“Enter the passcode and follow the hallway to the left.”
Reyna repeated the instructions. Gabe was already a step ahead of her, entering the fifteen-digit code. The lock gave with no resistance.
“Here goes nothing,” Gabe said. He yanked open the door, holding the gun aloft in front of him. He shot the vampire in the heart who was waiting on the other side and quickly the second one. The bullet was enough of a distraction for him to jump in with a large knife and lop off both of their heads. He checked therest of the hallway with a nod. “Empty. We’re clear here.”
A sinking feeling set into the pit of her stomach. Even though this was exactly to plan, she still felt like Harrington knew they were coming. Except hecouldn’tknow they were coming. There was no way he’d predicted this. Still it felt like he was clearing the path for her to walk into another one of his traps. Had Roland given them up? Given them all the information that they needed to hang themselves? She’d have to do something he wasn’t expecting.
“What’s this mean?” Meghan asked. Her red box braids were in a high bun on the top of her head, and she held a gun in her hand. Jodie came in behind her, looking around wide-eyed.
“He knows?” Tye guessed.
“If he knows and he wants to see me, well then, let’s make that fucking easy for him.”
She strode forward and did the thing that Beckham had told her not to do. She abandoned the plan.
…
“You are not walking to the left, Little One,” Beckham said in her ear.
She sighed. Yeah, she wasn’t. “He knows we’re here. Roland must have told him we were coming. We have to go with Plan B.”
The silence on the other end was enough for her to know he was not pleased. Five minutes in and already shit was breaking down. But that was okay. She could roll with the punches. It didn’t change what she needed to do. Nothing did.
“Where the hell are you going?” Gabe asked, jogging to catch up with her.
“You can’t walk in there,” Jodie said.
“I appreciate it, but clear the way for me.”
“But…” Meghan began.
“That’s what I need from you,” Reyna said. “I’ll be fine.”
Meghan looked skeptical. Jodie snorted. Philippé said nothing of course. But none of them contradicted her and they all ran ahead to clear the hallways as she walked through the first floor of the feeding camps like a woman on a mission. She passed dozens of closed doors that led to holding facilities. The nicer ones. The ones they kept the new prisoners in before they got them doped up on vamp venom and forgot to care that they were living or eating or breathing.
That knowledge made her grit her teeth. She needed to save these people. Give them back the lives they deserved and not the one forced upon them by Visage through poverty and desperation.
A set of double doors stood closed at the end of the hallway. Two dead guards were lay on the floor in front of them. Philippé and Gabe stood by impassively. Meghan’s gun was aimed on the vampires. Her hand was steady, but she’d rather heal than kill. Jodie and Tye returned a minute later from connecting hallways.
“Clear,” Tye said. “What’s our next move?”
“Help get others out this way,” she told them.
“What about you?” Jodie asked.
Reyna kicked one of the vampires out of her way with the edge of her black boot. “I have an idea.”
“Little One, do you know what you’re doing?” Beckham’s voice crackled through her earpiece.
Yes. Yes, she did. She needed to do this her way and on her terms. She stepped over the second vampire and pushed the double doors open with both hands.
“Did someone throw a party without me?”
About a hundred pairs of eyes snapped to her and her grand entrance. She’d entered the main holding facility for the humans. Medical equipment lined the walls and rows of chairs filled it to its entirety. As with most things from Visage, theroom was strangely sanitary. No one would guess that they were dosing humans with antidotes and feeding a vampire army out of a place like this. But it didn’t surprise Reyna. Not when she knew about Harrington’s idiosyncrasies.
“Get her!” someone cried as a group of vampires lunged for her.
Philippé and her friends kept most of them off her, but one got through and grabbed her upper arm with enough force to bruise.
