I’m authorizing us.I give Logan’s hand a squeeze. We make our way closer, only to find a set of glass doors sealing theentry.
Retina entry.He nods to the security panel to the left of theentrance.
The doors burst open with an explosive boom as a man in a janitorial uniform barrels his way out while wheeling a large waste bin. He bucks and kicks, trying to get his behemoth contraption to mind him, leaving the doors flapping in his wake like a dying fish. We wait until he turns the corner, and Logan jams his shoe in the door before it seals itself shut. He pulls me in, and I trail him like a kite. Logan moves us swiftly through the facility he’s memorized in his sleep, quiteliterally.
I don’t know where she is, Skyla.He gives my hand asqueeze.
For a minute I think he’s talking about Angel, but his gaze is fixed on an empty room with its glass doors swung open. The tiny room holds only a metal bed and a toilet, not a stitchmore.
This was her room.He takes in a quivering breath, the pain, all of his anguish unleashing into the world with that single sigh.Casey is gone. She must bedead.
My arms wrap themselves around the girth of his body.Let’s get the others, Logan. Let’s do it forher.
An alarm screams overhead as the lights blink on and off manically. Smoke sweeps by like an army of ghosts speeding out of hell, and my entire body enlivens withadrenaline.
I squeeze his hand to the bone.It’s showtime.
Logan leads us as we trail the smoke floating over our heads, ready to press over us like a lid sealing in our airless fate. In a moment, we’re in the hall of horror, each cell filled with the weary look of despair. A red light blinks on above each and every cell, and just like that, the faces of those once dead light up with hope they never knew was coming as the cell doors magically swing open. The feds might want to keep my people prisoners, but it needs to adhere to fire codesnevertheless.
Logan and I run from cell to cell shouting, guiding the prisoners to the route to freedom. There is no time towaste.
A pair of gentlemen emerges from one of the confinement units, Frank and Graham, the Smite brothers, and they look to the two ofus.
“What’s happening? What about theassignment?”
“It’s over,” I pant. “Your duty here isdone.”
Frank lets out a harrowing howl, a yodel that sounds more like code than it does a primal release, and a stampede rushes by, an entire cluster of bodies as the dead all press their way to the exit atonce.
“What was that?” Logan lets out a dry laugh as he ushers them to theexit.
Graham winks over at us as the throngs rush past. “Let’s just call it the Sampsonoption.”
“You had a plan.” I bite down the urge to cry. “Get to the entry. Gage and Brody will lead you to safety. We’ll meet you inTenebrous.”
“The tunnels.” Graham’s face grows white. “We trustyou.”
And just like that, the room clears of people and fills withsmoke.
“Angel and Tobie.” I panic as I rush from cell to cell. “Ellis? Laken?” I give Logan’s arm a squeeze as the smoke starts to blanket the vicinity. “Do you seethem?”
“No.” Logan’s eyes grow wild with panic, and that alone is enough to send me through the roof with alarm. We head out further and come to a hall that splits in two different directions—the smoke pushing in thick, driving every living being out of its path. “I’ll go right. You go left.” He grips me hard by the shoulders, his gaze penetrating mine. “Do not die on me, Skyla. Do a quick scan. If you don’t see them, get out. Gage and Brody most likely have them. Get on the floor if you need to. You won’t do your boys or your people any good if you’redead.”
I press a hard kiss to his lips before bolting the hell away from him. I’m not leaving until I’m sure there’s not a soul left back here. The room opens up to a larger facility, an operating room of some sort, and I’m distinctly reminded of Ezrina’s chop shop. The smoke hisses past me like a snake, and in seconds the room is filled with billows of life-choking clouds that force me to breathe in my sleeve. My lungs refuse its strangling fumes as I begin to choke and gag. I fall to the floor and take a quick breath, the smoke still a foot over my head. I’ve got less than a minute before I need to get the hell out. Logan is right. I won’t do my boys or my people any good if I’m dead. A narrow door up ahead catches my attention, and I army crawl over as fast as I can. The room is dark, the smoke lies thick, sinking ever so closer to the ground, and it leaves me sucking the floor for my next breath. Then I hear it, the sharp, anguished wail of an infant. I crawl forward and spot a glass enclosure in the wall across from me with a red-faced babe screaming her head off, pounding over the glass in hopes anyone will see her—Tobie.
“Tobie,” I choke out her name as I inch closer, but a rattle from farther down the room captures my attention, and I spot another set of tiny hands wailing against a glass enclosure of their own. I recognize that tiny blonde head of hair pitching wildly about before sitting down and weeping without a thread of hope. And then she seesme.
“Ma Ma!” she wails, pounding the glass,crying, hitting her head against the wall in sheerpanic.
“Oh my God.” I take a deep breath and rise to my feet. The smoke grows ever so thick, and in a moment, I’ll lose sight of them. The girls are each an equal distance away, fifty feet in either direction at least. I need to go left or right, Tobie or Angel. The three of us have seconds of air left. I need to get one now before they both perish, but my God, how will I ever save both? Horrifically, I realize there is only hope forone.
Red, angry flames shoot in and race across the ceiling as if the facility were doused with flammables—as if the fire itself were taunting me tochoose.
“Angel,” I call out and choke myself back down to the floor. I suck in another lungful and bounce to my feet. Left or right. Chloe or Skyla. Tobie or Angel. God help me, I’ve ensnared myself in paralysis byanalysis.
Shitshitshit!
And just like that, the room is white with a smoke so thick it sits over you like a blanket. Robed in white—I can’t tell which way is up—which way is Tobie, which way is Angel. But my gut knows. I know the path to them both. The fire swirls and roars, and the smoke clears enough to create one last visual of theroom.
