“Get the bombs ready.”
Chapter Eleven
“Ready. One. Two. Three. Go.”
The fuse had lit without incident, and I had no problem keeping up with Micah as we ran to the safety area. We both threw ourselves onto the ground, face planting as the world exploded behind us. My near-death experience had not slowed me down.
I lifted my head as my ears rang. Turning to Micah, I saw him pull plugs out of his canals. Might have been nice if he had mentioned he used them.
Did he want me to go deaf?
Micah raised his head. “You okay?”
“How long have you been protecting your hearing?”
He raised a dark eyebrow. “You don’t?”
“No.” Jerk. “I don’t.”
“Why not?”
I took a deep breath. “We can talk about it later.”
As I stood up, I saw Deacon and Sloane moving down the ladder. I didn’t like them going down there by themselves. Tucker, Stew, and Beth soon followed after them. Still, like a worried parent I suspected I’d never be, I didn’t want them in the vampire lair without me.
I knew this made little sense. They’d apparently been going down daily while I’d been recovering. The Young Warriors had become cohesive and talented. Finally we reached the ladder, and I descended fast. Micah came down right behind me, and as I turned to regard the scene, I heard the soft clunk of his boots hitting the metal floor.
Deacon stood poised next to the door, his explosive in hand. “Ready.”
I stood back, covering my ears with my hands. Micah placed his hands over mine, putting more distance between my abused eardrums and the explosion that would follow any second. Deacon ran toward us as the blast blew the handle from the door.
Micah let go of my ears, and I dropped my hands. “Everyone okay?”
Everyone muttered their assent. I let go the breath I’d been holding. Good. My nerves had been for nothing.
A slight noise caught my attention. It sounded like the ceiling vibrated. Everyone moved to get into his or her entry spots. I grabbed at my ear. Was I hearing things?
No, there was a distinct vibration above me. I looked up again. A small crack formed in the ceiling above us.
“Oh no.” I had barely uttered the words before I was moving forward. “Out. Out. Micah, get them out. The ceiling.”
My words were disjointed and I could barely hear them over the loud jackhammer of my heart in my ears.
The ceiling was coming down right on top of Deacon.
His eyes got wide as he saw me charging him.
“Rach….”
His question got lost to the loud rumble of the plaster coming down. I shoved Deacon forward, hoping the door to the vampire lair would give under our combined weight.
Otherwise we would be smashed. And I didn’t think either of us could survive it.
Deacon and I hit the door together as the ceiling came down. I heard a loud scream and darkness assaulted me.
I woke up coughing. My lungs burned, and I couldn’t catch my breath.
Finally, my cough subsided and I tried to sit up. I wobbled but made it to an upright position. Not that it helped anything. It was black.
“Deacon?” My voice sounded like they’d left the filter off the air in the underground Genesis lair too long. I hoped it would pass.
“Rachel?” He seemed better than I did until I heard him groan. The noise moved straight through me and sent shivers through my body. He was hurt. Deacon couldn’t be hurt.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t see a thing? Can you?”
As he spoke I moved closer to the sound of his voice until I stumbled over him and nearly fell onto the floor.
“Are you trying to kill me?”
“No, if I wanted you dead, I’d have let the ceiling fall on your head.”
He groaned again and grabbed on to my leg. “Don’t worry, I’m not being inappropriate. I need to pull myself up on you.”
“Whatever you need.”
If he could stand up, I’d be thrilled. Finally, I felt him rise. In the dark, I reached forward and grabbed on to steady him. Or maybe I just needed to hold on to him for a second.
He spoke softly. “Do you think the others made it?”
I’d been avoiding thinking about that. “The ceiling came down. I can’t see but my guess would be it’s between us and them.”
Or I’d been horribly wrong and they’d all been crushed to death in the explosion. I’d lost Chad like this, in a vampire lair, when the place had exploded. I couldn’t do it again. I wouldn’t.
“Then they’ll work to get us out.” Deacon sounded so sure that I knew he tried to make me feel better. Positivity and Deacon didn’t go hand-in-hand.
“Right.” I coughed, making my throat burn again. “I think I inhaled plaster.”
“And other horrendous things. This is so typical Vamp. They must have known we would come here. They triggered it to blow. Bloodsuckers love to bring down the ceilings on humans.”
As I knew all too well what he said, I nodded before I realized he couldn’t see me in the dark. “You’re right.”
“Do you sense any vampires?”
I steadied myself and tried to feel out into the darkness. Nothing came to me. Not a chill, not a blip. “I don’t.”
And why hadn’t I noticed that before we’d come down? Because I was so focused on the wolves.
“You’re sure?”
“I can’t be. Sometimes I go a little off when I’ve been injured. That’s been happening a lot lately.”
“Take a guess. How close to sure are you?”
I cleared my throat. “Fifty-fifty.”
“Sounds good.” He fell silent for a moment. “Take my hand.”
He squeezed my arm so I knew where he wanted me to grasp and after a few seconds of our fingers being linked, he pulled me forward. “Where are we going?”
“This is the entry room. It has to be. Or what’s left of it. We’re going to go farther inside and see if we can find another way out of here.”
“Deacon, I don’t know if that’s smart. We’re unarmed.” I had lost my stake, and I assumed he had as well. If it turned out Deacon still had a weapon, I’d jump for joy. When he didn’t contradict me, I kept talking. “We shouldn’t be going farther into the vampire lair.”
“Look, here’s how I see it. We can stay put, hope that Micah and the others are not too badly injured and that they can come back with equipment to clear away a ceiling and reach us. Even if that is the case, it’s going to take a long time. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be here when the vampires come tonight to see how much damage they’ve done.”
He had a point. “You’re right. I don’t either.”
“So our best bet is to get ourselves out of here and to meet up with the others.”
“Sounds like a plan.” A niggling thought pushed at my temples, and I didn’t know if I should speak it aloud. Finally, I gave in to the urge. Deacon and I were well past insulting each other with honesty. “In all of your years living in this kind of place, you never got out. Not until I came and showed you the way. Do you think it’s likely we can find another exit now?”
“Gotta keep hope alive, right?”
If we’d been in any other situation, I would whack him over the head. “Can you see where you’re going, or are we floundering around in the dark?”
“I can’t see any better than you can. They only have light on for the humans to work. So, no I think it’s fair to say I’m floundering in the dark. I do have a general idea of where I am thanks to years of being shoved around these places.” He stopped moving and I collided into his back. Like a solid wall of muscle, he didn’t move an inch and I ended feeling like I’d been hit on the head again. Deacon had the audacity not to even notice. “If I’m correct, then there should be a wall and a doorway coming up.”
“Let’s hope you’re right.”
He squeezed my hand. “I�
��m always right. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
We walked forward at such a slow pace it amazed me we covered any distance at all. Soon, however, we had reached the wall.
“I think I have a general idea of what it must be like to be blind now.”
Deacon inched forward, banging the wall with his hand as he searched for the door. I could hear the loud thud-thud his fist made as it collided with the wall. “I’ve never known anyone who was blind. Any humans born with a deformity or disability were put to death by the vamps. Not too many blind people wandering around Genesis either.”
A thought occurred to me. “Why was I the only one who heard the ceiling coming down?”
“I don’t know. I still had my ear plugs in.”
“You wear them, too? Seriously? No one thought to mention this to me?”
“Personally, I’m very grateful you could hear the collapse, or I’d be dead. And what would you do without me to fill your days with angst?”
“Stop that.” I quit walking and jerked on his arm to stop him. “You are very important to me. I’ve lost people. I know what an ache it leaves in my heart, a hole that never gets filled no matter how much I fight, eat, or stay busy. I guess, eventually, I learned how to ignore it, but if I want to find that hole it’s available for me at any time.”
Deacon’s voice sounded soft in the charged darkness. “Are you saying I would be as big a loss to you as Chad was?”
“You can’t be doubtful about how important you are to me. Whatever else, aren’t we best friends?”
“For now.” I heard a thud. “Aha. The door.”
Deacon pushed open the door and dimmed light filled the room. After the complete and utter darkness we’d endured, it looked like a spotlight. I had to shield my eyes for a few seconds before they adjusted.
Ahead of me was a long hallway. I let go of Deacon’s hand and moved so I could see farther down. “I haven’t seen a path like this one before.”
Not that I had so much experience in these places. I’d been to three. Still, we’d gone over a lot of scenarios when we’d planned this and I didn’t remember a long, ominous hallway in any of the descriptions.
“This is very rare.”
I turned to look at him but he had a blank look on his face. It was the first time I could see him since the explosion. Deacon looked awful. A large gash marred his forehead while white and brown powder covered his skin.
“You look like a ceiling almost fell on you.”
A corner of his mouth perched up in a grin. “Imagine that.” He pointed at me. “You look like you nearly died saving me. Again.”
“Am I a mess?” I touched my face and the same powder that had been on Deacon showed on my fingers.
“A beautiful one.”
“Knock it off. You know I’m no beauty, and we have more important things to discuss than nonsense.” I nodded toward the hall. “What is down that hall?”
“It’s how they move us when they don’t bring us above ground. It can be…endless.”
“Clearly, it’s not endless. It goes somewhere. Even if it feels like you’re in it forever. Deacon, you’re looking kind of pale. Do you need to sit down?” I didn’t know what I’d do if he was hurt. I’d run out of options. I wouldn’t be able to pull him very far.
And I had no idea if I could even find anyone to help him.
“I’m fine.” He shook his head. “Just remembering the last time I got dragged down one like this. They meant it to be my death walk.”
I hadn’t realized he held such deep feelings about that experience. He seemed so blasé when he talked about it most of the time.
“Where will it take us?”
“I don’t know about this one specifically. But we’ll get somewhere. This hall will lead us underground to another lair. No wonder they wanted to blow up this location before we got here.”
“Right. A full-fledged attack force finding this would be a near disaster for them.”
“My only concern is that we won’t know where we’ll come up. It could be…anywhere.”
“As you said, we’ve got to go somewhere.”
He nodded, but the confident Deacon I wanted with me had gone somewhere else. In his absence stood Mister Unsure. I didn’t want this new visitor. I wanted my old friend.
“Come on.” I walked forward. “And for the record. It’s not ‘we’ anymore.”
He stepped toward me. “I don’t know what you just said.”
“You said it's how they move ‘us’ around. You’re not part of that anymore. You live with us. No one moves you where you don’t want to go. Well, unless you’re Patrick Lyons. And even he can be gotten around.”
I smiled and hoped I didn’t look deranged. I wasn’t that good at helping other people with their issues. I could barely manage myself.
“Thanks for that. Hope it didn’t make your head explode coming up with that line.” He walked in front of me. “Follow me. If you see anything that could be a weapon—and I doubt you will because they don’t want the humans getting any opportunity to defend themselves—pick it up. We need to move fast. I don’t want to run into any vampires moving humans around. We’re too visible here.”
Deacon picked up his pace and I ran after him. We were weaponless, alone, and heading deeper into the vampire lairs with no idea where we would end up.
I stuck my hands in my pockets to stop them from shaking.
We’d downgraded our run to a walk and had been travelling for at least an hour before Deacon spoke again. “I see a doorway up ahead. Do you want to check it out?”
I could see it, too. A large, black door stood on the left side of the hallway. “I don’t know. Should we?”
“Are you getting any vampire signals?”
I shook my head. “Are you?”
“No.”
He walked forward and twisted the knob. “It’s not locked.”
“Maybe it’ll just turn out to be a broom closet.”
“No such thing. Not down here. The humans do all the cleaning but—”
I interrupted. “This is fascinating and I do care about it. Maybe we should talk about it after we try the door. Standing out here exposed and all that.”
“Okay.” He opened the door a crack and stared inside. I could hear low sounds of talking in the background. After a second, he shut the door quietly. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“What?”
“It’s a human holding area. Everyone has been attached to the walls already with the chains.”
“You were chained to walls?” They hadn’t done that to us in the mines. Wolves had been guard enough.
“Sometimes. When there were no wolves around. I think we might need to consider stopping here. Blending in with them tonight.”
“How will we avoid getting trapped with them tomorrow?”
His grin told me he’d already thought of this. “I can take care of that. What do you think used to get me into so much trouble that they decided I’d be better off dead?”
“Okay, let’s do it.” I liked having a plan. Even if the plan was ‘stay here and wait until tomorrow to figure everything out.’ At least it gave me an idea to hang on to.
Deacon swung open the door fully open and the hushed murmurs that filled the room stopped.
“Hey, everyone. My friend and I, we’re going to bunk with you tonight. It’s a long story. But I know you’ll help a traveler out.” He grabbed my arm and moved me farther into the room. “I’m Deacon, and this is Rachel.”
“Hi.” It felt like the first day of school.
Only this time the students were all chained to walls and staring at us like we had two heads.
“Deacon? Is that really you?”
His head whipped to side. When he answered, his voice filled with awe. “Wendy?”
“Deacon?” I questioned him. He knew this person. That had to be good.
“Rachel.” He sniffed, turning his head so I couldn’t see his face. I had managed to catc
h a look at his eyes filled with tears. “This is my sister.”
Chapter Twelve
I stared open mouthed at Deacon. He had a sister? Had he told me, and I’d forgotten? Had I not focused on it?
As for Wendy, the sister I’d somehow not been cognizant about until that moment, she sat on the floor chained to the wall, a prisoner. She’d been born to work and then feed the vampires. As Deacon had.
I clenched my hands. I wanted her off that wall. I wanted them all off the walls immediately.
Wendy sat up a little bit. She only had eyes for Deacon. “We thought you were dead. They took you on the death watch.”
“I got out.” He turned to me again. “This girl—Rachel—she saved me.”
A tear slipped down Wendy’s cheek. “I’m so glad.”
I knew that feeling too well. “Deacon, we have to get your sister off the wall. All of these people. I count thirty of them. We have to unchain them and run for it. There’s strength in numbers.”
He shook his head, a piece of dark hair falling over his eyes. “Don’t get me wrong. I want them out more than anything.” His eyes fell on Wendy again. “But none of them can fight. They’re malnourished. Remember me when I first came up.”
“You did pretty well.” As I remembered it, he fought the vampires beside me and traipsed back to Genesis without looking a bit winded for the effort.
“I had motivation.”
“Yes, survival will do that to a person.”
“You were my motivation.” Deacon walked to his sister. “I’m afraid we’re bunking here with the others.”
As I watched, he leaned over and kissed Wendy on the cheek. Her hair, darker brown than Deacon’s by several shades, hung past her shoulders. Wendy’s face appeared long and a cleft stood in the center of her chin. I wouldn’t have known they were related if not for their eyes. They had exactly the same chestnut brown, sharp, fast eyes framed by long lashes that made them look hidden and mysterious.
She wrapped her free arm around his neck, and I watched Deacon’s body begin to shake. I suddenly felt like a voyeur. Turning to my left to avoid the scene, I looked down at the others who were chained up. Like me, they seemed to want to give the two newly reunited siblings a little space from observation.
The Warrior Page 51
