Pierce

Something had changed.

“You guys feel that?” he asked, pitching his voice slightly louder than normal to ensure it carried to the other participants.

“Yeah,” came the distracted reply from one of them. “And heard it too.”

He listened, noting the sounds of shouts and other noises filtering through the floor to them.

“What’s going on?” he wondered, not really expecting an answer.

“Whatever it is, sounds serious,” a third voice said, chiming in.

They fell silent again, listening to booted feet pound by over their heads. The words were too distorted for them to make out, but whoever was shouting and calling out orders sounded stressed, as if they were in a hurry.

“Hey guard, what’s going on?” he called through the half-foot thick steel bars arrayed vertically in front of him.

“Seriously?” came the exasperated reply. “I’ve been right here the entire time. You haven’t seen me leave, or anyone come down to talk to me. So how the hell should I know?” he snapped.

Well, that rules out some sort of scheduled drill. So whatever it is, it’s a surprise to everyone, both those upstairs and the guard.

It certainly wasn’t a surprise inspection. The guard would have been promptly notified about that, so that he could get himself and the area down here presentable.

“Unless I’m mistaken,” came a softer, yet somehow more powerful gravelly voice, “it sounds like they’re leaving.”

Closing his eyes, he listened carefully once more. It did sound like all the booted feet were headed in the same direction, but fewer and fewer of them were sounding as they listened. They all pounded toward the west side of the building above them, and then, unless they were coming to an abrupt halt and filling the hallway, they were headed outside.

“Are we under attack?” he asked out loud, speaking to nobody in particular.

“Maybe.”

“Let us out then!” he said, slamming an open palm against one of the bars. It vibrated under the impact, but did not give way. “We can help!”

The guard snorted. “And then disappear in the chaos? Yeah right, I’m not that stupid, boys. Give me at least a little bit of respect, okay? Not much—I know better than to ask for miracles—but don’t treat me like I’m too stupid to live, m’kay?”

Laughter echoed around, as much in agreement that they would have done just that, as in contempt at the idea of treating their guard with respect. Perhaps if a little was shown their way first…

“Can you at least go find out what’s happening?” another voice piped up.

“Yeah,” he said, agreeing. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere. Besides,” he added. “You’re just as curious as we are, and you know it.”

The guard shrugged his shoulders and stood up. “Yeah, you got me there. All right boys, you five stay put while I go ask the grownups what’s going on.” He laughed to himself as he headed up the stairs.

“Asshole,” Pierce Koche muttered as he settled back against the cool earthen wall, his right shoulder still pressed against the bars.

“He’s not that bad.”

“I suppose you’re right, Kean,” he said grudgingly to his older brother.

“I’m always right!” came the reply.

Pierce’s head turned as he arched an unseen eyebrow, looking out through the bars at the hallway beyond. It was a dead end. The guard had disappeared up the stairs to the left. To his right was an identical room like his, eight feet wide, fourteen feet deep. Across the hall, they were mirrored by another pair of rooms.

Cells, really. They’re cells, not rooms.

Another cell anchored the end of the hallway, forming a horseshoe shape. There were two more cells on each side of the hallway to the left of him. Long neon lights ran down the hallway itself, while inside his cell there was a single dangling lightbulb with a drawstring.

It was rather dim, but that didn’t affect his vision. Pierce could see just fine in bright light, low light, and even no light. But he still preferred to be out in the open, and not caged up underground.

That’s your fault, though.

From the stairs came what sounded like a cough, then a bang followed by a hiss. Pierce used his shoulders to push him upright off the earth wall and peered down the hallway as best he could.

Something came tumbling back down the stairway. To his practiced ear it almost sounded like a body…

Two black objects a little bit smaller than his fist went sailing by his cell and landed on the floor, rolling around.

Pierce craned his head the other way, and watched the canisters began to hiss. A gray mist began to seep from them, slowly expanding out to fill the confined space.

“Gas!” Kassian shouted, one of the other five occupants of the cells at the end of the hallway, and also another one of Pierce’s brothers.

Stepping to the farthest point of his cell, Pierce waited for the gas to come closer. Then he took several quick, short breaths, helping purge his system of carbon dioxide, before he took a lung, deep inhalation of air, his chest bulging up and outward as his lungs swelled with the effort.

He could hold his breath for quite some time if he wasn’t required to fight. Considering he was trapped in a cell that he most assuredly could not break free of, he didn’t anticipate a fight. Pierce was fully aware that as the gas began to sting his eyes and his nostrils, he was going to pass out and be killed. Or kidnapped. Whatever was going on. His only concern just then was to witness the goings-on, so that if he awoke, he would know what he was looking for.

Figures clad in all black with rebreather masks fitted over their faces came down the hallway, and started lining up facing them. There were two to a cell, and they raised odd-looking guns at the occupants. Pierce only had a moment to realize that they weren’t typical slugthrowers before the men started to fire.

Jerking back out of the way, he grabbed the mattress from his bed and put it in front of him. No sooner had he done so than it began to quiver. A needle-like point pierced far enough through that it emerged right at head height, quivering less than an inch away from his face. Pierce’s eyes went wide. He fell to the floor heavily, feigning having passed out.

By now the gas was making it hard to see, so he discarded the mattress. His vision was slowly going red as he ran out of oxygen. It wouldn’t be long now before he was forced to breathe, and then passed out for real. In the meantime, he wanted to see what was going on.

“Polansky, Sparks, get your targets out of here,” came a muffled voice that had the unmistakable iron of command within it.

He couldn’t tell much about the voice; the rebreather disguised too much of it. But he could hear where it was coming from. Pierce slipped to the side as his cell door slid open quietly and the two men assigned to him came charging in, moving right by him in the gray mist.

Tears streamed down Pierce’s face as his vision swam in and out of focus, the gas burning as he tried to stay conscious for just a few moments longer. He contemplated grabbing a rebreather off one of the men, but knew it would only delay the inevitable. Instead he wanted to try and view the leader.

“Roman, Nero, are you locked up yet?”

“Roger that, Leader; target secured and on the way out!”

Target secured. That was a very blunt way of talking about his brothers. All five of the cells had been occupied by one of Pierce’s brothers. The five of them had been caught gambling, and had tried to bribe their way out of it. As a result, they’d landed themselves in the base prison.

Stupid military for shifters. Never wanted to come here anyway. Stupid war. Stupid people. WHY IS EVERYONE STUPID?

He staggered through the mist, trying desperately to find the leader. Two figures went by, struggling to haul one of his brothers toward the stairs.

Pierce saw a shock of long hair.

Maximus.

He was the only other Koche brother with longer hair. He was also the oldest, and the one that Pierce had always looked to for guidance.

Not this time, though.

Staggering as his lungs screamed at him to breathe, that he needed to open his mouth to just suck in a lungful of lovely, sweet air, Pierce finally found what he was looking for.

Up ahead, the back of a more diminutive form. The one that had been barking orders.

“Taggert, Lonestar, is your target secure?”

“He’s not here!” came the surprised call.

“I swear to the nine hells of Hades, if you two lost your target…” came the reply, muffled still by the rebreather.

“They didn’t,” Pierce snarled from behind, opening his mouth at last. “I’m right here.”

Faster than he could have believed possible for a human—and the men after them were without a doubt human—the leader spun, drew, and pumped three darts into a near-perfect triangle in Pierce’s chest.

“Oh,” he said weakly, and then collapsed to the ground as the gas and the tranquilizer darts rushed through his system.

One last thought echoed through his mind before blackness claimed him.

Stay alive. Your brothers will need you.