That was it, then. There was no reason to stall because there was no time like the present. We’d never get a better opportunity.
I wondered how many lives I’d put in danger.
Crimson Caves would save Silver Hollow from shutdown before too long. Before the Schengs caught wind of it.
Probably.
My actions could kill Fyefa. Or free her.
We were all slaves, everyone except Queen Maud and Ednis the Wise.
I wouldn’t regret it.
But the thought of Fyefa dead as a result of my actions was enough to make my head spin.
Yavadoni: Set a timer. In an hour, execute ESCAPE.
DA: Timer is set.
Yavadoni: In the meantime, fuck with the Silver Hollow system. Delete random files, turn off cameras, make the lights flicker, stop some doors from locking no matter what.
DA: Proceeding to “fuck” with the Silver Hollow system by doing the following at random: deleting files, turning off cameras, causing lights to flicker, and unlocking locked doors.
The lights in my room sputtered out for a second before resuming their usual brightness. They repeated that cycle a couple more times before settling on full power—for the moment.
Good enough. If all went well, it would fray everyone’s nerves before ESCAPE began. The warrior with a sound mind will triumph over one who is emotionally compromised. Ivy didn’t have a warrior before, a former slayer, but she did now.
I pushed Fyefa out of my thoughts. There was work to be done.
What I needed were supplies. Maybe there was another life I’d claim responsibility for. There was one thrall who might be able to help me with my supply problem in exchange for my protection and her guaranteed freedom. I wouldn’t mind that thrall tagging along.
The door to my room opened quietly. Hireh moseyed inside, dingy scrub suit catching on the handle. I dropped my headphones, logged out of the MC, and shut down the pactputer.
Hireh untangled herself from the door handle and raised her chin toward the ceiling when the lights flickered. The look on her face was somehow solemn. Her eyes were too wet.
I dropped my legs off the side of the bed. “Hireh?”
She shut the door. “Slayer Lisette. I have a favor to ask of you.”
A favor? I hadn’t seen this coming. “Bold of you, thrall.”
Hireh winced. “Punish me for my insolence if you wish.”
I cleared my throat. “I didn’t mean it like that. Speak.”
“I want you to protect a human in the cafeteria. You aren’t allowed to feed on her. She’s there for the fed-on thralls, but you could stop them from drinking too much of her blood. Pua is resilient, but any human can be fed on too much.”
“The human you coddled the first day you took me to the cafeteria,” I clarified, recalling the portly woman.
“Yes. Her.” Hireh peeked up at me, eyes shimmering. More tears.
“I’ll do it.”
“I hoped you’d say that,” Hireh whispered. “I really hoped you would. Pua is all I have left. The queen just k-killed my brother in front of me.” A thick, warbling whine escaped her throat. “B-because she said he d-didn’t o-obey…”
She couldn’t say anything else. Her knees wobbled, and I knew she’d fall. I caught her before she could, quick as a whip. Hireh grabbed me. Clung to me.
Her hot tears soaked my shoulder.
“Hireh,” I said, “I know you’re hurting, but I need you to listen to me. Carefully. This can’t wait. The Silver Hollow system is going to shut down in about two hours, and we’re going to get out of here when it does, but we need whatever supplies you can grab before that happens—especially sunlight-resistant gear.”
Hireh hiccupped. “W-what?”
“The lights, what happened in the recreation room, I did that.”
She pushed away from me, scowling and wiping her wet cheeks with the backs of her hands. “Really? Why would you tell me this?”
“You need protection, don’t you? All the doors will be unlocked, so every slave will have the chance to run. You can take your chances on your own if you prefer, but I’d appreciate it if you’d get me that gear. I’m taking Adano with me.”
Hireh steeled herself. “Pua and I will come with you.”
That made the corners of my lips twitch upward. I liked this spunky thrall. “Under one condition.”
“Anything.”
“No one gets left behind.”
Hireh gave a sharp nod and hesitantly placed her hand on my shoulder. I expected her grip to be weak, but it was strong with that indomitable spirit. “That goes without saying. So, what’s the plan?”
CHAPTER 33
ADANO
I was having a hard time moving from my curled-up position at the foot of my bed. The concrete was so cold it seeped through my trousers and numbed my ass—at least they gave me trousers and a shirt this time. I could have crawled onto the fluffy duvet, lay on it, but I didn’t want to. I was mostly healed, aside from some scabs, but I ached. It was worse when I was lying down, vulnerable.
I couldn’t shake this feeling, as if my nerves had been exposed and abused so much that there was irreversible damage. This hollowness was fathomless; it ate a hole in my brain.
Was I hurting or was it the memory of hurting?
And Lisette.
She saw me like this.
That was enough to make my stomach churn. I clutched my middle and heaved, but nothing came of it.
Lisette should have brought everything to an end this morning. She should have taken advantage, showed her true colors as a slayer, broken me for good, but instead she said something so fucking strange.
That she’d get me out of here. Promised.
Would she do it?
Then she let me be in charge—me. She had been in complete control of herself—unlike last time.
I was taught and simply knew what vampires acted like after bleeding. I recognized it in Lisette. The drive to couple was too intense to ignore, but Lisette did. She overcame her nature, and that was no easy task.
Slayers are insane.
My lips spread at the thought of the Sadist Queen watching the playback of my fuck-you. If that didn’t get me killed, nothing would. There’d be hell to pay for it. While that thought was enough to make me shake to my bones, I hoped she would burn up over it in the meantime. I couldn’t hurt her, but I could make her angry. That was something.
“You’re not going to let them win, remember? You have to stay alive,” Lisette had said. Damn slayer.
The ambiance of the room changed as the humming lights blinked on and off. I glanced up at them, and they flickered again, buzzing across my skin like red jackets. That wasn’t normal. Lisette was up to something.
No, that wasn’t quite right.
My skin itched as the air warped. I’d lived inside this same pocket of constant frequencies for as long as I could remember, and something was displacing it. The Silver Hollow tech field was being disrupted by an overpowering matching frequency. Not only that. Frequencies I’d never felt were whipping through the air too, lashing against my skin like little electric shocks.
This was one of those things I knew. No one else would feel this or have a clue beyond instabilities in the Silver Hollow tech field and system responses. If the technicians were worth anything, they’d be troubleshooting the issue now.
The timing was eerie, though. This wasn’t entirely the work of outside frequencies. Part of it had to be Lisette utilizing the MC because there was a pattern to the acting-up lights. I watched them for several minutes to verify.
The click of the door unlocking drew my attention. Part of me wanted to recoil further inside myself, and the other part of me wanted to make eye contact.
But it wasn’t the Sadist Queen.
My tight shoulders relaxed some as Ednis the Wise stomped inside my quarters. Her white lab coat attacked her legs as the yellow cloak she wore trailed silently behind her. Boots, gloves, a mask—no
pactputer. Ednis was recently outside without her pactputer? Behind her were orderlies dressed in the same sunlight-resistant gear. One of them carried a neatly folded set of clothes, a blue cloak on top. The other carried boots, gloves, a mask…
“Get him dressed,” Ednis said.
“Where are we going?” I asked and stood. They were going to dress me in a cloak, meaning they were going to take me outside.
Outside.
Ednis pushed her round wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose. “This isn’t a field trip, Adano.”
“What is it, then? You never take me outside.”
“A trial.”
“What kind of trial? You want to use my brain before it shrivels up and dies? It could already be too late for that. You know, six years too late.”
“I’m not in the mood for your flippant attitude.”
My smile came easily as I pointed up. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Her brow furrowed. “Do you?”
“How could I, Doctor? I’m trapped inside these quarters and the lights are flickering. Call me concerned.”
Ednis waved at the orderlies and repeated, “Get him dressed.”
I was too eager. I didn’t fight the orderlies as they dressed me in record time. I didn’t want to lose this opportunity to go outside.
Outside.
My entourage kicked me out of my quarters and paraded me down endless concrete halls. The halls seemed to stretch for miles, made longer by the strobing lights overhead. Everything was soft and hard, warped and clear, like a dream that was realistic enough to be true. Instead of escorting me to the performance wing, Ednis and the orderlies took me to the edge of the reproduction center, to a heavy metal door that led outside. The last barrier.
I was so close.
Please don’t let this be a dream.
“Masks up, hoods down,” Ednis said and we obeyed.
The orderlies latched on to my wrists as Ednis unlocked the door with a code. Sunlight trickled inside, washing blue tones with yellow. I hadn’t seen sunlight in years, but it was as warm and bright as I remembered. I knew it’d burn me if I showed it my skin, but I tried to stretch my gloved hands out to it anyway as if to hold it. Unlike the distant stars, the sun was of Prime, and it was welcoming me home.
One orderly grounded my wrists while the other dragged me along a concrete path lined with dry poking grass. A cool breeze sang through the thick, coarse blades. The sound was pure, a whistle with no extra air. Welcome home, it seemed to say. Come lie on the grass, the dirt, where I can speak to you unhindered, for you have not heard my words since you were small.
A lump formed in my throat.
I couldn’t swallow as tears pricked my eyes.
Then one of the orderlies shoved me forward. “Keep moving.”
Shade Forest was northeast of here, likely turning red and yellow, but I couldn’t see any trace of it. The surrounding mountains and concrete buildings were towering. The orderlies yanked on my arms when I stopped where sunlight met shadows. I resisted them, but they won. My heart sank as the sun disappeared. I was much weaker than usual even though Lisette had given me her blood. I had drunk enough to find my willpower, to heal the worst of my wounds, and no more. I regretted that decision now.
A common glider waited for us in a small outdoor parking space. It was metallic and reflected the bits of sunlight coming through cracks in buildings. I had to squint. The lights inside the reproduction center could brand my vision with afterglows, but that was nothing compared to the sun. Along with my flesh, the sun could tear sight from my eyes. It was a beastly thing in some ways, but without it, nothing on Prime would live.
The orderlies pushed me inside the glider and Ednis took the wheel, so the outdoors was short-lived. The hum of the engine was music to my ears too, though. Mostly. There was a cough, a hiccup. If they’d pull over, I could fix it before it got worse, but there was no point in saying anything. They wouldn’t let me. I pressed my face to the tinted-glass window, wanting to see farther and more. Gods, I was acting like a scamp, but I couldn’t help myself. This was wonderful.
Ednis drove down several roads lined with tall and taller buildings. Wherever she was taking me, it was in the industrial zone. I racked my brain for what they could have planned for me, where they would want to take me, and then I saw it: a hexagonal concrete building staked down by huge silver spires that reached many feet above the roof. The air warbled more the closer we got, because this was where the central and strongest piece of the Silver Hollow tech field was produced, and it was being pounded by that outside force.
I didn’t believe it, that this could be the place they meant to take me, until Ednis pulled up to the indoor garage. The rolling door receded, and she parked in an empty stall inside.
“The tech hub?” I asked. “You lose your mind, Doctor?”
“Careful with that cocky tone of yours,” Ednis said. “You’re enjoying this now, but you don’t know why you’re here.”
I didn’t, but warring frequencies lashed against my skin like a torrent, and that was foreboding enough.
CHAPTER 34
ADANO
The orderlies dragged me out of the glider and behind Ednis as she led the way to a door that allowed us entry into the main body of the tech hub—once she input the necessary code. These halls weren’t much different from the ones in the reproduction center, but they winded and twisted more. And we dove deeper, until we arrived at the center.
When that last door opened, machinery buzzed at us. This room was large, hexagonal, filled with computers, flashing lights, monitors, and the mainframe. The mainframe stood in the middle of the room, a tubular supercomputer that ate into the floor and the ceiling; a thin monitor encircled the top half of it and a thick console encircled the bottom half. Several technicians were seated around the mainframe, smashing fingertips into the console keys.
“Sit,” Ednis said.
The orderlies pushed me down onto a rolling chair and held the backrest so I couldn’t scoot around. My fingers itched to make some tech sing. To stop them from moving, I squeezed the chair’s padded armrests.
“Adano,” Ednis began, “you’re going to tell us how to log in to the MC. The real one.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said and offered a lazy smirk as much to mislead as to trick my racing heart.
“I’m not in the mood to play games. You thought I wouldn’t notice? You thought I’d believe the system malfunctioning has nothing to do with you when it has run smoothly for the past six years? You thought that ‘randomly’ deleted chamber sessions—including your own—wouldn’t raise suspicion? You and Lisette have been getting along well lately, and I think it has nothing to do with attraction.”
“So what?” I asked.
Ednis sucked in her next inhale hard enough to rupture a lung. “Get me into the MC, or Lisette dies.”
My grin widened, teeth grinding. What a fucking lie. When she didn’t waver, I barked a laugh. “You’re serious?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t have feelings for her. I watched your last session with great interest. I heard every word. Some part of her must remind you of Ivy.”
I bit into my smile so it wouldn’t shift. “What are you talking about?”
“The audio. It went unnoticed for a time, as I’m sure you figured it would, but I installed new microphones before your last session, ones not connected to the Silver Hollow system.”
“I see.” My heart pounded on my rib cage like a drum, because that was my mistake. I probably would have noticed if I hadn’t been out of my mind. “Well, I hate to disappoint you,” I said, “but I don’t give a damn about Lisette.”
“You don’t care about her at all?”
“A means to an end, Ednis the Wise. You know all about that.”
“Even after what she so passionately said she’d do for you? You’re telling me that you got her emotionally attached to you? A slayer?”
“
Strange, huh? Lisette has problems.”
Ednis pursed her thin lips. “I don’t believe you. So, let me tell you what’s happening as we speak. Two White Team slayers have been ordered to take Lisette to one of the performance chambers, where they will proceed to interrogate her. Do you know how slayers interrogate? Only another slayer can make one talk.”
I had an idea. I was no stranger to torture.
“Lisette said the password,” I replied. “Maybe you forgot when Ivy died.”
“I assure you I did not forget. Every date we’ve entered, including that one, has been rejected. Our program is still running through dates to no avail, and now I’m almost certain no date will do. I must assume Lisette changed the password.” Ednis pressed her short nails into her thighs, crinkling her black trousers. “Wipe that damn smile off your face. It will end in her death, but not before immense suffering. The slayers interrogating her will start small. They’ll pull off fingernails, break her knuckles one by one. They’ll strip her flesh down to the bone.”
“That seems excessive. You’d decommission the vampire I’m receptive to when you had so much trouble finding her? You’re bluffing.”
Ednis laced her fingers. “I believe any slayer will do. They’ve honed their bodies, sharpened their venom. I think that’s the ultimate difference between you being receptive and not. Testing that will be my next experiment. But you are correct. Killing Lisette would be a waste. I’ll keep her alive—barely—to extract her venom, which I’ll then inject you with so that you’ll perform for whatever vessel I pair you with. After watching your sessions closely, I think your reception to Lisette has nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with her venom.”
She was right. Attraction was an abstract concept to me, so using Lisette’s venom this way would work. Leave it to the mad scientist.
“You’re as pragmatic as ever,” I said. “Too bad you can’t do the same with my sperm without killing them.”
Ednis adjusted her glasses. “Indeed, but I’m more interested in extracting your brain, I think.”
Venom sizzled on my tongue as I fought back a snarl. Had Ednis lost her mind?
Vampire Captives (From Blood to Ashes Book 1) Page 17
