Nexus Tear (Laments of Angels & Dark Chemistry Book 2)

by Meg Xuemei X

  That’s more like it, Lucienne thought.

  She needed his hostility to harden her heart. But the callousness in his eyes was soon replaced by pain, heavy as sheets of rain. His misery, mirroring the anguish inside her, etched on every inch of his face.

  Then anger rolled off him like the strong scent of a caged panther. He started toward her again without breaking his stride, his intense eyes never leaving hers, daring her to shoot him. The hurt in his eyes wished for her to end him so he didn’t have to suffer the world anymore.

  He advanced as if she was his doomed mate, and no one could stand in his way to claim her.

  Lucienne hissed.

  Squeeze, a voice said in her mind. A bullet in his treacherous heart would rid the Siren of the dagger in hers.

  Lucienne’s fingers tightened again on the trigger despite its slickness.

  Handle this, she ordered herself.

  She never issued empty threats—when she took aim at her enemy, she shot. So what was stopping her? Her eyes burned with fury—at herself, at her weakness, and at Vladimir.

  A squad of militants poured into the lab, seeking targets and wanting blood. From their uniforms, Lucienne knew they weren’t the rebel force. They must be the Sealers’ special force Schmidt had mentioned.

  They looked surprised at a teenage girl pointing her gun at Vladimir as they turned their rifles on her.

  Vladimir stepped in front of Lucienne, blocking them. “Do not shoot! She’s too important,” he said, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “Let me handle the girl.”

  “What’s going on, Prince Vladimir?” the squad leader demanded in a thick French accent. “Is she the Siren girl?”

  “She is,” Vladimir said. “We’ll take her alive to the elders. The reward will be greater.”

  Lucienne didn’t remove her aim from the traitor, but she knew if she shot him, she would end up dead, too. Fortunately, he seemed more interested in capturing her and presenting her to the Sealers as a trophy.

  You’ll never catch me. But she could take advantage of his vanity plan. She would take care of the SWAT team first. She gambled that the Czech traitor wouldn’t shoot her in the back. He wouldn’t get satisfaction from an easy kill. He would punish her before bleeding her dry.

  The leader pulled out a phone.

  He was going to inform the Sealers’ elders about taking her in.

  Lucienne dove to the ground and rolled. Marloes’ handgun thrust forward, she fired as she moved in a blur.

  Shock registered on their faces as the ringleader and two other soldiers instantly dropped to the ground, bullets in their foreheads.

  They hadn’t expected her to have that kind of speed and accuracy. Lucienne sneered. Even when they saw her pointing a gun at Vladimir, they hadn’t put her on their threat meter. Only Vladimir knew how deadly she could be, but he hadn’t had time to warn his new comrades.

  By the time the enemy had recovered and opened fire, Lucienne had leapt behind a marble counter.

  Bullets cut into the wall behind her. Shards of concretes and marble shattered around her.

  Her blood seared hot and cold all at once—hot for the battle, cold for leaving an opening for Vladimir to gun her down at any second.

  The gunfire was deafening as the militants closed in on her. Soon they would surround her.

  Let them come near, she hissed. She darted her eyes around, frantically seeking an exit.

  Then the screaming of the guns ceased.

  Lucienne peeked from the side of the counter, but found there was no one for her to shoot except Vladimir. Her eyes widened.

  He had disposed the remaining six militants—his own team. All bullets found their heads. Like her, he wasted no shots to the bullet-proof vests.

  Lucienne rose and turned to Vladimir with a grin she didn’t realize was there. But it felt good fighting with him again. The old memories wheeled back. How much she had missed the fun, the thrill, and freedom when he had been around. She spotted a spark in his eyes, too, and knew he felt the same.

  “Lucia,” he whispered, starting toward her again, eager to cross the room and eliminate the distance between them.

  Her heart beat out of rhythm. Her eyes lit in anticipation. Would he pull her into his arms and touch her? Would it feel the same?

  Hasty footsteps sounded in the hall, as if an entire battalion was approaching.

  Vladimir cursed. “They must be the rebels. The team with me is down.”

  “Then I’ll let you live another day, Prince Vladimir,” she said, her stomach lurching at her own harsh words and the difficulty of parting from him. “Next time, you won’t be so lucky.” Lowering her gun, she sprang toward a side exit, away from the oncoming horde and a stricken Vladimir.

  “Lucia, wait!” he called after her.

  Lucienne didn’t stop.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Running down a staircase, Lucienne entered the next level of the lab and moved along the underground corridor. Laboratories lined one side.

  She pulled out her Eidolon and dialed Sphinxes. She didn’t want to contact her men directly in the heat of the fight. That could distract them and even get them killed. It was better she went to them.

  Ziyi picked up at the first ring. Her panicked voice sobbed. “Lucia, are you okay? The men went berserk after they lost you. You stay right there. Hide. I’m bringing them to you.”

  “I’ll meet them at the south exit,” Lucienne said. “I need you to guide me to get there.”

  The ground suddenly shook. Lucienne pressed a hand on the wall to steady herself, her eyes darting wildly.

  Girls’ voices broke out from a nearby laboratory, possibly two doors down. The sound of thunder tore through the domes, drowning out their screams, and Ziyi shouted on the other end of the phone.

  The building rumbled again.

  An explosion. Lucienne sprang toward the lab where the cries had come from and peeked through the slot window on the door, her handgun ready.

  A cage stood at the center of the lab. Cowering inside were terrified teenagers. Some of them were beating the latch while others tried to twist the iron bars to get out. Above the cage the label read: New Stock.

  They must be the “supplies” from the Sealers Brotherhood Schmidt bragged about. The psychopath preferred his test subjects to be healthy youths. Lucienne kicked the door open.

  The prisoners stopped banging the cage when they saw her. From their looks, they must have regarded her as the newest captive until they saw a gun in her hand. Their expression changed to fear.

  “Hold on, Ziyi,” Lucienne spoke into the phone. “Some people here need help.”

  Everyone started shouting in different languages, “Help! Help us! Open the cage!” Some of them pounded the bars again to get her attention.

  “Help yourself first, Lucia!” Ziyi shouted furiously over the phone.

  Another explosion rang in Lucienne’s ears as the wall toppled. Part of the ceiling tumbled down. A missile had hit the lab next door.

  Lucienne realized the rebels were bombing the domes. They didn’t care that their soldiers were inside the building; they wanted to bury her inside. This desperate act only meant that her enemies knew that Kian’s men were on the move toward Chechnya.

  Dust and debris filled the room, obscuring Lucienne’s vision as she ducked chunks of fallen concrete and hurried toward the cage. Shards of fluorescent light bulbs from the ceilings fell on her. She heard the creak of a wooden beam as it succumbed to gravity, and she dodged to the side, feeling the air move as the beam swung past.

  Then another missile struck the top floor, tilting the lab on impact.

  As Lucienne prowled through to reach the prisoners, the beams and panels on the ground shifted positions. One of her stiletto heels stuck between two wooden beams. Just as she lost her footing, a heavy beam hit her from the side and pinned her.

  Lucienne groaned in pain. Her phone and Marloes’ gun flew from her hands. Then something hit her head, making h
er vision swim.

  Dazed, she realized she was trapped under steel cross runners amid the mass of rubble and concrete.

  Her back, left shoulder, and legs hurt so much, as if her bones were shattered. She tried to lift her hands, but failed. For a moment, she just lay there, staring at the exposed wires and cables spitting electric sparks from the gutted ceilings.

  How could she let a pair of stilettos be her downfall?

  Several yards away stood the cage.

  If she had run faster and not concerned herself with the falling suspension system, she could have at least set these poor souls free.

  She glanced away from them, not wanting to see their terrified looks. Some of them started wailing again, and some said prayers.

  A teenage boy with an Australian accent demanded, “Does the outside world know we’re here? Why did they send a girl?”

  Lucienne ignored them and commanded her body to move, summoning the power from her Siren’s mark.

  A moment later, feelings returned, as did the throbbing in her head.

  She grabbed one of the steel beams and pushed it upward, but it was too heavy. Her martial arts was useless when it came to weight lifting. Not when she was held down by those steel runners.

  The bombing stopped, but gunfire picked up. The crossfire was drawing near her.

  If the rebels found her before her men, this would be the end of her. After surviving many assassination attempts, her enemies—her own family members—complained that she had nine lives like a cat. Today she might have used the last one, thanks to a pair of stilettos.

  In frustration and fear, Lucienne kept pushing the metal beams that refused to budge.

  “The rebels fired air-to-ground missiles,” Ziyi’s voice screamed from the phone. “Lucia? Lucia! Tell me you’re okay. Your men are moving toward you!”

  Lucienne turned her head to the voice and spotted the phone two feet away from her face, half buried by the debris.

  “Ziyi,” she called back toward the phone. “I fell. I’m trapped.”

  “Oh, my God! That’s bad. But don’t panic!” Ziyi’s panicked voice came through the phone. “The team is coming. I called Kian, too. They’re all coming for you. Be calm.”

  “I’m calm! I just can’t move.”

  “Okay, okay. The team is under heavy fire, but they’ll reach you. At all costs! That was what Finley and Duncan said. Can you find something to cover you? Camouflage maybe? What if those bastards get to you first? No! Oh, God, this isn’t happening.”

  “Be quiet and listen carefully,” Lucienne shouted back while pulling out the Armatix pistol she hadn’t dropped. “That’s an order.”

  “Okay.” Lucienne could hear Ziyi taking a loud, deep breath on the other end of the phone, as if the girl was going into labor. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Someone’s coming,” Lucienne hushed. “Don’t make a sound until I speak to you.”

  Ziyi quieted on the other end.

  Lucienne turned her head toward the teenagers, her eyes warning them to stay quiet. They stopped banging the latch.

  Her back rigid with pain, Lucienne tried to lift her shoulders to get a better aim. But her left shoulder must have dislocated. She managed to shift the gun to her right hand and aim it toward the door through a small rift between the steel bars.

  Vladimir dashed into the lab, looking around wildly. His gaze skipped the caged prisoners and kept searching until it found her.

  If he regretted that he’d let her go early on and came back to finish her off, he wouldn’t have shown such a relief at the sight of her, Lucienne thought. And didn’t he shoot his team to save her?

  For the first time since she had met him, Lucienne dove into his mind. She quickly withdrew, her eyes closed. She couldn’t go further after glimpsing the damage she did to him. He hated her. She knew. He wanted to hurt her badly. But he loved her much more. He loved her more than anything in the world.

  “Isn’t the Armatix one of my gifts?” Vladimir asked, stalking toward her. “Shoot me with it if you want, but you can’t stop me from getting you out of here. It took me a while to shake off the Chechen and track you down.”

  “If you want to help me, get them out first,” Lucienne said, her chin gesturing toward the cage.

  As if on cue, the teenagers immediately shouted for help.

  “Shut up!” Vladimir shouted back viciously. “I’ll get back to you later, if you behave.” He always had an edge.

  The prisoners quieted.

  Vladimir turned back to Lucienne. “I don’t care if the whole world burns unless you’re safe in it.” He got down and tried to dislodge the steel bars that pinned her down. It moved up only an inch or two. He cursed in Czech, panting and red-faced.

  “My men know where I am,” Lucienne offered. “They’ll come. Free those people and get going.”

  “Your men are held up by half the regiment. Like hell I’ll leave you like this.”

  “Then set them free first,” she said.

  “Not until I free you,” he said. “Don’t ask me again to put anyone else above you. I’ll never do that.”

  Lucienne sighed. That was one big difference between Ashburn and Vladimir. She believed Ashburn would sacrifice himself and her for the safety of the world. Not that she was complaining. She would go with Ashburn’s choice.

  With a roar, Vladimir lifted the metal beam off her and tossed it aside. Then he removed two other beams. He grinned at her as he began to dig her out of the wreckage with his bare hands.

  When she was finally able to rise from the shambles, he pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her dusty head. “I gotcha, láska.”

  All her hurt and resentment vanished.

  While her left hand still felt numb, Lucienne wrapped her right hand around his neck, inhaling his scent. He smelled of sweat, smoke, and gunpowder on top of his usual scent of a wild river under the summer sun. But he didn’t smell of Sphinxes anymore.

  “The prisoners, Vlad,” she reminded him.

  Carefully and reluctantly, he released her and strolled toward the cage.

  “Step back,” Vladimir ordered. He raised his rifle and shot the lock. It gave in. He pulled open the cage. “If you see any soldiers in uniform,” he told the prisoners, “hide. They kill on sight.”

  The teenagers poured out of the cage.

  “They wouldn’t know what to do,” Lucienne said. “We should—”

  “I’ll help them only after I get you to safety,” Vladimir said.

  “I can hold my own,” said Lucienne.

  “Sure,” he said and came back to check on her, touching her head. He let out a breath of relief. “No head injury.” Then he started examining her body.

  Most of the teens had raced out of the lab. Three girls and a guy lingered.

  “Can we go with you?” a pretty blonde asked Vladimir. She had a faint Swedish accent.

  “Yes,” Lucienne said.

  “No,” Vladimir said roughly at the same time as he wrenched Lucienne’s disjointed shoulder. “They’ll slow us down.”

  “Vlad,” Lucienne reproached him.

  “I feel sorry for them, but they aren’t my responsibility. You are.” He zipped open a belt pack and pulled out a medical kit. He had come prepared. Like Kian, Vladimir always thought three steps ahead.

  She stifled a groan, and her glare at him grew weak when he applied compression wraps around her sprained left ankle.

  He frowned at her stripped stiletto, then at her. “Why on earth did you wear a pair of shoes like that to a war zone?”

  “Ziyi’s gift,” Lucienne said.

  “I’m going to kill that short girl,” he said.

  Lucienne laid her hand on Vladimir’s arm. “Let them come with us.”

  “Not a chance,” he insisted. “Call me a jerk if you want, but I’ll not let anyone jeopardize your safety.”

  He turned to the group with a warning look. “Get going. Or you can hide somewhere. After I send my girl to
safety, I’ll come back for you.”

  He still regards me as his girl? Lucienne blinked. Her heart leapt.

  “Let’s go,” the guy in the group urged his cell mates. “We don’t need him.”

  “Vlad,” Lucienne said, “they’ll come with us. You can manage the five of us.”

  The blonde looked at Vladimir with pleading eyes. She’s a smart one, Lucienne thought. She knew he was their best chance at getting out of here alive.

  Vladimir swallowed. “No, they aren’t coming. I’ll come back for them.”

  “I’ll be safe—you’ll make sure of that,” Lucienne said. “But take them with us. You know I can’t leave them behind like this. They’ve suffered enough.”

  He gave her a sullen look.

  “Please?” Lucienne asked softly.

  “Fine,” Vladimir finally agreed and turned to the group. “You’ll stay quiet. If any of you step out of line or put her in danger, I’ll shoot you on the spot.”

  “Easy, Vlad,” Lucienne said, knowing no matter how tough he acted, he still had a soft spot. “They won’t be trouble.”

  Vladimir grunted, “I don’t count on anyone anymore.”

  Lucienne dropped her gaze, her thick eyelashes veiling the sorrow and guilt in her eyes. She had hurt him like no one else had. She had hardened him. He wouldn’t trust anyone again, particularly her.

  He helped her up.

  As she took a step, pain shot through her twisted ankle. She took another step, pretending all was well.

  Vladimir spun her to get a better look. “There’s something in your butt. How did I miss that?”

  She did feel a sting there, now that he mentioned it. “It’s probably nothing.”

  He pulled out a metal pin that stuck into her skirt and tossed it to the heaps of rubble. “Don’t move yet. You’re still bleeding.” He lifted her skirt.

  Lucienne blushed and protested weakly, “Hey.”

  “I need to tend to you,” he said, then ordered the group, “Wait over there at the corner. We’ll leave soon.”

  As the group gave them privacy, Vladimir lowered Lucienne’s black lace panties beneath the wound.