Rivals (14 page)

“Help is hundreds of miles away. Do you really think we’re worried about that? We have the entire prison and there isn’t a single person left standing to save the day.”

Cori’s body
was
pain. So much pain. There were no muscles, nor bones, nor appendages; there was just one all-inclusive ache. Except her head. Above all the other pains, her head prevailed to offer a predominant throbbing migraine.

She raised her head just enough to look around.

She got a clear view of Danato’s bottom desk drawer before she passed out again.

Garr gave Danato a hard slap on his bicep, a mocking comfort for his irrefutably sucky day. He could hear the singe and smell the burnt fabric, but Garr removed his hand before the heat became too intense. He glanced at the smoking brown imprint left on his shirt. “Don’t worry, Warden, I’m sure they’re not all dead. I know how you hate breaking your fatality record,” Garr said before he stalked back through the people-littered floor to join the rest of his gang.

Danato had already thought of three or four plans to remedy his situation, but all of them involved being free and right now escaping his bondage would only lead to him being put down by the elementals. There was only one hope left.

He looked around the room for Belus, but didn’t see him. That meant that he hadn’t been captured, but it also meant he was one of the eighteen potentially dead or severely wounded.

Danato’s hope was slipping away faster than he could replenish it.

25

Belus stumbled into the office dragging one immobile leg behind him. Cori couldn’t see his face, but she had a clear view of the stunted bloody leg from under the desk. He grunted to a stop at the filing cabinet and sat down on the floor. He yanked open the bottom drawer and pulled out a first-aid kit.

She could see the syringe he used to draw liquid from a small vial. He injected it into his leg and sat back to rest. His stomach rose and fell progressively deeper and slower.  

“Belus,” she whispered.

She wasn’t sure she had said it loud enough, but his body tensed and froze. He couldn’t see her behind the desk. He hadn’t been around for her short flight into the wall, so he had no reason to look for her there. 

“Cori?” he whispered back, just as quiet. She thought he might have been questioning his lucidness. 

“Behind the desk,” she said. He mobilized, crawling and sliding across the floor. He emerged from behind the desk. “Belus.” Her voice pitched when she saw his face. If she hadn’t felt like tenderized meat, she would have hugged him. Instead, she reached out and squeezed his arm. “I’m so happy to see you. I was afraid everyone was dead or something.”

He sidled up to her and started checking her injuries. “The ‘
or something’
leaves a little to be desired, but we’re amongst the living. At least most of us.” Belus touched the back of her head. His hand returned full of blood.
Her
blood.

“Danato?” she asked, feeling tears line her eyes at the thought of him being amongst the dead.

“Danato is still alive,” he stated flatly. He pulled out the first-aid kit he had dragged along with him, and dug out antiseptic.

“How bad is it?”

He pulled her head down and dumped the antiseptic on her scalp. She could feel the burn, but the pain was inconsequential to what she had already been through. “I’m going to stitch up the cut on your head.”

“I hurt so much.” She lifted her head to look at him.

“I’ll give you a shot of morphine when I’m done.” Belus opened a sterile needle, pulled her head down again, and started sewing her up. 

“What happened? Who did this?” she asked, wincing as he pulled the first knot to affix the skin.

“The elementals are out,” Belus said as if that was all the explanation she should need to answer for the chaos around them.

“The top-floor prisoners?” she clarified.

“The very same.” He snapped the remaining thread off and prepared her shot.

“Danato always said they were the worst.” Cori coughed into her hand. A splatter of blood speckled her palm. She showed it to Belus.

His eyes flickered between her hand and her eyes. He shook his head and gave her the injection in the arm. “We’ll deal with internal bleeding later. First we need to lock all four of these brats back up.”

“Four?” she questioned, incredulous. “That’s it?”

“It only took one to crack that wall with your body, and one to frostbite my entire right leg,” he scowled. “Yes, four is plenty.”

“They were out when Ethan and I arrived that first night, weren’t they?”

“Yes,” he said, getting himself up off the floor. His leg was slightly more mobile than when he came in, but she could tell he was still going to have trouble walking on it.

“That was what all the fire and lightning was about.”

“Yes, they…” Belus shook his head. “I don’t have time to give you a history, I’m sorry. We just need to get to the armory. We have specialized guns for them.”

“Okay.” Cori could always depend on Belus to be business as usual. He never had much patience for questions. Without thinking, Cori got up. Her head swirled and she fell right back down. “I’m so dizzy.”

“Cori,” Belus said slowly and earnestly. “I would love to be the hero and say, ‘just stay here and rest, while I get the guns,’ but I can’t. I have one bad leg and frankly, you’re faster and stronger than me on a good day. We need to do this together or this whole place will be blown to hell with everyone in it.” She was about to ask a blanketed “what,” but she resisted. “Lockdown was started over an hour ago; we have less than two hours to get it shut off.”

“They’ll bomb us to prevent them from escaping?”

“Yes, that’s the agreement. They are that dangerous. The military doesn’t take chances.” He braced himself on the wall and offered her his hand. “Let’s go.”

Cori stood with his help. The quick upward tug he lent her made her wonder if he was being generous by saying she was stronger than he was. She rested on the wall for a good minute before she could give him any forward movement. To his credit, he remained quiet while she marshaled the strength to walk.

Belus was able to walk on his leg, but he had to drag it up from behind like a peg leg. Around corners, he had to reposition it manually to get it back in line with his body.

They couldn’t go directly to the weapons storage because it would send them right past the gym. Instead, they took the long way by the docks and through the kitchen. Outside of the kitchen, they sneaked down a slim hallway that was lined on either side with storage closets. One particular door marked “Utility” required security clearance to access.

Belus entered a code and slipped into the closet. Cori stood watch. The far end of the hall terminated with an exit that would put them outside, but it would be barred due to the lockdown. That meant they were in a long narrow trap if anyone happened to come upon them.

Belus handed her a gun. It looked like a machine gun, except for the four colored buttons on the side. Yellow, red, blue, and orange. He handed her five more that she strapped over her head, under either arm. He emerged with ten more.

He explained the purpose of the buttons like an automated recording, except that there was no pause or rewind option. Yellow fired electricity, to arc the electrical current of Efrat. The red was fire to fend off Hirem and his icy attacks. The blue defended against Garr’s fire. The orange dispersed Remi’s water attacks

As if that wasn’t enough, the gun came with a flashlight, laser aim, and was resistant to hot and cold. Just in case someone tried to burn it out of her hands, or freeze it to them. The technology was beyond anything she was aware of, but clearly her awareness had been nullified the second she met Danato.

Cori’s hands were shaking. She wasn’t sure if it was from shock or fear. Belus grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her forward. “This is a warden’s job.”

She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t going to get that job. She wanted to tell him that she was too scared, too hurt, and too
noncompliant
to do what he was asking of her, but he wasn’t the type of person that would take “no” for an answer.

He was doing his job. He was saving the day. All she had to do was shut up and follow his lead. So she did.

After all, either she died storming the gym with him, or she died when they bombed the facility in two hours. It wasn’t exactly the mental pep talk she wanted, but it would have to do for now.

As she followed Belus, she became aware of how truly weak she was. Her legs were ready to fold. Her head hurt through the morphine he had given her. Aside from the cut on her scalp, she wasn’t bleeding. She was, however, feeling congestion in her lungs that she knew wasn’t from mucus. If it hadn’t been for Belus pushing her onward, she would have laid down and given up back in the office.

“They have everyone quarantined in the gym.” Belus declared as they once again took the long way around to the gym. He wanted to avoid windows and get a better angle on the door. She had no objection, except for the part about the route being longer. 

“Belus, what are we going to do? What’s the plan?” She had donned six weapons that she had never used in her life. She wondered what clever plan he had to make her a useful asset. 

“The elementals are working together this time. We will have to go in guns blazing. Just shoot, roll, and shoot. Cut a man loose and give him a gun. It doesn’t matter who, just get more guns against the elementals than they have power to fight off.”

Cori nodded. He had given her the rough cut of his plan on the way to the weapons closet, but the long version hadn’t sounded much different. She had hoped that he was planning a distraction so she could get the men free, but he fully intended for her to be a part of the guns blazing. She didn’t feel right about it. “The elementals don’t usually work together?” she asked.

“They usually have an every-man-for-himself kind of mentality.”

They skirted the wall approaching the glass-windowed door that went into the gym. Belus peered in the window. Over his head, she could see the elementals were in a cluster away from the prisoners. She had never seen them before, but they weren’t hard to pick out, being the only ones standing.

Cori angled to see the captives. She saw Danato tied up next to Mr. Nose. Her heart sank and she felt sick. She was relieved to see him alive and unharmed, but any residual hopes that Danato would be her white knight were gone. Ethan wasn’t there to save her either. She had no rock.

She admired Belus’s straightforward, duty-calls bravery, but his plan lacked the shrewdness that the situation demanded. He was acting on his instincts, something she was very familiar with. His instincts were telling him to run into the face of danger to save his men; her instincts were telling her to back off.

“Are you ready?” he asked, pointing to one of her guns.

She nodded and put the gun into her hand. She recited the button designations in her head.

She wasn’t ready. Her mind was screaming
no
. She didn’t want to go in there.

“You can do this.” Belus gave her a rare taste of encouragement.

She
could
do this. She was just being a coward. She
had
to do this.

Belus opened the door and ran in as best his leg could hold. She half expected to hear a war cry from him, but he just started firing his weapon; fire first, then electricity.

Cori moved forward to the door that was lingering open behind him. She made a quick plan. Run straight to the men while Belus was still distracting them. Cut the restraints with the laser and pass off every last gun. Then she could go pass out in a corner.

She reached out her hand to hold the door open for her not-so-heroic stunt. The door continued to close and brushed her trembling hand out of its way. It clicked as the latch coupled with the jam.

She stared at the door that she couldn’t will herself to pull back open. Her eyes watered.

Coward. Coward. Coward.

She clenched her teeth as she heard Belus yell from the gym. She stepped away from the door. Her tears clouded her vision too much to see what was happening inside. She heard a final yell that might have been her name, but it was stopped short.

She ran from the door to the elevators. She slipped in and pushed all the buttons in case someone came out to find her and follow her. Inside the metal box, she sank to the floor and prayed that Belus had not just died because of her.

She had many times felt the shame of her actions, but nothing compared to this. She was a sad, pathetic soldier, who had just traded her only chance to defeat the elementals for two more hours of her own life.

Even through the bruises on her back and the throbbing in her head, she felt her sorrow demon feeding on her. His gluttony weighed on her like a bowling ball.

He’s dead.

“Shut up!” she screamed aloud to him. “Don’t you think I know that?”