The humans keep coming up, weapons raised, but we tear through them as if they’re paper. Every strike is faster than their eyes can follow, every blow stronger than their bones can withstand. My rage drives me harder, sharper–every cut of my blades like another piece of my grief spilling out, every kill a fragment of what this organization did to me.
I now understand to my core what it means to battle your demons.
I see flashes of my memory as I move–cold steel tables, the sting of restraints, Terrance’s smile and glinting scalpel. Every face I cut down blurs into one singular thought: They chose this side and now they pay for it.
By the time we hit the bottom floor, the stairwell is painted red, the walls dripping with the proof of lives lost. My breath comes fast, my arms slick with sweat and blood that isn’t mine. The hall of holding cells waits ahead, flanked by another line of Terrance’s guards.
They barely have time to raise their rifles before we’re on them.
Lyra slashes across a throat, Kael plunges into a gut. My fathers tear through the rest with a mix of blades and gunfire, each shot punctuated by the wet sound of steel finding its home. I spin, slice, and drive forward until none are left standing.
And then it’s utterly silent.
The smell of blood and gunpowder hangs thick in the air. My chest heaves, fangs bared, every nerve still wired with the hunger to keep going. For the first time since I was dragged into this place, I’m the one leaving the trail of bodies behind, and it feelsreallyfucking good.
All at once, the walls covering the cells begin to rise, metal groaning and gears grinding as they shudder upward in unison, the sound scraping down my spine with a familiarity I wish I didn’t carry. I force myself to hold my ground, to watch as the truth of what Terrance has kept hidden is revealed.
Cameras blink awake overhead, green dots sparking to life in the corners, and my gaze locks onto one of them. I can feel him there even if I can’t see him–Dante, steady and focused, controlling the feeds, watching every step we make. My pulse stutters under the weight of that unseen connection, knowing he’s watching our backs.
The thunder of heavy gunfire rolls through the ceiling, echoing down the stairwell at the far end of the hall in sharp bursts that are quickly followed by muffled shouts. The sound ricochets through me, pulling my thoughts toward Elias, toward the armory where the fight must be thickest now, concentratedand brutal. Panic gnaws at the edges of my resolve, but I push it back with a harsh breath.
When the walls finally reach their height, the sight waiting behind the glass knocks the air from my lungs. Rows of cells stretch down the corridor, each one sealed by reinforced glass, and pressed against them are bodies–some slumped in exhaustion, others clawing at the barrier with trembling hands desperate to scratch their way to freedom. My breath catches when I realize what I’m seeing. Small frames. Wide, terrified eyes. Hands tipped with tiny claws piercing through the skin. Furry tails twitching against the floor as their small bodies shudder with fear.
Children. Shifter children.
We can’t even see the rest of the cells that seem to extend endlessly down the immense hall. I try to steel my spine for what else we’re going to see, but I can’t. The shock burns into rage so quickly it makes my vision blur. My stomach twists, my chest so tight I can barely breathe. My fathers let out a vicious roar that shakes the walls and echoes down the corridor like a battle cry. The sheer fury of it makes every muscle in me clench, and I find myself glaring back up at the cameras.
“Dante, open these cells. Now!”
The lens above me blinks once, twice, then flashes green again, and the hallway fills with the mechanical whir of locks disengaging. One by one the barriers release, glass sliding open in a chorus of clicks and low groans.
I turn toward my fathers as they begin to lift, chest heaving, Lyra and Kael still clenched tight in my hands. “Please,” I manage, my voice steady despite the storm inside me. “Get the victims out to safety while no one else is down here. I will find Mom.”
My fathers hesitate, and for a moment the silence between us is louder than the alarms and gunfire rattling the building. I cansee the argument in their eyes, the instinct to drag me back into line and keep me from breaking off alone, but then the weight of the freed victims surrounding us steals the fight from their throats.
I know as fathers, the sight of trapped children is something they can’t ignore–especially when my mother would kill them herself if she found out they put her over helpless kids.
Papa finally exhales, his jaw locked as he looks over the shivering cluster of shifters closest to him. “We’ll transfer them to the human backup teams the second we meet up with them. They should be in the stairwells any minute.”
Dad’s gaze cuts to me, sharp and unyielding. “Once they’re clear, we’ll find you. You won’t face him alone.”
Father’s voice is the last to come, low and rough, carrying the scrape of gravel that makes my throat ache to hear. “Go find her. We’ll catch up. But bring her back, Briar patch.”
I nod once, clipped and certain, before I turn away and hurry down the long hall. Lyra and Kael hang heavy in my grip, their hilts humming faintly as I move down the corridor past cell after cell opening into the hall.
I pass too many wide, frightened eyes as I go, trying to soothe the children over and over with the same words. “It’s okay,” I tell them, my voice steadier than I feel. “Help is coming. You’ll be out of here soon and back home where you belong.”
One boy, no older than ten, blinks at me through tears, his claws retracting back into small, shaking hands as though my words have finally given him permission to stop fighting. My throat and eyes burn with heavy sadness, but I force a small nod before moving on.
I repeat it again and again, to every cell I pass, the same reassurance spilling out of me in a rhythm that steadies my racing pulse.They’ll be here soon. You’ll be safe. You’ll go home.Each time, the words anchor me as much as they do them,holding me together when the memories of my own captivity threaten to split me apart.
There are so many shifters here that I have to wonder if he’s been forcing them to breed, or somehow creating them.
By the time I reach the end of the hall, my steps slow, my stomach tightens as my gaze sweeps over the last row of open cells. Shifters and vampires spill into the corridor in uneven, stumbling waves as I direct them back toward the stairwell we came down, refusing to let any of them flee up the furthest stairwell that is still alight with gunfire.
One face is missing from the free captives, though.
My mother isn’t here.
