Everything, every person, every paper, every tape, every bit of data had to be destroyed past recovery and this included witnesses and the beasts that would maul them. Never again should any scientist be able to reconstruct Clay Severin’s gruesome works. Never again should human beings be violated and turned into mindless monsters, no matter the cause, reason, or explanation.
I know that this sounds cruel and maybe it makes me just as evil as White. But Jay, Peter, and I did our best to bring them all back to humanity. And it pains me to say that many were past saving. Almost all of them had been brought back from the brink of death and it seems like most of their souls had already passed on. That’s the only consolation I have, and I hope that it will allow me to sleep at night.
I know it sounds ambivalent as if I would judge different measures because I didn’t sacrifice myself for the cause. But there were beasts, human beasts, that were in control of themselves and people who joined our cause to save them. They wouldn’t be a threat, they would stay in the dark, and they would make sure that no one would discover them or what they were. Or so I thought.
From the several times Val had shown me the map of the labyrinth of corridors and doors, I knew exactly where to go and meet up with the others: meaning Jay, her, Peter, Daniel, and the other sane soldiers. It would take some time and I prayed that we would be able to get out of the inner circle before code red was activated, but they had to retrieve weapons and explosives from the armory first.
Yes, the compound had a self-destruction command that Austin was now able to hack as this place was working on minimal security functions, in order to prevent a hack from hostile forces, but not from the inside. There was no guarantee that he could overwrite it and then set it off from the outside. So, we needed a fail-safe, which meant that we would have to get one of the main charges to explode and trigger the others, if possible.
Nina’s and my task was to secure Valerie and make sure that she was safe during the purge. We didn’t really have to take White with us, but then again, lying in Nina’s cage unconscious would be a too nice a form of death when everything went up in a big explosion, hopefully.
On our way to pick up Val I suggested to Nina to just leave White behind and leave him to his own devices, but she declined. He wasn’t that heavy to carry and she was sure that there would be one person who would take care of him.
Again, I caught myself with the idea of killing him myself, of watching him realize that I was a beast, too, and that I would be the one to end his life. That was when I decided that everyone still human should see him die for themselves; so that all of them could leave with peace. After that pause we didn’t stop until we went through the usually heavily secured lock-door into Valerie’s territory. The corridors were empty and I still concentrated on seeing heat signatures. There were no human ones just a few machines slowly cooling off.
I knew exactly in which room Valerie would wait for us: the lab with all the chemicals hiding her scent. I told her to hide behind the freezer and not move. Reaching the door I gestured Nina to wait and secure. She nodded and I knocked. It was her heartbeat that gave her away first when she moved forward carefully, feeling her way forward. I could see her red cloud of body heat approach the door. When she unlocked and opened it, I instantly saw that she was carrying something. The shoulder bag was big enough to carry two laptops and I knew that she expected us to leave this place with it. She had no idea that none of us were allowing that or that we wouldn’t be following her into the new laboratory with which she allegedly would re-create the promised anti-virus.
I touched her at the shoulder to show her that it was me. Valerie then reached into her right pocket and pulled out a small leather wrapper
“This is what I promised Jay,” she explained and I froze. “Two syringes with the anti-virus from your blood and the key to a black sedan with red seats. It should be the first one you see once you get out. If the anti-virus works on you and him, you will not have to live with us, you can have your own life. Austin has set up a bank account, and is redirecting parts of Severin’s funds into it. All the paperwork for your new names is in the car.”
Next to me, Nina was stirring. I had told her about the anti-virus, but I hadn’t expected this. I knew that Valerie had been able to get herself more involved with the beasts that were eventually able to shift and find a way back to their human self, but I had no clue that she and Jay had talked or agreed on anything with each other.
“Stay quiet and follow me,” I just told her, took the wrapper and placed her hand on my left shoulder, so that she could do what I had told her.
It was still pitch black, at least to humans.
While we moved as quickly as possible with a blind and an unconscious human, my head was working overtime and I had trouble focusing on my task. I kept wondering why Jay had asked for what Val had given me if we already had agreed on not letting her have either the research material or the other beasts and still he had talked to her about his? It didn’t make sense to me, although having such a little care package wrapped up nicely for us to live comfortable wherever we wanted was certainly something I wouldn’t decline.
So, I put my thoughts about this aside and continued to guide us through the corridors to the passage way to the secondary circle, which should have more labs and sleeping rooms for the employees. There we would go in the opposite direction to pick up Austin from the server room and meet up with Jay and his team at the secondary passage way, leading to the storage area, the garage and business rooms. All of the cars there were unqualified as getaway cars because they could be tracked, so we would blow up the garage and use one of the delivery tunnels.
Proceeding through the corridors we had no trouble getting Valerie through the first passage way. We were fast enough and the countdown to red hadn’t been run out yet. I silently prayed that the others would manage to do the same.
Entering the secondary ring, which I had never seen before, everything was still pitch black, but White started moaning.
“What is that?” Valerie whispered way too loudly, and her voice was drenched with panic.
“Our fare stowaway,” Nina chuckled.
“He’s no threat,” I explained and started to move further, forcing Val to follow me.
We were on a clock and everyone knew that. I wanted to reach Austin as fast as possible so that I could see on the screens he had set up in the server room where the others were, and insure that all the data in that room would be fried. I already had decided that we would leave White in the parking garage, that the debris would make sure that he was definitely dead.
I stopped dead as I heard something that shouldn’t be there: steps approaching us. There was no way to see any heat signatures through the concrete walls, so I gestured Nina to stop and listen, too. With more military hand signs we agreed on hearing a troop of four, possibly armed, heading for the same corridor like us, which lead to the server room.
My heart made a jump first and sprung into a gallop. I knew that there was a chance of us meeting military security guards; I just had hoped it wouldn’t happen.
I felt a tap at my right shoulder and turned around to Nina, who smiled at me and whispered lowly: “Let me take care of them.”
All I did was nod and she dropped White, who was slowly regaining consciousness. Somehow I was glad for the distraction, which is somewhat silly, because I already had decided for an unknown number of people to die either gruesomely or in an explosion.
I reached down, grabbed White by his collar and punched him right in the face. He groaned, and apparently was out again.
“Do you still have something from the drug you gave him, Val?” I hissed at her and she froze, shivering like a leaf. “Don’t,” my hand was on her mouth because she could say anything. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Then a muffled scream reached our ears, then some shots fired from a machine gun, and then silence. I still had White’s clothing in my hand so I simply started moving, not ca
ring if he was bumping against Valerie.
As Nina approached in front of me the lights suddenly went on, along with red bulbs pulsing regularly. Me and my conscious entourage could see the blood spatters on Nina’s clothing, and while Val gasped I felt strangely unfazed.
“All clear,” Nina winked at us and I chuckled, shaking my head a bit.
I was grateful that she had taken care of the situation. All the training she had given me wouldn’t help me killing a person, especially not for the first time. Her lecturing voice echoed in my head.
“Pray you’ll never have to,” she had told me. “You’ll never get that piece of your soul back.”
A moment later I saw something fly in my direction and I caught one of the machine guns whose former owners were now certainly dead, and shortly after that a clip, which I barely caught because I still had the leather wrapper in my other hand. At least the clip did fit in the pockets of my track pants.
We continued to march to the server room, this time both Nina and I armed with a weapon which was unfamiliar to me, but I just imitated Nina’s movement as she showed me how to unlock and load the weapon. She placed the index finger next to the trigger and not on it and it made sense; like that it wouldn’t be accidentally fired but she was quick to move.
As we approached the server room we noticed that the door was locked tight and it didn’t react to either mine or Valerie’s wristband, so I lifted White’s hand against the scanner, and with a hissing sound the door opened to a dark room illuminated with mostly blue lights and blinking red and green rooms. It looked like a storage room filled with black, blinking boxes.
“Austin!” I shouted and from somewhere at the end of one large wall of black his head peered around the corner.
“How did you get inside?” He asked and I just lifted White’s arm, showing him to our hacker.
“How’s the status?” I just dropped my prisoner and left Val and Nina standing by the door which was slowly closing, which was why my friend ushered the woman inside and, pulled our arch-enemy across the ground.
“They all made it through,” Austin answered while I was walking up to him. “Apparently it takes three of them to stop those doors from moving, which can come in quite handy, I guess.”
I laughed and waved him over: “Time to go and fire up this place.”
He nodded and apparently hit a key, pulled out the network cable and clapped shut his laptop and was ready to leave.
“Just like that?” I asked, but Austin looked as if he was out of commission, staring down along the wall of servers.
I turned around alertly to find him staring at my friend.
“That’s Nina, she’ll be the one protecting you,” I winked at her and she smirked and nodded.
“Yes, I just shut off the fans and sent a lot of CPU requests to overheat the whole place. They will catch fire in no time, basically frying every hard drive,” Austin apparently answered my question but I had no clue what he was saying.
“Let’s go,” I just suggested and turned around, freezing in my movement, when one very important question came up in my mind.
“How are you going to trigger the self-destruct order?” I asked him.
“That’s the catch”, he explained. “You’ll need to get me out there undetected, to my car, which has Wi-Fi, so that I can access the computer controlling the compound, which is in a separate room, now that the server room is down. I will need as much time as possible. Preferably the time Jay’s team needs to rig up the bomb in the garage.”
Nina and I exchanged glances of agreement and we moved out. She as a trained soldier was covering our backs, while I took the lead, dragging White with me, and having Austin and Valerie following me in my tracks.
I had a bad feeling about this, but I needed Nina to focus on her task and I wasn’t good with guns anyway, as I never had shot one. Hopefully, my heightened senses were enough to notice an enemy approaching, before I would actually see them. The darkness had been a huge advantage for us and now that was gone.
The first time I heard something, I instantly dropped White and kneeled down, just as Nina had told me. Everyone did the same and I carefully peered around the corner to see that there was no one there. I shook my head with my eyes closed, being mad at myself.
Then suddenly Austin tapped my shoulder panicky and I flung around. White was moving and Nina was facing the other direction, gesturing to move on quickly without turning around. With my free hand I told our companions to grab White and follow me. I got up and moved onward, just to hear noises coming from both directions. The only way we could go was to not take this corner, but the next one. The problem was that we might end up with a bigger group of armed guards on our backs. But that was still better than sitting in a trap. So, we left the corridor we had to take to our right and moved onwards, which left us without a cover from the troop behind us. Even though I was going faster, Austin and Val had troubles dragging White along. I played with the thought to just leave him there. But before I could decide I heard Nina shout.
“Cover!”
Shots were fired and collided with the concrete walls around us. We just passed the corridor.
“Nina! Take cover! ” I yelled at her and turned around, lifting up White in front of me and using him as shield. “Follow me!” I ordered Austin and Val to stay behind me as I guided them back to the corner.
We were now trapped, because I was sure that the troop I had heard before was now drawn to the noise. Luckily the guards had stopped shooting when they saw the white cloak of a scientist. I doubt that they were able to identify him. Too bad that they had seen the grey prisoner clothing Nina and I were wearing.
While she was covering the corner facing our attackers I squatted and moved slowly to the other corner, because I expected those men to show up soon. I did my best to harken for heartbeats or identify the amount of footsteps, but my heart was beating far too wildly as did Val’s and Austin’s. And Nina’s sounded odd.
“Are you hit?” I asked as lowly as possible.
She wasn’t able to answer, but Val was already all over her, giving me a free line of sight to the dark, reddish stain at Nina’s right side, which was slowly growing. I figured that she had turned around and fired first, but had no cover to put herself behind.
“How bad is it?” I inquired, turning around and gripping my machine gun tighter.
“The bullet went right through, but a piece of her clothing is missing, probably pulled inside the wound, and I need to stop the bleeding,” Val answered factually.
“They are trying to advance,” Nina explained and shot, driving them back; strangely enough her breathing didn’t seem to have changed.
“We’ve got incoming from the other side, I can’t hear how many,” I sounded apologetically.
“Friend or foe?” Nina asked and I held my breath.
Why hadn’t I thought of that? Probably because I didn’t expect Jay’s group to move that fast. Then again, they didn’t have to drag around an almost unconscious, mad scientist.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“Take the corner, I’ll retreat with the others,” Nina said and I moved to her side, the weapon ready to shoot; it was so natural to follow her order.
Focusing my attention on the other corner in which the walls already showed bullet holes, I tried not to listen to what happened behind me. My task was to stop the men in front of me from advancing on us. So, the second I saw a shadow, I pulled the trigger. The throwback took me off guard and shook me around so that I didn’t even get close to the guy, but he took cover anyway.
All I was sensitive to right now was Nina’s voice, and I waited for her to tell me what to do next: to hold the line, to retreat, to run, or whatever. But I heard nothing. Good thing was that I didn’t hear shots, either.
As soon as I saw a shadow again, I shot, and this time I could hold the gun more secure and stayed where I was. For me at least one gun sounded differently than the others, who dug themselves
into the concrete. Maybe I did get one of them?
Suddenly someone tapped my right shoulder and I flinched painfully. Mid movement someone grabbed my gun and kept it pointing away. I looked up and gazed into Jay’s calm face, with those eyes that had the mixture of beautiful beastly green and humanly brown. He pulled me away from the corner and two of his guys took it, while another pair simply ran into the corridor. Countless bullets were flying as Jay took my gun from me and handed me the wrapper I had dropped. I just fell around his neck, hugging him tight.
This was really happening. We were about to escape. My plan was really working! I couldn’t believe it. Tears were filling my eyes and I wanted to cry, although it was the worst possible timing ever.
“Come on,” he said softly, one arm still around me from replying to my hug, and shoved me gently to our destination. “The evacuation phase is almost over and the second area will be shut down soon.”
He was right. I nodded. My mind kicked in and I managed to pry myself from him. We would have enough time to do that once we were out.
“Nina’s hurt, Val’s taking care of her,” I reported but could see on his face that he already knew that. “I will take Austin to his car while you guys rig the garage with explosives and Val manages to stop the bleeding.”
Jay’s facial expression was stern and he nodded.
“Good call,” he stated as he took the clip I was offering to him and went ahead.
Suddenly, he was all cold and calculating, but I figured that this was his soldier mode; Nina had acted the same. Strangely enough he hadn’t said anything about our slightly deranged prisoner, but I figured that it simply wasn’t a priority right now. We needed to get out of the secondary ring into the outer ring, and I wasn’t the one to complain about that. Instead I simply followed him down to the corridor to turn left from where he and his six men and one woman had come from. There I saw Peter kneeling next to Val and Nina. He looked up at me and nodded briefly. My reaction was just as brief.
The Beast In Us (The Beast And Me Book 3) Page 18