We entered the stairwell. There was only one more floor we could get to from here. The elevator had shown even more floors below us, though. Bree grabbed the security badge from my hand and then dashed forward, using her speed to get ahead of us.
“Shit,” I hissed. We had no idea what was on the floors beneath us because there were no camera displays for them in the security room. I rushed after her. “Bree!” But she unlocked the door with the badge and was already through.
Nemo and I followed after her. She was rushing across the room, past piles of bodies, to reach the elevator. This floor told a slightly different story. They’d known Baz was coming and had tried to prepare. Half of them were inside clean room suits with oxygen tanks strapped to their backs. And yet, that hadn’t helped them. Baz was a death sentence.
Bree raced into the elevator as soon as it opened. Quickly, Nemo and I got in as she wrapped her hand in cloth and smashed the melted button for the floor below us.
“I can hear a heartbeat.” Nemo looked at his feet. As the elevator moved down, his gaze moved up to the doors. “Two heartbeats.” Bree and I looked at each other. The last we saw of Baz was maybe fifteen minutes ago, when he’d slipped into an elevator with who we thought was Damien—Supra’s creator.
The doors opened, and Bree winced from the brightness of it. Everything was glass—rooms with see-through walls. And inside one room stood Baz with a look of vicious, unadulterated delight. His arms trembled as he held a large, round stone.
Bree and Nemo ran around the hall, heading towards the room door. Baz dropped the stone, chuckling when Damien’s head exploded. Then he collapsed to the ground.
I rushed after Bree and Nemo, making my way towards the door. I noted another glass room with chains and black-green blood everywhere. An oxygen level indicator was near the door. I realized that was the room he’d been kept in the last few weeks; monitored every single minute, and chained up.
Baz still hadn’t gotten up after collapsing. Bree rushed to the door and tugged, but it didn’t budge. She looked with wide eyes at the wound on Baz’s stomach, leaking blood.
“Baz?” She whispered, as if afraid he wouldn’t answer. His eyes popped open in shock. Slowly, he turned his head to the side.
“Oh,” he said when he saw her.
“Baz, let us in,” Bree begged. Baz’s eyes flicked to Nemo and me. Bree began frantically tugging at the door.
Nemo was shell-shocked, his mouth hanging open as he looked at Baz stretched out on the floor, bleeding out.
"Looks like the serum didn't make me immortal." Baz’s words were sluggish. It was hard to listen to.
"Please, let us in." Bree was distraught.
"I’m sorry,” Baz said slowly, “but this is where our paths separate."
"Like fuck it is,” she snarled. “Do none of you listen to me? I said lifeanddeath.”
“I love you,” Baz mumbled.
I hadn’t moved in several seconds. My head blanked out as I tried to understand what I was feeling, but the same fact just kept repeating in my head over and over …
Baz was dying.
"Help me," Bree screamed at Nemo.
He looked over at her. "His venom will kill you if we open it."
"That’s the point," she said to him. I jerked my head away from Baz and stared at her in shock.
“Nemo, I know you agree with me. There’s no life without all of us,” she said. Nemo grabbed Bree’s face and kissed her. Then he tried to take the door down, but even his strength couldn’t make it budge.
Baz blew out a breath, and I looked down at him on the other side of the glass wall. His mask-free face was slack with exhaustion. Dark green eyelashes kissed his cheeks as his eyes closed. My heart skipped a beat until they opened again.
“They’ll never break it,” he told me with a conspiratory smile. “You can only open it from inside.”
The other two kept banging on the door. They wanted to get into the room. And getting in the room meant dying.
It was the last thing Baz would want: to spend his remaining minutes murdering us with his venom.
“Cat got your tongue?” He giggled. “Bleeding out feels the same as suffocating in many… ways.”
"Shit," I whispered. My watch was still on his wrist, peeking out from the glove he wore.
