Steel Lily ARC (36 page)

He stilled, and watched Dad as he finally lodged the key in the hole of the manacles. “Riggs, catch him.”

Riggs stepped forward, but stopped the moment Jaxon spoke. “No,” Jaxon said firmly. “I’ll walk on my own.”

When the manacles loosed his weight, he crumpled as I tried to hold him up. “Help me, please,” he whispered to my father.

The sadness in Riggs’s face was evident as my father and I helped Jaxon to his feet, each of us trying to support his weight with his arms draped over us. Jaxon winced as his shoulders ground in their displaced sockets with the motion.

“You’re too injured to walk,” Dad said as he scooped Jaxon up and put him over his shoulders like a wounded soldier. “I’m sorry, but we need to move.”

Jaxon opened his hand in search of mine. “Thank you,” he murmured as he gripped my hand in his. Blood dripped from a gash along his ribs and covered Dad’s neck. “Thank you for coming for me.”

“Riggs came for both of us.” I said, wanting to give Riggs credit where he was due. Jaxon said nothing, but simply let his head hang limp as Father carried him from his cell and into the hallway.

I looked at the people before me as they ran down the hall: Mom, Dad, and Riggs, and I realized that they were a team.

“What do you have planned?” I called out.

Riggs answered. “We’re getting Sari, and by then I’m hoping that Asher has retrieved Alice and his friends. If that all plays out, we’re going to escape. All of us. We’ll make a plan to come retrieve the rest of the students here after we’ve rendezvoused with the Alliance.”

Confusion riddled my thoughts. “I thought the Alliance was broken?”

“There are pockets who hide outside the domes.” Riggs said between breaths, the tails of his coat scraping the ground and the thumps of his dress shoes making more noise than the rest of us. “When you and Jaxon realized that the Earth wasn’t completely ruined, I knew we had to act fast. Xander wouldn’t allow you to have that knowledge. He told me to put you in the cells and said that he would dispose of you.”

My body went stiff, causing Mom to trip over herself. I whipped around to face Riggs. “
Dispose
of me? Of Jaxon?”

Riggs’s expression was severe. “Xander will get rid of anyone who stands in his way. Knowledge is dangerous, and he’ll take out anyone who finds out more than he wants them to.”

“What about you?” I spluttered. “You’re the one who runs this place!”

He laughed harshly. He pointed a finger to himself, his eyebrows raised. “Me? I’m a means to an end. I’m a dead man walking.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

Riggs’s words rattled around my mind as we ran through the dingy hallway. Every step we took resounded against the narrow walls, and I felt the panic that accompanied claustrophobia edging into my senses.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“What used to be Ramsey County Jail,” Riggs explained as my father slowed to a jog. “Xander modified it to his tastes. It was much more humane prior to him.”

Jaxon’s shoulder popped audibly. Mom gasped in horror as he screamed in pain, but Riggs held up a hand. “We don’t have time,” he said sternly as he took the lead and ran down the hallway. “I’m afraid we’ve taken too long. We need to find Sari and get to the tunnel to meet Asher and Alice.”

“Are there tunnels everywhere?” I asked as he ran.

“Of course,” Riggs said. “Xander wanted this place to look as though no one inhabited it. It’s why the dome doesn’t have a true barrier. Alliance members might accidentally come upon it, but they’d never get out.”

The thought made me sick to my stomach. If all of this was true, Xander was more maniacal than I’d ever dreamed Riggs of being. And Xander was the one we’d aligned ourselves with. Shared our ideas, our plans.

There was no way we’d get out of here alive.

The numbers on the doors began to dwindle as we passed them. Jaxon’s head lolled back and forth with each step that Dad took. It pained me to see him so weak, and I wondered if we’d ever be able to fix his wounds.

The windows on these cells were larger. I searched for Sari, but only found bloodstained walls and one lone man curled in a corner, his arms wrapped around his knees as if to shield himself from the horrors he’d experienced. Then I saw his arm.

His mechanical arm.

“LEGS!”

My scream stopped our precession, Riggs spun to look at me. “Who? We don’t have time to waste!”

“We can’t leave Legs behind! He came for Alice and me. To save us.”

“We don’t know if he’s friend or foe,” Riggs argued.

“I don’t know if
you’re
friend or foe!”

Mom chastised me. “Avery!”

I spun and looked at her. “All I know about Riggs is that he kidnapped me. The past week and a half, I’ve seen him hurt and intimidate people. Forgive me for not believing he’s a knight in shining armor.” I extended my hand for his key card. “Get me in, and I’ll meet you in a minute. I’m not leaving Legs behind.”

“You’re so like your mother,” he muttered as he pushed past me and swiped his card.

I noticed Mom’s smile as she nodded her approval.

When the door clicked, Riggs turned and started back down the hall. “We can’t wait for you. Get him and come quickly.”

As they retreated down the hallway, the flickering lights made them look ghostly. I watched for a moment, then entered the room.

Legs was relatively unharmed, but his tired eyes were rimmed with red and the side of his face held a bruise that outlined a hand. Someone had slapped him, and hard. He looked up at me, a spaced-out smile playing across his face.

“The cavalry’s arrived.”

I fought the searing pain in my arms and helped him up. “Something like that.”

“You look like hell.”

“You should see Jaxon.”

“He always looks like hell.”

I chuckled in spite of the situation. “Well, he’s more hellish than usual. Why weren’t you chained in there?”

I felt Legs shrug and heard the cogs in his new arm work to execute the maneuver. “I don’t know. Xander put me in there and said it was for my own good.”

The rest of our group was outlined in the ghostly light down the hall, and I took off toward them with Legs in tow. He labored to stay with me. “Where are we going?”

“Getting the rest of our group. Don’t try to kill Riggs when you see him. Apparently he’s helping us escape.”

“You don’t sound too confident.”

I tried to keep the doubt out of my voice. “I’m not, but he got us out of our cells, so I have to at least trust that.”

We skidded to a halt as Riggs emerged from the last cell and pulled the black pillowcase off Sari’s head. She fought Riggs’s grasp, but Mom assuaged her fears.

“Sari, Sari, it’s okay.”

She recoiled from my mother, back into Riggs’s chest. When she realized who he was, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. I thought it was Xander and his minions.” She embraced Riggs like he was a lifelong friend. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m so sorry for everything.”

Her response sent a wave of shock through me. Had Jaxon been in any shape to respond, he probably would have had a comment or twenty to throw their way. I looked from Riggs to Sari and back again before resting on Sari.

“Do you mind telling me what’s going on?”

“Those encrypted files? They were Riggs’s. I found out everything—and I do mean
everything
—and that’s why I was coming to Xander’s office. I wanted to get you out but make it look like it was Riggs who was the bad guy. He’s on our side, Avery. We’ve been wrong all along.”

Sari turned to face Riggs, who stood there, stoic. “What I don’t understand though, is
why
you’ve done this. Why you’d side with Xander to begin with.”

“Avery has a flash drive. It explains everything. It’s encrypted as well, so your expertise will be needed. You understand the need for the security,” Riggs said. “I couldn’t let Xander know my true intentions, but I needed to document everything. It speaks volumes about your talents that you were able to get past my firewalls and encryptions. I was right to bring you here.”

Sari flushed with pride. Riggs motioned all of us to follow him and I noticed the door at the end of the hallway. There was no card reader and no lock. Instead, the door looked welded shut. Riggs looked back at my mother, Legs and I. “I believe this is where your talents will be needed, ladies.”

Mom took Legs’s hand and stepped forward as though she knew what Riggs wanted. Dad and Riggs moved out of her way. Legs followed behind confused, but I stood rooted to my spot. Mom turned and looked at me. “What’s wrong?”

Fear consumed me. I was scared to stay here, but I was terrified of what could come. “We don’t know what’s on the other side of that door or why it’s welded shut, do we?”

Mom smiled at me and extended her hand palm up, beckoning me forward. “Darling, fear keeps us from moving forward. Being courageous is the only option you have, otherwise you’ll never know what could have been.”

Dad pressed a hand into the small of my back. “Don’t fret, my dear. It’ll all be over soon. Be brave.”

Just then an alarm sounded, reverberating through the halls. We ducked in unison from the offensive sound. Riggs called out over the din. “Xander’s realized what’s going on! There’s no time!”

Dad pushed me forward. “Go, Avery! Follow your mother’s instructions!”

I ran forward and watched my mother extend her hands. She looked at me, her expression calm. “I know you don’t have much experience, but you’ve got to focus on breaking through the wall. Burn a straight line, and Legs will punch through with his metal arm.”

I shot Riggs an
I told you so
look. “Good thing I got him, huh?”

Riggs simply nodded, his lips in a tight line.

I put my hands outward, palms pressed against the cool metal door alongside Mom’s. I watched as a faint glowing line emerged at the foot of the door where my mother focused her attention.

“Avery, please!” Mom said through gritted teeth. “I can’t do this alone!”

I focused my attention on the embers that began to emerge in the metal, concentrating on making the heat even stronger. The glow brightened, and I heard Riggs cheer behind us. All around us the alarm sounded, and the lights began to flicker even more. I heard lights shutting off one by one behind us.

“He’s killing the power!” Riggs yelled from behind us. “Hurry!”

We pushed harder, and the line crept upward. One by one the lights flicked off until we were left with the one directly above us. The line we’d burned through through the door was an upside down “L.” As we went to create the last corner, the lights went completely out.

“Damn!” yelled Riggs. “Legs! Can you break through? This place is airtight! He’ll cut the oxygen next!”

I willed my tired body to produce a flame in my hand. It burst to life and I saw my mom leaning against the wall, sweat covering her face, her eyes were closed. It was obvious the Elemental force had sapped her energy. I, on the other hand, felt stronger from using it. I forced myself to push on and felt the exertion sap my strength.

Legs stood in front of the door and flexed his fingers, grunting as he flung his fist forward. The door groaned under the assault, bending but not breaking. He pulled his hand away, the knuckles of his hand bent from the collision of metal on metal. He cocked back once more and launched another attack as a hissing noise came through the grate in the ceiling.

“He’s shutting off the oxygen!” Riggs said as red lights began to flash overhead, casting everyone in a bloody glow.

The alarm seemed to kick Legs into overdrive. His hand screeched against the metal, denting it but not breaking through.

“I need more help!” He yelled.

I gritted my teeth and threw the flame in my hands toward the door, willing it to engulf the metal and melt it. The flames licked the door. It began to glow, and Legs wheezed beside me as he tried to pull back.

But the lack of oxygen was having its way. The fire died almost instantly. Instead of using only his fist, Legs lunged forward and threw his entire shoulder into the door. The metal ground and screeched as his arm bit through the weakened steel, ripping a hole into the tunnel behind it.

Oxygen hissed through the door and we all barreled through, following Legs who led the charge. I looked back to see Dad still carrying Jaxon and Riggs helping my mom stay afoot. My body cried out for rest, but there was nowhere to go but into the unknown tunnel and pray that allies were on the other end.

***

The only sounds in the tunnel were our ragged breathing. My muscles rebelled against the forward motion, pain shooting through my shins and calves each time my feet pounded against the wet ground. The stitch in my side gnawed and made it hard to inhale.

Up ahead, light began to illuminate the path. Two figures blocked the opening, their bodies silhouettes. I prayed they weren’t enemies. There was no way we could fight anyone off in the state that our group was in.

“Riggs! You made it!” Asher called out as he ran forward. “Good God, what’d you do? Get run through a blender in the process?”

“Something like that,” Riggs grunted as he hefted Mom a little higher on his shoulder. “Tell me you’ve got Alice?”

Alice’s small voice rang out. “I’m here!”

“Good,” Riggs said as we neared the mouth of the tunnel and ascended the few steps to the atrium.

I panicked. “Why are we back in the Academy?”

“Because we’ve got to get to Jaxon’s buggy,” Riggs answered.

Despair set in as the logistics of getting everyone to Jaxon’s lab set in. “It’s across the dome! There’s no way we’ll get there!”

“The buggy’s closer than that!” exclaimed Asher, who ran to the main stairs excitedly. “It’s right outside!”

The floor beneath us began to rumble, and growls filled the atrium as we followed Asher.

“What is that?” Dad wondered aloud, “The Plagues can’t be used again for twenty four hours!”

Our motley crew piled into the elevator and the doors began to close, but not before I caught sight of what was coming toward us.

A sea of burned men—men that looked like Riggs’s older son—were surging toward us, arms extended and teeth bared like rabid animals. They trampled over one another, and more than one went down under the feet of his comrades, screaming in agony as he was crushed by the weight of the innumerable masses.