“Are you okay?” Lisa asked me in a low voice after Dorian and his minions left, her hand patting down my arm and assessing my injuries.
“I’m fine,” I assured her through gritted teeth, the throbbing pain in my head nothing in comparison to the tidal wave of agony crushing my heart. I was well acquainted with the feeling. It had felt the same when I lost Jenna.
“Lisa, you’re bleeding,” Chris said in an alarming voice. A trail of blood made its way from the back of Lisa’s head down her neck and over her collarbone.
“It’s okay,” she muttered but winced when she touched the tender spot.
Chris came over to check for himself. “It’s not. You need a Regenerator.” His eyes flew up to mine, a glint of accusation shining in them. “I told you Sarah could have—”
“Don’t end this sentence,” I seethed. Damn. Did every decision of mine have to be the wrong choice?
“The girl’s coming,” Lisa mumbled absently before the door opened.
As Lisa had foreseen, the girl we now knew as Gabby trailed in followed by the two obligatory guards while a third got into position outside. She kneeled down in front of Lisa.
“What are you doing?” Chris demanded sharply.
“Dorian wants me to heal her. I’m a Regenerator,” she answered shyly without looking up. This was when I noticed that her lip was fused together again—any sign of split skin gone. Chris looked as if he wanted to shove her away, but I held him back.
“Let her.” The girl didn’t strike me as dangerous, not after I’d witnessed how Dorian treated her.
We all watched the girl closely as she extended her hands and tended to each of Lisa’s wounds.
“You’re a lovely girl,” Lisa said softly, her unseeing eyes riveted on Gabby. “Your vibes are a bright yellow, though they are dulled. There’s so much spirit in you, yet you seem to hold it back.”
The girl didn’t say anything, but I could see the quiver of her lips as she fought back her tears. She had a sweet, heart-shaped face, and her eyes were kind and soft, but it was obvious Dorian had left scars on her soul. This place was not meant for her.
When she was done, she rose, ready to leave, but her hand brushed mine unexpectedly. At first, I thought it was an unintentional touch, but then I felt a rough material and something cold being pressed into my palm.
My heart sped up as my eyes shot to hers, but other than a meaningful look, she didn’t give anything away. She couldn’t, not with three Hunters watching us like hawks.
I waited until they were all out of sight before opening my hand. The others gasped in surprise seeing there was a switchblade balancing in my palm along with a note. I entangled the crumpled paper.
Only two words were scribbled on it, but they were enough to fill me with newfound hope.
“They escaped.”
I had no idea who ‘they’ were, but I was certain Gabby was referring to Haylie. My eyes drifted to the hole in the ground and then to the blood smears on the wall. Was it possible Haylie had caused this? Then I remembered the ruined trap door we’d come across before climbing down the hole.
Haylie had found a way out. She escaped.
I straightened as realization sat in. Dorian had deluded us. This was why he’d been so furious when I’d asked about her. She’d slipped through his fingers, but he hadn’t said a word to make sure we continued to play by his rules. He knew we’d do anything to get her out alive, but if she weren’t here anymore, he couldn’t use her as leverage.
“Out of your reach,” Dorian had said. Apparently, not just out of my reach, but also out of his.
“What the—” Scott started, but I threw him a glare in warning, putting a finger to my lips. This place was lurking with Catcher guards.
Crumpling the paper, I tossed it over to Scott. He caught it mid-air and scanned the note together with Cole and Chris. Three pairs of eyes widened in surprise.
Glancing out the tiny window, I made sure we were alone before approaching Cole and cutting through the tape binding his wrists. It took some fumbling with my shackled hands to glide the blunt blade through but eventually managed to free Cole from his restraints. When I finished, he took the knife before cutting us all loose with supernatural speed.
“They are coming back,” Lisa announced, and I quickly made some frantic gestures to indicate everyone should sit down pretending to be still imprisoned.
“…the blind Watcher… for a thorough examination,” one of the guards spoke as they approached our cell.
Lisa. They were here to get Lisa. I squeezed her hand, silently telling her to be brave. I threw a meaningful look at Cole, and he nodded in understanding, cracking his knuckles in anticipation.
Gabby entered first, and her eyes flew briefly past me as she let the two guards trail in behind. One approached Lisa while the other had his gun at the ready. Cole waited until his eyes were elsewhere before he made his move.
Faster than any of us could comprehend, he had the guard’s rifle in his grip, shoving it up and smacking it into the guard’s nose. The dull thump made the other whip around which left me in his blind spot. Lurching forward, I connected my elbow first with his chin, then with his abdomen.
The rest was child’s play. A kick in the kidneys from Chris, and the guy went down just as Cole got rid of the second one with a super-fast punch that slammed his nose back into his face. Before he hit the ground, Cole cocked the gun dramatically, making an exaggerated point about what a badass he was. I rolled my eyes but kept my mouth shut. A skilled Racer with a gun in hand was better than five Fighters at once, so who was I to complain?
I shifted my attention to Gabby who eyed the two dead bodies with an expression of horror as a pool of blood formed on the concrete. She felt my gaze and gulped visibly before lifting her eyes to mine with a newfound look of determination.
“You helped us. Why?” I wanted to know.
A second of silence. “I want to get away from him. I… I can’t do this anymore.”
I gave a short nod. God only knew what she’d had to endure all this time down here. “You’re welcome to join us. Now tell me, where did Haylie escape to?”
She shook her head, her eyes sad. “I don’t know. I gave them the code for the elevator. They took the upper exit, but there’s nothing out there. I can’t say how far they made it.”
The fresh hope slowly started to evaporate again. Haylie out there on her own? No doubt Dorian had sent his people after her. Then again, he wouldn’t give the order to kill her. Haylie was too valuable for him. If they caught her, she would be here by now, right?
“Who’s they?” Scott wanted to know.
“Haylie and Cassie.”
“Cassie?” Chris exclaimed, but Gabby shook her head as if she had anticipated such an outburst.
“I’ll explain later. We need to hurry before Dorian gets wind of this.” She turned, ready to leave, and I was already on her heels, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me.
“I know you want nothing more than to find her. We all do. But do you really want to let him get away with this?” Chris asked in a low voice. He was referring to Dorian, of course. I bit my lip, torn between rushing after Haylie and hunting Dorian down to end his life once and for all.
“The hell we will,” Cole made the decision for me, his voice deadly. “I’ll make sure the next bullet hits his head,” he added, lifting his newfound gun for emphasis.
I swept my questioning gaze over the rest of my crew. No one objected. Gabby averted her eyes, but not before I noticed the sheen of tears clouding her eyes. “Gabby…” I started, recalling Dorian was her brother, but she silenced me with a hand in the air.
“I know.” A beat passed, and she lifted her head with her chin held high. “You won’t catch him that easily. He’s surrounded by dozens of guards. Permanently.”
“Where is he now?”
“In the lab, but it’s crowded with his people. Not all of them are bad, you know,” she added softly.
“We’ll try to keep the casualties to a minimum,” Cole assured her.
“All right. Chris and Scott, make sure to protect Lisa from all sides.” I waited for them to nod and for Lisa to confirm that no Hunters would cross our way before we made it to the elevator.
“Dorian deceived you,” Gabby explained when we waited for the elevator to escort us one level lower. “He kidnapped Cassie months ago and shifted to her. The Cassie who came back to your compound wasn’t the one you knew.”
“What?” everyone shouted at once, except Lisa who just exhaled audibly.
The F-word slipped over my lips. Again, I should have listened to her. She’d told me there was a possibility a Shifter had taken over Cassie’s form.
“This is why she reeked of man the entire time,” Scott mumbled.
Now everything made sense. Cassie’s absence, her strange behavior, Lisa not recognizing her vibes, her relationship to Phil…
A part of me was relieved. Relieved that the Cassie I knew and loved hadn’t become the evil person I thought. Relieved that Haylie had Cassie on her side for now. Together they were stronger than alone.
A flood of guilt washed over me at thinking about how long she’d been kept here with no one missing her, no one looking for her. How could I have been so blind? I’d known something was amiss. Everyone had known, but again, I’d refused to believe it, and it had put everyone in danger.
“Let me distract them,” Gabby announced as the elevator doors slid open, referring to the guards shuffling along the aisle. Scott buried his nose under the hem of his shirt, a disgusted expression on his face as the foul odor of decay reached us.
“Hey, Martin!” I heard Gabby call out, and I peeked around the corner to assess the situation. Gabby was talking to a short guy with chubby cheeks, dark brown hair, and a bored expression on his face, accompanied by three guards. “How are things?” she asked, a bit too nonchalantly because Martin seemed surprised by her cheerfulness. Gabby put a hand on his shoulder deliberately turning him away from us and pretending to walk with him further down the hall. With a flick of my hand, I beckoned to the others to follow as I deliberately crept forward.
“Good. I’m working on Haylie Bryceland’s samples. Got some pretty interesting results from the vaginal swap…”
I didn’t hear the rest of his words as a misty film of red layered my vision. The what?
Images of Haylie strapped to a cruel chair flashed my mind—completely helpless and at their mercy.
The others sensed my sudden distress, and Cole clamped a hand on my shoulder to keep me from going on a rampage. “Normally, I’d say ‘let’s kill him slowly,’ but frankly, we don’t have the time,” Cole whispered before lifting his gun and shooting without forewarning.
Martin dropped like a sack as blood pooled from the open wound on his neck. The three guards spun around, their guns at the ready, and we all dove for shelter. Scott grabbed Lisa and hurled her onto the ground, while Chris jumped in the other direction directly into the alcove of the sepulture. Cole raced forward falling into hand-to-hand combat with the guards.
“Stay down!” I yelled at Scott who put a protective arm around Lisa before I rushed to Cole’s aid.
One of the guards noticed Chris and me coming for them and raised his weapon. I ducked out of the way, but a stinging pain in my biceps told me the bullet had grazed my skin. The guard aimed his gun at Chris, but he grabbed one of the dead bodies—so rotten its sickly green flesh was already peeling off the bones—and used it as a shield. The limbless guy jerked with each bullet hitting.
Just as the guard ran out of bullets, Chris shoved the corpse forward making the guard topple over, the dead guy landing on top of him.
Now that there were only two left, the three of us were able to deal with them in a matter of seconds.
“Ugh,” Chris grunted, wiping away some foul-smelling stuff from his arms as Scott stripped the dead bodies of any weapon he could find, handing me four knives and taking another gun for himself.
“Hurry!” Gabby urged, and we jogged down the hallway coming to a stop as soon as the lab came into view. I counted eight guards scanning the area.
And then all hell broke loose.
With great satisfaction, I buried two knives in the heads of two guards while gunshots rang out all around us. A Racer sped my way, but Lisa sensed him and was surprisingly quick to trip him up.
Amused, I saw the Racer tumble over his own feet watching him fly high and wide for at least ten yards. Head first, he hit the wall with high speed. There was no time left to look away before his head exploded in a mass of blood decorating the walls with red as if someone had splashed them with a bucket of paint.
Wow, I would need to memorize that move should I ever get the opportunity to get rid of a Racer like that.
I rushed forward just in time as a guard raised his staff in an attempt to hit Scott from behind, but I was faster and grabbed the stick twisting it around and pressing it against his windpipe. I squeezed until he went slack in my arms just as something crashed into me from the side, sending me into the nearest wall.
I ducked as the Fighter attacking me swung back his arm. His fist missed my face by inches, and he howled in pain as his knuckles connected with the unrelenting wall. I drove my knee into his stomach, making him double over at the perfect level for me to reach his neck and hitting him with the edge of my hand. Before his limp body hit the ground, I pulled out another knife and plunged it into his heart.
People rushed past us in panic, desperate to escape the massacre and get to safety. My gaze drifted over the rest of us, but other than a few bruises and cuts, everyone seemed to be unharmed.
As soon as the path was clear, we stormed the lab only to meet a furious Dorian pointing a strange looking, elongated weapon at us.
“Shit. Not that thing again,” Chris cursed.
I figured he meant Dorian’s weapon—most likely the one that burned Ricky a scorching hole in his chest all this time ago.
Five more guards clicked their guns, and within the blink of an eye, everyone had a weapon pointed at someone else except Phil who just stood there cowering behind Dorian.
Dorian’s gaze flickered over to Gabby. A moment passed while they battled a silent stare-down, Dorian grinding his jaw. “You made the wrong decision, sister,” he deadpanned.
“Maybe,” Gabby replied in a defeated tone, “but I won’t stand by and watch your cruelty any longer.”
Dorian ignored her before he directed his attention to me. “And now what?” His tone was nonchalant, and he gestured with his hand to his men, pointing out that we wouldn’t stand a chance. We were equal in number, but Gabby and Lisa weren’t trained for battle. Also, we didn’t have as many weapons whereas his gun was an entirely different matter.
My brain reeled as I went through every possible outcome. Frankly, none of them seemed to be in our favor.
“When I say ‘now,’ you run,” Scott suddenly whispered in my ear so low, I barely heard him.
I had no clue what he was up to, but there was no time for weighing up options. Turning around, my eyes met Cole’s indicating for him to grab Lisa and Gabby first. He frowned, confused, but nodded.
Dorian grew impatient. “Hand over the Watcher, and I promise no one will get harmed.”
“You can stick your promises up your ass, Dorian,” I growled, stalling for time, although I had no idea what I was stalling for. “Haylie and Cassie slipped through your fingers, I heard?”
A vein on Dorian’s forehead started to pulsate, but he kept his composure, a vicious grin playing on his face. “They won’t survive for long out there, be assured of that. I will find myself another Natural, and then I—”
“Now!” Scott shouted just as an object sailed over my head.
Gathering from the sound of splashing liquid and splintering glass as it hit, it was some kind of chemical fluid in a bottle. The contents splattered three guards who all yowled in pain as their clothes started to smoke, the acid smoldering fabric and tissue.
Scott tugged sharply on my arm. I whirled around and sprinted toward the exit, Cole racing with Lisa and Gabby through the door. I gave Chris a hard shove just as Scott threw the second bottle, its contents reacting with the liquid of the first one.
I allowed myself one last glance over my shoulder. Dorian dropped his gun as he jumped sideways, roughly pushing Phil out of the way and directly into the center.
Phil’s body was the first to explode in pieces.
The blast hit us all from behind, and we flew the rest of the way crashing through the glass panels. The air wheezed out of my lungs as Scott landed on top of me, his chin smacking the back of my head.
“Fuck!” Chris cursed, completely bewildered as he pushed himself back onto his feet. He heaved Scott away, and I scrambled up to see a huge shard of glass sticking out of Scott’s left shoulder blade. The ceiling above us cracked, and I knew we didn’t have long before it collapsed.
Scott struggled to stay on his feet, so Chris and I put our arms around him before the three of us dashed in the direction of the only exit. Red alarm lights and a blaring sound went off as we hurried down the staircase. Cole met us halfway, helping us with a half-conscious Scott staggering in between us.
“Is he…” Gabby started with tears in her eyes as we approached.
“Don’t know,” I muttered, knowing she wanted to know about Dorian, but really, I couldn’t care less right now if the motherfucker survived or not. “Where to?”
“M-My car,” Gabby stammered, fumbling for her keys. We came out into a dark tunnel system now busy with panicked guards and employees—either shouting orders or rushing to their cars and be off.
Grabbing Gabby’s keys, I hit a button, glad when I heard an SUV close by beeping in response. “Get into the back seat and help him,” I instructed, shoving Gabby, Lisa, Scott, and Cole inside.
Chris had the passenger door barely shut before I hit the pedal hard, nearly knocking over two people crossing the way. Scott howled in pain as the car shot over rocks and hills, and I heard Cole yelling directions at Gabby as they tried to remove the shard from Scott’s shoulder blade.
“Damn, what the hell just happened?” Chris asked as we finally saw daylight peeking into the cave.
I sped the car over the last hill before we came out into the vast space we’d already wandered about when we came here. I glanced back only to see that the entrance was well hidden within a rocky alcove which explained why we struggled to find it in the first space.
“No idea, but Scott knows a thing or two about chemistry, and he generated an explosion.”
“Brilliant. And I thought he’d already blown away his brains with all that weed,” Chris mumbled before asking, “Do you think Dorian made it?”
“Can’t say. Phil certainly didn’t.”
I knew he’d just been a boy, but still, I couldn’t find an ounce of sadness in me. Whoever wanted to hurt Haylie or my family deserved death. God only knew how many lives he put in danger since he’d switched sides. My brother Ricky was certainly one of them.
“We need to stop somewhere. I can’t pull out the shard as long as we’re moving,” Gabby complained from behind, tightening her hold on my backrest as we bounced over the lithic terrain.
“Okay, just let me gain some distance.” I turned to Chris, pointing a finger to the line of trees extending about a mile away. “I’m taking a shot in the dark and say they made a run for the woods, but we depend on Scott and Lisa’s abilities to find them because honestly, I have no idea where to start.”