven,” said Izzy. “You better climb fast. I’ll do whatever I can to keep reinforcements from reaching the ninety-second floor.”

  “Thank you,” said Deryn. She and Talon ran in opposite directions, searching for the staircase. Normally staircases were right near the elevator, but this one was two rights and a left away. Deryn used the earpiece to call Talon over. Izzy couldn’t get a read on that floor so they had no idea whether or not anyone was on it, but she was mapping their every move.

  “What do you see up there so I can take notes?” she asked while Deryn waited for Talon to get to her.

  Deryn looked around. There were a lot of doors but she wasn’t sure if she dared opening one. She went to the closest, held her Element at the ready and slowly turned the knob. She peeked inside, her brow knitting as she got a good look around the room.

  “Tomatoes,” she said, pressing her earpiece. “This room is full of tomato vines.” She closed the door and went to the next room. “And this room has ...” She wasn’t sure exactly. While she knew it was edible, she couldn’t quite recall the name since she had only ever seen it in books before. An extinct vegetable. “It’s food. They grow in husks and have yellow kernels on them.”

  “Corn?” said the voice of Rees.

  “I think so,” said Deryn, shutting the door and trying another. This one had lettuce. Rows and rows of lettuce.

  “My grandfather used to talk about corn. You could pop the kernels and he said it was really good,” said Rees.

  “Floor fifty-seven: vegetable growth,” said Izzy, accompanied by the sound of her typing.

  “What an asshole, keeping good vegetables from the rest of the city. I haven’t had a tomato since I was a kid,” said Neo. “Just the highly processed ones from the greenhouse that are as big as my head.”

  “No, these ones look like the tomatoes my grandmother used to grow in Redwood,” said Deryn.

  Finally, Talon turned the corner. He pressed his earpiece and said, “There’s a room of full-grown apple trees around the corner.”

  “Seriously, what an asshole,” repeated Neo.

  “We’re heading up now,” said Deryn, leading the way to the staircase.

  “And we’re just about inside the dungeons,” said Odette. “Expect us to join you -”

  “Team Boyce, stop and head back!” screamed Izzy, making both Talon and Deryn rub at their aching ears. “The dungeons are swarming with red dots. They must have found the bodies and I think they’re searching for our entrance. Move!”

  “Shit!” said Neo.

  Deryn pulled them up on her map and watched as they bolted back the way they came. There was a large cluster of red dots right near the entryway they had used. And then they were lowering into the manhole, Neo and Odette barely making it out of the secret passageway that brought them there before red dots were moving down the ladder.

  “I found them! I found Team Eve!” the voice of Nita suddenly shouted. “They’re with a large group of people heading toward the tower, but I can’t tell if they’re hiding among them or prisoners. Adrian and I are still trying to find a way in, but Team Eve will be our priority. We’ll let you know what we find.”

  “Good luck,” said Talon, his breathing heavy as he and Deryn sprinted up the stairs. Each floor had two flights between them, whi
ch meant seventy flights altogether.

  Deryn pulled up the clock on her wristband.

  11:13 a.m.

  Forty-seven minutes until Xander would be executed.

  Hold on, Xander, she thought to herself, hoping that somehow the message might reach him. I’m coming.

  CHAPTER 6

  Neo and Odette returned to the passageway they were in previously, knowing they only had a matter of minutes until the guards found their way to them.

  They stared down the hall to the open room where four guards were stationed. They readied their guns.

  “Looks like things are about to get messy,” said Neo, heading toward the room.

  Odette nodded. “We knew going in that this was never going to be a clean rescue mission.”

  The two of them marched down the passageway and straight into the bright opening. They raised their guns and fired before any of the guards had a moment to react. All of the shots were clean, hitting each guard between the eyes. Odette and Neo each found the guard closest to their size and stripped them of their clothing.

  “At least we’re getting two new guard uniforms out of this,” said Odette, always the optimist.

  Once their clothes were changed, Neo located a manhole that led to the water supply. He lifted it and he and Odette carried each of the bodies toward the hole, dropping them into the flowing river below. Their old clothes soon followed.

  There was no time for the two of them to run before boots were storming down the passageway from the secret wall entrance. Neo barely got the manhole cover back on before a dozen guards ran into view. He and Odette stood at attention.

  “You there!” said the guard captain, approaching them. “How many of you are stationed down here?”

  “Four in this sector, sir,” said Odette. “Two have just gone down that passageway after a S.U.R.G.E. returned several minutes early.” She pointed to the passageway heading far away from Izzy and Rees.

  “Have you witnessed anything else strange?”

  “No, sir,” Neo and Odette said together.

  The captain groaned. He pointed to some of his guards. “You five, head back and find out where the intruders came from.” He moved his finger. “You four, follow me this way.” He motioned toward the passageway Odette had indicted. “And you two will stay here and give them an update. Make sure no one goes through here!”

  Everyone saluted and took off in their respective directions.

  The two guards who stayed behind gave Neo and Odette a quick update about the strange explosion near the gate leading to Middle City and the dead guards found in Saevus’s dungeon.

  Once Neo and Odette had all of the information they shared a look, lifted their guns and killed the two guards. After tossing their bodies down the manhole, they took off down the passageway none of the guards had bothered to investigate.

  • • •

  Nita and Adrian ran through the underground, pressing every peculiar looking wall they came across in hopes of finding another secret passageway leading into Saevus’s tower. Of course, being underground put them at a disadvantage since anything they found would more than likely lead them to the swarming dungeons.

  Even as they moved, Nita could not stop watching the dots on her map that were Evangeline and Everett. They were now with a ton of red dots on the first floor of Saevus’s tower. They weren’t moving, which she convinced herself was good. If they were prisoners then they would undoubtedly be brought to the dungeons, or somewhere else to be tortured.

  “Neetles, we’re not going to find anything down here,” said Adrian, looking as frustrated as she felt. “There isn’t going to be another passageway that magically takes us inside unless we blast through the floor ourselves. There was one entrance into the dungeons and that was it.”

  Nita groaned. “I know.” She stopped and thought. “We’ll head back to that ladder we found leading up to Inner City. Try and find another way in. Hopefully there’s enough chaos brewing up there that they won’t even notice us.”

  “I doubt it, but it’s either that or give up and head back.”

  Nita narrowed her eyes. “Which we would never do.”

  “Of course not,” said Adrian with a small smile. “We all joined your team for one reason and one reason alone. We like to be in the middle of the action and you always get us there.”

  “Then I hope you’re ready because we’re about to head into the dead center of it.”

  The two of them turned and sprinted back the way they came. It had been about ten minutes since they’d found that ladder leading up to Inner City, and they were now on an even tighter time crunch.

  They had gone so deep into the underground trying to find a hidden passageway that they hadn’t encountered a S.U.R.G.E. in probably twenty minutes. Their run back was still clear.

  When they reached the ladder, Nita climbed up first with Adrian just behind her. She got to the top and threw off the manhole cover without even looking. There was no time for extreme caution because, no matter what, they were climbing out of that opening.

  But it ended up not even mattering. Nita and Adrian came out in the middle of an alley. Utopians were running and screaming. No one noticed the two people emerging from the underground.

  Nita and Adrian were quick to join the panicked crowd, automatically being pulled toward Saevus’s tower since the explosion had occurred near the gate leading to Middle City.

  It was supposed to have gone off closer to the tower and not until they were on the verge of rescuing Xander.

  Oh well.

  As they got closer to the tower, Nita grabbed Adrian’s hand and pulled him down one of the side streets. If they were going to get in, then it sure as hell wasn’t going to be through the front door.

  They sprinted through the streets, heading for the west side of Saevus’s tower, not stopping to look back or worrying about scouting ahead. Which was why they were taken by such surprise when someone darted in front of them and grabbed Nita’s arm.

  Nita whiplashed and nearly fell over. Her eyes focused and Sewick Blum smirked at her, looking as shifty and unkempt as ever. In fact, that used to be part of his appeal.

  “Hello, doll. I had a feeling you were behind this.”

  She sneered and yanked her arm free. “Don’t get in my way, Sewick.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it. But, as it is, if you want to get inside you’re going the wrong way.”

  The man grabbed her arm again and dragged her northwest, Adrian following at their heels.

  “I am curious why you care one bit about Xander Ruby’s life though,” said Sewick, quickening his steps as they passed a few people he seemed to recognize. “Just one more suicide mission under your belt for your fucking boyfriend and his family.”

  Nita yanked her arm free but kept in step with him. “Oh, shut it with that shit. You know I chose to be here. I always do.”

  “Yep, which is why I’d prefer not to see you dead just yet.” Sewick glanced sideways and smirked at her. “The president made me an offer, you know? Keep doing a good job and when he captures that pesky Resistance member Nita Mallard he’ll gift her to me, untouched by his Guardian scum. Didn’t bother to tell him been there, done that. Thought it might look bad on my part.”

  Nita groaned. “I doubt he’d be giving you such elegant gifts if he knew you were our person on the inside for years.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he knows. Why else would he make me such a great offer to be his full-time ‘business dealer’?” said Sewick, glancing sideways at her and winking.

  “You’re scum,” she spat.

  Sewick shrugged. “You gave me no reason to stay.”

  His eyes stayed alert as they walked and, soon, they were approaching Saevus’s tower.

  “Call whoever you got fucking with the president’s security system and tell them to do something about the camera on the second southwest door,” ordered Sewick.

  Nita pressed her earpiece. “Tech girl, I need a favor,” said
Nita, not wanting to use names. “Team Nade is entering through the second southwest door. Make sure the cameras don’t capture us.”

  “Roger that,” said Izzy. “I’ve taken the camera and put it on a loop. They know I’m in the system. Be quick so they don’t find what I’m meddling with.”

  “Got it.” Nita turned to Sewick. “We need to move.”

  They all started running and, within thirty seconds, they were by the door. Sewick scanned his wristband and ushered Nita and Adrian inside. They entered a stairway.

  “These stairs are never used,” he explained. “Now be a good girl and knock me out.”

  “My pleasure.” Nita nodded to Adrian.

  “Later, Seaweed.” Adrian jammed a dart into Sewick’s neck. He fell back instantly.

  Adrian and Nita both flipped off the unconscious man before sprinting up the stairs.

  • • •

  Evangeline and Everett finally managed to break away from the guards they’d been hiding amongst. When alone in Saevus’s tower, they bolted onto the nearest staircase. They had only made it to the third floor before they heard voices. They panicked and ran out of the stairway, entering a hallway with several closed doors.

  “Shit,” Everett whispered.

  He was right. It was shit.

  Their plan had been ruined when they stumbled upon a random equipment check by a captain of the guard. Evangeline had abandoned the small box, hoping to come back for it. But before they got the chance it had gone off, probably by someone who had the misfortune of stepping on it.

  Since then, the two of them had just been trying to blend in, following the guards they noticed were headed for Saevus’s tower. Too many people had been around them, so they couldn’t contact the others, even though they could hear them speaking. Really, they were just lucky the guard captain hadn’t noticed their damn earpieces.

  The voices in the stairwell grew closer and Evangeline and Everett looked at each other in a panic. Guards they could lie to, but those could very well be Guardian voices and they would demand to know why they were on that floor.