Any Port in a Storm (39 page)

Mira grabs my hand. "Tell me you're serious." Her eyes plead with me. I've seen her pissed and I've seen her hurt, I've seen her silly and drunk and brave, but I've never seen her this scared.
 

"I'm serious," I tell her softly. "I can get her out. I just need to find out what cell she's in."

"Seven eighteen," says Ripper.
 

"How in the hells did you know that?" I gape at him.

"How do you think Mira found out what happened to Wane? I've got a buddy who's a psychic. He's known Alamea since he was a kid and trusts her with everything he is. He's her go to. I think he saved your ass once."
 

Jaryn. Jaryn the Wonder Psychic. Well, I'll be a skunk's uncle.

"This makes three times he's saved my ass," I say. "Remind me to buy that guy a drink."

"If you get Wane back, drinks are on me for the next decade," says Mira.

"Okay." I look around at the five of them. "Let's do this. How's it going to happen?"

Devon drives an SUV, so we all pile into that. He keeps it a lot cleaner than my car. I've got my swords and the key, but I can't walk into the Summit lobby fully armed in broad daylight without someone raising some eyebrows. As he drives back southward toward Nashville, we try to plan the prison break.

"You should go in the side door," Mira says. "The east entrance. There aren't cameras there like there are in the lobby. Your ID will scan and log your name, but it doesn't ping anyone."

"Good call. It's closer to the elevators down, too." I won't have to get close enough to the lobby to be on camera, and if we park off-premises, no one will know we're there. This time of day, the Summit should be pretty quiet. "When I get out with her, I'll text you. Bring the car down that side alley as close as you can get to the fence. If I have to throw her over, I will."

"Do you think he's hurt her?" Carrick asks, piping up for the first time. I know him well enough by now to hear the undercurrent in his voice, a reverberating rage that a seismograph would probably pick up.

Mira swallows and looks out the window. "If he has, I'll kill him myself."

The air in the car is heavy and thick.

We arrive just after one, and Devon pulls the SUV around the side streets to come at the Summit from the east. It's a strange view, to see the early afternoon sun glinting off the facets of the glass dome, refracting into rainbows that make it look as though the Summit is capped by a giant diamond.

He drops me off at the southeastern corner of the parking lot, and I hop out. I don't see anyone in their cars, and the lot is mostly deserted. I've only got my saber belted at my waist, and I wish I had on leathers even though it would make my still-sticky back into a nightmare.
 

I scan my ID at the eastern door and enter the Summit, looking around for any sign of movement.
 

No one's there, and I say a silent thank you that the elevators to the prison below are in an out-of-the-way corridor. I hit the button for the elevator, eyes alert and ears listening for any footsteps on the floors. Though the main lobby is marble, the eastern corridors are thin carpet. When the elevator arrives with a soft
ding
, I get in and hit the door close button.
 

Nothing happens. Those things aren't even connected to anything. Ugh.

I can feel the prickle of early perspiration beginning on my forehead again. Just the thought of going back down here makes my body want to reject me. I punch in the code. 743367.

The doors close. I hit the button for sub level seven.
 

I keep my hand on my sword's grip as the elevator descends. When it eases to a halt at sub level seven, I edge over to the side as the doors open.
 

Peering out, I wait, looking for any sign that the floor is occupied.
 

The plus side of a prison like this is that you don't need guards. I've never heard of any existing. The damn thing guards itself.

Stepping out of the elevator, I turn to watch the doors close. The wall fades into that seamless, taunting grey.
 

Terror takes me for a moment, and images of me trying the key and having it fail dance before me. A voice whispers,
what if she trapped you
?
 

I pull the key out of my pocket and press it.
 

Symbols blossom into being on the walls, and lines appear beneath my feet. On unsteady knees, I walk forward. I don't know how the cells are numbered, and at first I can't see any pattern. 742 is directly across from 711. I turn left along the nearest wall and watch the numbers until I can work out what they're doing.

It's a spiral. I find 725 and 724, and I work from that.
 

The prison is dizzying, just as it's meant to be. Even with direction, I feel lost, like I could wander forever down here.

It's never occurred to me to wonder what happens to the prisoners when they die. I don't even know how they're fed. My cell didn't even have a toilet.

719.

The next cell is 718.
 

My throat is dry, and my hand shakes as I raise the key to the wall. The hexagon of circles spins infinitely.
 

If this is a trap, and if it's Gregor in there waiting for me, I don't know what I'll do.
 

I put my hand up to the wall and press each circle, one after the other.
 

The wall opens.

Huddled in the obtuse corner immediately to my left is Wane.
 

She looks up and skitters backward in the same motion, but her movements are sluggish. She's been drugged.
 

"Wane," I say. "It's me, Ayala Storme."

She blinks and looks at me. "I know it's fucking you. I'm sedated, not blinded."

I don't know what to say to that.

"Come on," I say finally. "I'm going to get you out of here."

I look up. I can't see the cameras, but I know they're there. I hope I'm out of range. I don't know if they only take a picture ever ten minutes or if there's a live feed that's motion-sensitive, but I think it's the former. They might be able to turn on a live feed, but keeping seven floors of feeds going constantly would be a large expense even for the Summit.

Even so, I don't want to stick around.
 

"Can you make it to me without help?" I ask. I can't go in there, even with the key between my fingertips.
 

Wane nods and gets to her feet. She uses the wall as a brace. Even though she's moving slowly, she's fairly steady. Enough that with my help, we can get out of here.

She makes it to me and grasps my arm at the elbow. "You smell wrong," she says.

"It's the anti-venom gel," I say.

"That'd do it."

With Wane on my left side, I hold up the key in my left hand and start tapping the circles. Just as I hit the last one, she teeters off balance. The key leaps from my fingertips and hits the ground.

It bounces right into the cell as the door becomes a wall.

"No, no, no, no, no," I say.
 

Wane goes ashen, and she steadies herself on the wall where the door used to be. My right hand is still at the level where the spinning circles are, but I can't risk reopening the cell. It could take too long, and the cameras could catch up to us — and we need to get out of here.
 

She looks around at the honeycomb of doom, and even more color drains from her skin. "We're never going to get out," she says.
 

It's too close to the inside of my head for me to respond. I try to hold my hand in the same position, marking the distance between the circles that I just pressed.
 

"Lean against the wall," I tell Wane.
 

I move to the center of the corridor, trying to steady my breathing. I can feel the walls, the dizziness, the knowledge that there are six levels between me and breaking ground into the light of day again. It's hard to get a gauge on what the exact place in the corridor is that's equidistant between the two walls. But I have to try.
 

I stretch out my arms straight on either side of me, trying to guess from the amount of space between my fingertips and the wall.
 

When I think I'm close, I kneel. My back itches all over, and I think it's only partially because of the gel that's starting to peel.

My fingers touch the floor. I press once, twice. Then again, a half inch away. Once, twice. Again. Once, twice.

I want to close my eyes, and my breath races in and out of my lungs. Once, twice.

Once, twice.

Nothing.

Once, twice.

Once, twice.

Against the wall, Wane has her back pressed to it, and her eyes are closed, her lips trembling. "You can do it, Ayala," she says.

Once, twice.

Nothing.

Once, twice.

I move my hand just a hairsbreadth to the left.
 

Once, twice.

Nothing.

Back to the right, slightly more.

Once, twice.

The circles light up. With a strangled cry, I press the rest of the circles. The walls and floor come alive. There it is. The line. The way out.
 

I don't know how long it will last. I sling Wane's arm over my shoulder and we shuffle forward as fast as we can move. I don't know if her sedative starts to wear off or if she's just desperate enough, but we start to run. We turn when the glowing red line turns, and the elevator is before us. I press the circles on its wall as fast as I can and drag Wane in.
 

743367. I hit the ground floor button so hard I'm afraid it'll break and trap us. The doors slide close, and we begin to ascend.
 

"Thank you," Wane says. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," I tell her as the elevator halts.
 

The doors slide open.

There are voices in the lobby. Angry ones.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

"You imprisoned a civilian woman without my consent!" Alamea's voice booms through the lobby. "You have overstepped your bounds and your authority."

Fuckles.
 

I press my phone into Wane's hands. "Stay behind me and text Mira that we're out and need backup."

"We need backup?"

Grimly, I consider the exit routes. We could go back down to the sub levels and take the stairs up, coming up in a different corridor closer to the building exit, but I will not risk getting trapped down there. From the lobby, there's a straight line of sight down the hall we need to take to get out, and there's no stairwell where we are. I look at Wane, but I don't need to say anything. She starts texting Mira.

"I won't let them put you back in there," I murmur.

"We might both end up back in there," she says.

She had to say that, didn't she?

"They're coming," she whispers a moment later.

I've missed Gregor's first half of his response, but the words I hear next make me want to take Wane and run.

"You've come to your last day as Summit leader, Alamea Virgili," he says.

It could be just the two of them out there, or it could be more. The whole Summit could be crowded into the lobby, but I don't think that's the case.
 

I don't know what to do, but I do know this cannot happen. Gregor can't oust Alamea. He needs to pay for what he's done.
 

"Stay here."

"I can help," Wane says, and a golden light glows in her eyes.
 

"Pick your moment," is all I say to her. Then I walk out of the elevator bank and into the corridor.

The lobby of the Summit is not full of people.
 

The only people in it are Alamea, Gregor, the Mitten at the front desk, and Jaryn.

Only Jaryn sees me at first, and he gives me a look that is pure relief. He towers above Gregor and even Alamea in her heels. When he meets my eyes, I know he knew I was there all along. I mouth
thank you
.

He gives me a well-what-do-you-know sort of smile that tells me those were the last two words he ever expected to hear from me. I can't say I blame him.