Blood and goopy eye matter splattered across my titanium skin. The Mag screeched and began to deflate.
“Ew,” Diego complained.
I was about to tell him to take me to the Super Mag who had just torn Graysen’s metal rod out of his hands, when the whole room began to shake.
I looked around. The magic didn’t seem to be coming from the cloaked Super Mags. What was left of the deflating balloon Mag burst apart in a spray of blood and guts as a rhinoceros with golden eyes obliterated it.
Diego cursed and flew us higher.
“It’s Charlotte,” I yelled, wresting myself free from Diego’s grip and falling back to the floor.
Charlotte-the-rhino turned her enormous head from side to side, spearing the cloaked Mags on the end of her horn and flinging them into the walls.
A.J. zoomed the babies’ cribs around the Super Mags and straight out the door.
One of the cloaked figures rose out of a crouch and came at Charlotte from behind, a giant scythe-like weapon extending from his misshapen hand.
“Charlotte!”
Before I could get to her, fire engulfed the cloaked man and his weapon.
Sir Zachary raced through his own fire, completely untouched by the flames that were engulfing the Super Mag. He tilted his head back and barked fire up at our enemies.
“Coolest dog ever,” Diego said, staring at Sir Zachary in amazement.
“Bri, Diego, come on!”
Kaira and Graysen were gesturing frantically from the door. The rest of our group was already piling onto the elevator.
“Not without Lilly,” I said, leaping over the charred bodies of the mutated Mags without feeling a shred of pity. These monstrous Super Mags would have killed me without batting an eye. And they had tried to keep me from Lilly.
“No time,” Michael said. “The foreman told Emory—”
Whatever he was about to say was drowned out by a deafening alarm.
CHAPTER 41
Blue lights pulsed from bulbs in the ceiling. And then, as quickly as it had started, the alarm ended. There was a gentle hiss as cloudy white smoke came out of nearly-invisible vents in the walls and floor.
Diego swore. He yanked off his shirt and threw it at me.
“Cover your face!” He made a frantic gesture. “It’s MRP gas.”
The rest of my friends had their noses and mouths buried in their collars as they crowded onto the elevator.
A.J. was shouting at me to hurry up.
“Not without Lilly!”
I ignored the way my heart had begun to race. Weakness was stealing over my body.
I felt woozy…like I’d had a few too many of A.J.’s peach-pomegranate martinis. Those things were delicious.
“You look awesome without a shirt,” I told Diego. The words came out sounding like one. My tongue felt fat and dry. I tried to take a step forward, but my feet gave out and I sank onto the floor.
It was a really comfy floor. And I was really tired.
“Oh no, you don’t.”
I made a grumbly sound when Diego lifted me up and cradled me in his arms.
I knew there was something I was supposed to do…someone I needed to find…but I couldn’t remember. Diego smelled good, and he felt even better.
My eyes rolled back in my head as the floor became the ceiling, and I was flying down an elevator shaft. My friends were there, but they were all blurry.
“Sir Zachary!” A.J. shrieked. His voice was right in my ear, even though I didn’t see him next to me.
“I’ll come back for him,” Graysen’s voice replied. “As soon as I get Kaira out.”
My foggy brain remembered that MRP couldn’t hurt Nats, since they didn’t have any magic.
“Why…you…okay?” I asked Diego. Whatever was happening to me and the rest of my Mag friends wasn’t bothering him.
“High tolerance,” he replied. “Keep my shirt over your face.”
I noticed my dangling arm was no longer titanium. No matter how hard I tried to call on my magic, my skin remained normal.
Tendrils of panic wrapped around me when I couldn’t sense my magic.
“Diego—” I gasped.
“I’ve got you, cariño. Trust me.”
I didn’t want to, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. I was dead weight in his arms.
The elevator containing the rest of the Seven reached the bottom floor just after Diego and me. The Nat members of the crew team came running from a different direction. With my double-vision, it seemed like there were a lot more of them.
As my head bounced against Diego’s chest, I was dimly aware that the Nats in our group were each carrying an unconscious Mag. I felt the cold stirrings of dread when I remembered that our team had more Mags than Nats, and I couldn’t see anyone carrying Yutika, A.J., or Michael.
“Help,” I began, but I couldn’t get the rest out. My lips had frozen. It was taking all of my concentration just to stay awake.
Diego followed the direction of my unfocused gaze. His grip tightened around me.
“Please,” I managed.
I could see Michael on the elevator platform on his hands and knees, retching as he tried to lift Yutika.
Diego said something in Spanish, and then he lowered me to the ground behind an overturned cart.
“Stay,” he ordered me.
Like I could do anything else, I tried to say, but the witty retort got stuck somewhere between my brain and throat.
Diego went to Yutika, tossed her over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes, and flew down the tunnel that led back to the train platform.
I thought I saw dozens of the cloaked Super Mags moving silently to and from the elevator, but I wasn’t sure if there really were that many or if I was just seeing triple.
Five times Diego came back to carry A.J., Charlotte, Emory, Sir Zachary, and the coxswain. On his last trip to the elevator, Adam went with him. It took both of them to heave Michael down the tunnel, each of them supporting half of the bigger man’s body.
When I was the only one left, I finally lost my battle to stay awake. My last thought was that I was going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow. And then my world went black.
CHAPTER 42
What time is it?” I groaned, trying to bully my eyelids into opening.
“Seven,” Diego’s voice replied.
“AM or PM?”
Was I blind? Oh god—I was blind!
My eyelids peeled back, showing a room that was familiar but not my own.
Okay, not blind. Phew.
Diego chuckled. “PM.”
I sat up, the last of my grogginess fading away. A delicious smell was coming from the other room, and it helped bring me the rest of the way back to full consciousness.
I was in Diego’s apartment. The lamp next to the bed threw off a warm glow. That, combined with the rain drumming on the windowpanes, made for a cozy setting. All I was missing was a fire and smores.
“How did I get here?” I asked.
“You flew.” Diego stirred something on the stove, wiped his hands on his jeans, and came to sit on the mattress beside me. “Well, technically, I flew. You just hung on for the ride.”
“Are you calling me a parasite?” I grumbled.
“A very sexy parasite,” he corrected.
I could live with that.
Diego’s hair was wet, and he smelled more like his shower gel than his usual cinnamon. I wondered if I’d be able to taste cinnamon if I leaned forward and brushed my lips against his.
“Holy shit.” I sat up so fast my head swam. Images and memories blasted into my mind at full force.
Lilly…Felix Remwald taking her away…those zombie Super Mags…the MRP gas that downed all the Mags in our group….
“Relax, cariño,” Diego said, scooting down onto his side and pulling me with him. We were face-to-face and sharing a pillow. “Everyone else got on the underground train. They were at capacity with the last batch of slaves Kaira and Graysen loa
ded up, so I told them I’d take you back.”
“Lilly?” I asked, already knowing the answer but needing the confirmation.
Diego shook his head. “I didn’t see Felix again, and those zombie Super Mags were all over the place. We barely got away.”
The smell of food wafting over from the kitchen no longer smelled good to me. Acid churned in my stomach.
“She’s safe,” Diego assured me, reaching up to push a strand of hair behind my ear. “Felix knows how important she is. He’s going to keep her as leverage.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?!”
Diego lifted a shoulder. “We’re the only ones who know he’s still alive. He isn’t going to want a secret he’s kept for fifteen years to get out, which means he won’t let anything happen to her.”
“I have to go back.” I was here while my niece was still stuck in the mine.
“Whoa, mi pequeña diabla.” Diego pressed me back onto the bed. “You need to call your friends and tell them I didn’t murder you, since I vaguely remember A.J. threatening me before he passed out.”
I reached for my earpiece and mike, but both were gone. They must have fallen off during the flight from California back to Boston. I dug my phone out of my pocket. Incredibly, it had survived the trip. I called Kaira.
She picked up on the first ring.
“Are you okay?” she demanded.
“Yeah, you?” I switched to face time, and Kaira’s haggard but unharmed face filled my screen.
“We’re fine,” she assured me. “The 7.5, Charlotte, Emory, crew team…all good. We got three train-loads of slaves back to Boston. It was everyone we could find on Level 5, but we didn’t have time to search any of the other levels before everything with Felix. And then with the MRP gas….” Kaira faltered. “Bri, I’m so sorry about Lilly.”
My fists tangled in Diego’s quilt as I thought about how close I’d come, only to have my niece wrenched away from me again.
“I’m sorry,” Michael’s voice said from somewhere nearby. “If I’d known the foreman was going to do that, I would have stopped him. I was hoping the foreman would bring us to Felix, but then I got distracted by the fact that I couldn’t Whisper to those Super Mags.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I told him, my throat thick with a sense of failure and loss.
More voices on the other end of the line assured him of the same.
“Mag cops are trying to locate the kids’ families,” Kaira told me. “It’s not easy because all of their records were destroyed and they never met their parents, but we’ll figure something out.”
I nodded, trying to be grateful. Objectively, we’d saved dozens of children from a horrific fate. I should be glad.
Instead, all I could think about was Lilly’s wide, terrified eyes as Felix disappeared with her.
There was more chatter on Kaira’s end of the line. Kaira balanced her phone against the wall so I could see everyone’s faces. The rest of the Seven crowded in around her.
“Sweetums!” A.J. cried, shoving his face right in front of the camera.
“I’m so glad everyone’s okay,” I said. “I have to—”
“We know what you’re going to say,” Yutika said, cutting me off. “So, I’ll save us all some time by telling you no, you’re not going back alone, and yes we’re going to save Lilly ASAP…together.”
“I have some ideas for how we can get her back,” Graysen said.
“And there are other issues we need to discuss,” A.J. added. “Because I, for one, have no desire to die at the hands of a Synthetic.”
“Synthetic?” I asked.
“That’s what we’re calling them,” Kaira clarified. “Those freaky creations that have tubes hanging out of their skulls and don’t respond to Michael’s Whispering.”
I shivered, remembering their bloody skin and pointed teeth.
I put my phone on speaker so Diego didn’t have to strain to hear everything. After what he’d done for all of my friends, I figured he deserved to hear what they were saying.
“Tell her what Emory saw in the foreman’s memory,” Smith told Michael.
My friends moved aside to give Michael more access to the camera.
“Emory learned that the foreman—Eugene Forrager—came across Agent S while he was scavenging the rubble of a crashed plane. He knew the Remwalds from various anti-Nat rallies they’d been to, and thought Felix might be able to use the Agent S because of his alchemy.”
Michael paused and inclined his head. “Am I getting all of this right, Emory?”
The Super Mag boy’s face appeared on the screen next to Michael’s.
“Yep,” Emory said. “Felix figured out that Agent S could do crazy stuff, and that there was a huge deposit of it in the California desert.
“The foreman helped Felix Remwald set up the mine, while Edwardian Remwald took care of everything at MagLab. Edwardian funneled money to the mine from the Alliance, and Felix sent the MRP back to MagLab.”
“Thanks to the formula my parents developed,” Diego said under his breath.
Emory continued, “The foreman has been Felix’s eyes and ears down in the mine for the last fifteen years.”
I realized I was clutching Diego’s blanket in a death grip and forced my fists to relax. After everything the foreman had done to those kids, I would personally make sure he never made it out of that mine ever again.
“In good news,” A.J. said, “since Sir Zachary torched the Energy Manipulator, all we have left to take care of are the Synthetics and the MRP gas. Well, and the foreman and Felix, of course.”
“Yeah, real piece of cake,” Smith grumbled.
“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about tracking down Felix and the foreman,” Kaira said. “I’m pretty sure they’ll come to us at some point.”
And I’d be ready. I cracked my knuckles in anticipation.
“I’ll make us gas masks,” Yutika offered. “So when that slime of a foreman tries that dirty trick a second time, the only one he’ll poison will be himself.”
“Excellent idea,” Graysen said.
“The Synthetics aren’t affected by the MRP gas,” Diego said. “Felix has probably been building up their tolerance.”
“We already thought of that,” Kaira said. The look she leveled at Diego was somewhere between suspicious and tolerant. It was a marked improvement from the I’m going to kill you glares she’d given him before.
If that wasn’t progress, then I didn’t know what was.
“Emory thinks he might be able to convince the rest of the Super Mags—the real ones—to come with us,” Graysen said. “We figure with all of us, we’ll be able to deal with the Synthetics without endangering Lilly and the rest of the slaves.”
That sounded reasonable.
“Well, can we talk to the Super Mags now?” I asked, trying not to let my impatience come through too much.
“That’s the only hiccup,” Graysen said. “Ma took all of them to the Blue Hills for an overnight bonding thing. Their cell service is shit, so Kai, Emory, and I are going to drive up there to talk to them. If they agree, we’ll bring them back here first thing in the morning.”
No way. There was no way I was waiting twelve more hours to go back for Lilly.
“I can’t wait that long.” I got up from the bed, shrugging off Diego when he tried to pull me back down.
“Bri, honey pot,” A.J. said in his soothe-the-wild-Steel voice. “We’re going to get steamrolled if we try to go back there without help.”
“Besides,” Graysen added. “Oliver said the only way to fully recover from the effects of MRP gas is to sleep.” He glanced at Kaira before turning back to me. “We’re going to go back for Lilly, but we won’t do her any good if we’re operating at partial-strength.”
I knew he was right. But how could I snuggle up in my bed, safe and cozy and surrounded by my friends, when Lilly was still down in the mine?
If I insisted on going now, thou
gh, my friends wouldn’t let me go alone. I didn’t have the right to put them at that kind of a risk.
“Okay,” I relented. “Tomorrow morning.”
“It’s a date,” Adam said, poking his head in front of the camera and winking at me.
Diego scowled.
“I’m sending your security team to the Blue Hills with you,” I told Kaira and Graysen, already texting my people. “You’re not driving all the way down there without backup.”
“Fine,” Kaira said on a heavy sigh.
Graysen gave me a thumbs-up.
I rubbed my face, picturing my niece’s terror as Felix dragged her out of my reach.
I’d been so close. So damn close.
“Bri, we’re going to get her back,” Kaira said. She was wearing that fierce expression that promised she wouldn’t rest until we finished what we’d set out to do. “We just need to regroup, and then tomorrow, we’re going to tear that place apart.”
I nodded.
“Is Diego bringing you home, or should we come scoop you?” A.J. asked.
“She’s staying with me tonight,” Diego said.
“I—” I stuttered.
Diego wrapped an arm around my shoulders, like this was all perfectly normal.
I saw Yutika’s mouth drop open before A.J. elbowed her in the ribs.
“Okey dokey, artichokey,” A.J. said amiably.
Apparently, he had just given Diego his stamp of approval. That irked me, since I distinctly remembered having to try a lot harder to work my way into A.J.’s good graces when we first met. I thought it had something to do with him not trusting blondes.
“Are you sure?” Kaira asked me, furrowing her brow.
I knew she was thinking about Diego’s tiny apartment and the one bed. I was certainly thinking about it. My cheeks felt feverish all of a sudden.
“Have you seen the frightful weather out?” A.J. demanded. “We’re all staying put until this storm blows over.”
As if on cue, the rain pound harder against the window.
“I have my truck,” Adam offered. “A little rain won’t stop me.”
Diego stiffened beside me.
“Uh, I’m good here,” I said. “I’ll meet you back at the mansion first thing tomorrow.”
Mags & Nats 3-Book Box Set Page 98
