“What happened?” Slade shouted, “Where’s Shay?”
“She’s safe. They all are… except John. He’s dead. Aurelia was attacked about a half hour after we left but they managed to take care of the intruders. John got caught in the cross fire,” Aaron was beyond angry as he knelt down, turned off the portal disk and slipped it into his pocket. The normally bright lines of his face taking on a dark and malicious edge as he stood slowly.
“How’d you get the cut then?”
“Mum,” he said with a shrug as though that explained everything. “The woman’s insane. Thought I was another soldier.”
“The others aren’t back yet then?” Slade asked, wringing his hands together anxiously.
“Dax is, he’s resting but the others aren’t yet… it’s quite clear that we were definitely betrayed. Question is, by who?” Aaron looked pointedly towards Kieron, his demeanour threatening.
“What? You think it was me?”
“You knew the location of the rebel base in Monkshood. You were in Aurelia with us. You knew the plan.”
“So did that soldier! He was one of the Kings men for crying out loud!”
“Quinn trusts him, so I trust him. She doesn’t trust you… you do the math,” Aaron muttered, twirling a blade in between his fingertips.
“Aaron, I don’t think it was him,” Quinn murmured, her voice a little stronger than it had been before but the pain no less intense.
“But you’re not sure, Red. He said it himself, he’d sacrifice any of us, maybe all of us, for his greater good. Maybe you thought that sending the kings men to Aurelia would give us an edge here… less opposition.”
“I didn’t do this, I swear it,” Kieron said, taking a step back, his hands raised in surrender, closely mimicking Liam’s actions from earlier.
“I’m afraid he’s quite right… though if you want to kill him, it would certainly save me a job,” a deep voice called from the doorway. Quinn looked up, her blood running cold as she made eye contact with a familiar face, though it was somewhat older than the last time she had seen it. Well shit…
Chapter 24
Liam held Dax to him, as Diana and Colt worked on the door ahead. His mind was racing. Just a moment ago he had watched a miracle come to life. The proof of it was leaning against him at this very moment. He had heard tales, whispers of soothsayers and religious zealots telling tales around camp fires of a fated Immortal, blessed with the gifts of no other, who could set them free from the tyranny the King imposed. Hells, he’d thought it all bullshit. Even when he’d first met the flame-haired woman, her tiny form imbued with great power. He hadn’t dreamed she could be capable of so much. Just a seer with another unknown powerful gift and a lot of kindness. That’s all he’d thought. That, and she was a person he would willingly fight for. She saw beyond the prejudice his uniform carried, beyond the darkness he felt surrounding him day in and day out. She had been his saviour, but now, he was starting to think he might have to share her with all that was left of humanity. A saviour of so much more than a lowly soldier with a tragic past. By the Gods… the woman was insane but what a woman? Colt got the door unlocked and moved to take Dax’s other arm as Diana held it open. They awkwardly filed through, almost sideways so they didn’t have to let Dax go. A few moments later and Dax stopped them.
“It’s no good. Take me back, I’m just going to slow you down and get you all killed. Can’t have that on my conscience. Not good for the soul you know?” Even in pain, he was still laughing… Liam envied him that.
Colt eyed his friend for a minute before giving him a nod and reaching down to pull the portal disk from his boot. A minute later and Colt was walking back through the portal, his eyes wide and pissed off.
“They were attacked,” was all he said, his eyes taking on a murderous gleam as he looked at Liam.
“It wasn’t me, dammit,” Liam hissed, losing all patience.
“I don’t believe you, soldier boy,” Colt started, “but Quinn does. If you end up proving her wrong, I will take great pleasure in gutting you like a fucking fish. Got it?”
“Loud and clear,” Liam grunted, “was everyone alright?” Colt squinted his eyes, as though he was attempting to see through Liam’s question to the intent behind it. Eventually though he answered.
“John is dead, so is Yappy,” Liam couldn’t tell whether the rebel was more upset about the man or the Mech mutt but he supposed it didn’t matter. Their side was taking losses and that meant they really had been betrayed. Gods, he hoped they figured out who it was sooner rather than later because he was certain that another loss on their side would mean his head, regardless of Quinn’s words of support. “Which way is it, Soldier boy?” Liam looked at the two corridors ahead of them, wracking his brains.
“Honestly, I’m not sure but I think it’s the one to the right.”
“We take the one to the left,” Colt growled, drawing his blade and moving towards it.
“Hey! You might not trust me but I have people I need to save as well here. I’m going right, I don’t care where you go,” he shouted, anger getting the best of him. He had been the Unions whipping post, his commander’s bitch and now he was being bullied by the rebellion. Hells, it was just too much. Colt turned towards him, his eyes wide and full of a certain kind of madness. He reared back, brandishing his sword ahead of him and Liam pulled his own blade free.
“We haven’t got time for this, for the Gods sakes!” Diana called from a few feet ahead. Her face was clear of any expression, almost unfeeling, but the stiff set of her shoulders belied her nonchalant appearance.
“I don’t want to fight you, Colt,” Liam murmured, moving to his left as Colt moved to his right so that they were circling each other in the narrow corridor.
“You ain’t got a choice, soldier boy,” the rebel snarled. He lifted his blade and prepared to charge but a sound in the distance caught their attention. They both looked down the left corridor, their weapons still raised. The sound grew louder, a now familiar dull thud of boots on flooring, and the men looked at each other.
“The right it is,” Colt muttered begrudgingly and Liam nodded. “This isn’t over though,” he added, causing both Liam and Diana to roll their eyes as they started to run down the right hand side corridor. This guy is literally going to be the death of me, Liam thought, as he ran beside his doom. Diana was just ahead of them and she rounded a corner letting out a yelp of surprise as she did. Colt and Liam were a second behind her, narrowly avoiding crashing into her where she stood… stock still. Liam wasn’t sure what he was expecting but whatever it was, this wasn’t it. The floor was no longer the opulent marble it had been. The walls were a stark white and beneath their feet were clinical white tiles but these were not polished within an inch of their life like the rest of Union City appeared to be. Blood was smeared across them and spattered along the walls. A long line of metal tables were pushed up against one side and a black stripe divided the middle of the floor, distorted by blood in some places. The true horror that greeted them lay upon the tables. Men and women, their naked bodies cut open, their eyes unseeing as they stared up at the ceiling. At least, those who had eyes. Liam took a step closer, his gut wrenching and vomit crawling up his throat. The closest victim to them, a woman, had been disembowelled. Her dark hair fell off the end of the table and her pretty face was oddly serene as she stared at nothing, her eyes a milky white. She had been cut from sternum to naval, her skin grotesquely stretched apart and her ribs snapped open. Her heart had been removed as had the rest of her organs. Most of them had been left on the table with her. Gleaming in the bright lights like some sick trophies for some monster lurking in the halls. A sacrifice to the Hells themselves.
“What the fuck is this?” Diana murmured, her voice thick with unshed tears.
“Experiments, probably,” Colt muttered, even the tough rebel was affected by the degrading and useless waste of life that lay before them. “Come on, let’s go this way,” Colt turned around to
go in the opposite direction and Liam was about to follow him when something caught his eye. Not something but… someone. His heart jumped as he began moving down the corridor, his eyes pinned to the soft olive skin he thought he’d never see again.
“Alex?” he breathed, the world fading away from him as his reached the metal table and his heart shattered. “Gods, no… please, no…” His hand reached out to cup the battered, broken cheek of the man he had loved. He was barely recognisable beneath the torture and beatings he had obviously endured. He too had been cut open, his wounds held apart by silver tools, preventing any healing from taking place. The wounds themselves wouldn’t have killed him… all his bones and organs appeared to be in the right place but with one large, brutal difference. Inside the cavity of his body, replacing his blood there was a solidified pool of silver… Liam’s mind immediately conjured images of the pain and suffering Alex had endured. He had been alive when the molten silver had been poured inside him… the scratches on his skin and the silver beneath his nails made it obvious… they hadn’t just tortured him, they had brutalised him… such a horrific way for a gentle soul to die. He felt dampness on his cheeks but he didn’t feel himself crying. His heart was beating, he could faintly hear it but he could not register the fact that he was still alive. It was as though the world had stopped turning, time had stopped moving forward and he was stuck in this place, looking down on his failure and the endless recrimination in Alex’s unseeing eyes. He blinked as the world rushed back to him, his knees giving out as he fell against the table and his hands gripping Alex’s limp shoulders.
“I… I’m so sorry… Gods, please… no… Alex, please…” he begged and pleaded to anyone who could hear him, barely registering the hands on his arms as Diana and Colt tried to pull him away. But he wouldn’t move. He was like a stone… a stone whose heart had been ripped out and stomped on beneath a cruel, vicious boot. He leant down, laying a gentle kiss on Alex’s cold, ashen cheek, his tears falling on to his beloved’s face as he tried his best to catch his breath. Each harsh intake of air tasting like death and despair. Maybe the rebel had been right. It would have been better to have died by Colt’s hand in the corridor… then he would have been spared this. Gods… why Alex? So sweet, so innocent and kind and good… the gentle man had never hurt a living thing… he felt guilty when he picked flowers for fucks sake! He felt Diana and Colt leave him, heard the sounds of swords clashing and people fighting as he continued to grieve for the love he had lost.
“Soldier boy, we need your help here… LIAM!” Colt shouted from the other end of the corridor and the sound of his own name pulled Liam fully back into the land of the living. He looked down on Alex one more time, pulling a white sheet from beneath the table, using it to cover him up to give him just a little dignity in death that he hadn’t been afforded in life. He deserved so much more than the end he had received. He deserved more than Liam could have ever given him. Liam felt the loss and pain swirling inside hi, solidify into a burning coal of hate and rage as he thought of all the things Alex should have been given… and everything he was given, every pain and indignity he had endured for no discernible purpose. With an animalistic growl, he turned towards the fray, picking up his sword from the ground though he couldn’t remember dropping it. Without a sound, he stalked towards the fight, pulling his dagger from his belt as well. He didn’t pause, didn’t wait to assess the situation, didn’t care… there was nothing left to fight for except vengeance. Alex was dead and now these soldiers were going to pay for it. He passed Colt and Diana as they fought several soldiers, blocking the corridor so no more could come through. They were lucky the corridor was narrow here, it gave them the chance to funnel the soldiers, so if given time they could mow them down, one by one… Liam didn’t feel like waiting for that. He raised his sword, bringing it down in a staggering arc, slicing through the face of one soldier and hitting another in the throat. Both soldiers dropped like rocks as Liam pushed his dagger through another’s eye with deadly precision. They had, after all, trained him well. He brought his sword up again, this time on an upwards arc, disembowelling another soldier as his dagger found its home in the heart of another. As he focused on the trajectory of his dagger, he felt a sharp, hot pain in his side but he ignored it. Instead swinging his sword like an axe towards another soldier whose eyes widened before his head was lopped off his shoulders, eyes still blinking as it hit the ground. Spinning on his heel as he came to the end of his line of victims he saw Colt struggling against two more. His focus was not on the rebel though, but on the men he wanted dead… the ones who had taken everything from him. He stalked towards them, ramming his sword through the back of ones skull and his dagger into the neck of another, twisting it viscously as blood spurted over his face and hand in a thick, hot stream… still he wasn’t satisfied. Ignoring Colt’s look of… well he wasn’t sure what the look was, nor did he care, he turned again, despatching the soldier fighting Diana with another beheading so vicious, his sword lodged into the bone of the soldiers body. He wrenched it free with an agonising scream, standing there in the sick glory of his handiwork. Now he was the monster and they were the prey.
“Liam?” Colt murmured, staggering forward a little, his voice gentler than Liam had ever heard it. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He didn’t need pity… he needed more vengeance. “Liam, we need to move,” Colt said, finally reaching him.
“Why? What’s the point? Alex is dead…” the words tasted like ash in his mouth but he needed to say them. Needed to own his failings.
“There are many who can still be saved, Liam,” Diana whispered, tears in her eyes as she glanced down the corridor to the sheet covered table that held the empty vessel that once contained his heart.
“What would Alex have wanted?” Colt asked. Hearing his name falling from the rebel’s lips incensed him beyond belief.
“He would have wanted to live. HE WOULD HAVE WANTED TO LIVE!” Liam screamed in Colts face, raising his dagger towards him without thinking.
“Do it, soldier boy. It won’t bring him back… you can still save people. Stop them from becoming more victims like Alex. If you don’t, then he died for nothing. Do you want that?” The words were slow to register, slow to break through the bloodlust and anger that hazed up his mind. A moment passed, then another, but eventually the rage subsided enough for him to lower his dagger and take a step back… his eyes still wide and primal, his breathing still heavy but his mind a little saner... not much, but a little. Colt nodded, more to himself than anyone else and stepped away from the wall he had been backed into. He turned and led the way down the opposite corridor and Liam followed, glancing one last time at the metal table holding Alex’s decimated corpse, knowing that he was yet to avenge his death but also knowing that someday, he would. Three corridors later and they came to another door… this one was barred and had a series of locks as well as two guards manning it. Liam took a step forward to end their miserable lives but Colt stopped him, even as the soldiers pulled their blades.
“Open the door,” he called but the men ignored him, calling out a war cry as they rushed towards them. “Worth a try, you can kill them now.” Liam did just that, swinging his blade in a wide arc, as it slashed through the chest of one soldier and pinned the other against the wall.
“Keys… where are they?” Colt asked, as Liam held his dagger to the man’s throat.
“P-pocket… please, don’t kill me. I could be useful.”
“I’ve seen how useful you can be,” Liam snarled, pushing his dagger into the soldier’s throat without a second thought.
“Imagine if Quinn had thought the same about you,” Colt murmured, stepping over the dead soldier on the floor as Liam pulled his blade free from the soldier before him and the wall behind. He wanted to ignore Colt’s words but a tiny worm of doubt wiggled itself through his mind. Even though he wanted them all dead, he wondered how many were in the same situation as him. Forced into a life of war and battle that they never wan
ted to be a part of. Shit… A few minutes later and Diana had the door open, her hands shaking a little with the adrenalin that had yet to wear off. They moved through the next corridor, weapons drawn and on the alert until they came to yet another barred door. This one took a little longer to open, requiring different keys from the first but they made it through eventually. The next corridor funnelled out to a much larger room. Barred cages lined the walls, suspended from the ceiling, one on top of the other on top of the other… they were everywhere and they were brimming with dirty faces and hollow eyes. A few guards walked around with long metallic weapons that Liam knew only too well. A prod that sent a powerful electric shock through its victims. These had been modified however, so that the metal prongs on the end were sharpened to a point and coated in silver. These prods did not just electrocute their victims, they boiled them from the inside out.
“Mind the prods… they sting,” Liam muttered, marching towards a guard. He turned around, his eyes widening with recognition when he saw Liam.
“What happened to you and what are you doing down here, you don’t have clearance,” he spoke clearly, unafraid… Liam was about to change that.
Dancing with Shadows Page 24