by Zoe Forward
“Thanks.” She chambered a round and stored the weapon inside her coat. The home screen on the phone opened without a password. Basic, with only a few apps.
“Let’s go see why Ky led us here.” He moved around the car to open her door before Flynn even had his computer in his backpack. Roman held out his hand for her. She took it without hesitation. On her feet, the ground shifted as her brain wobbled. She stumbled into him.
His brow furrowed. “Is this from you putting a stay on the curse?”
“I’m fine.”
Inside, the building was stone cold, which confirmed it as unoccupied. The walls were brick and recently painted white, as were the hallways that led to various office spaces. What could be seen through the glass of each door was modern office furniture and a distinct lack of clutter. There weren’t even pens or sticky notes at the reception desks.
“What does your gut say?” Flynn asked Roman.
“Down. We go downstairs.”
“There’s an elevator,” Flynn pointed.
“I don’t think so,” Roman muttered. “Death boxes.”
Nova shrugged to Flynn and followed him to the stairs.
Flynn said, “If he says no on the elevator, you have to believe there’s a reason.”
As they descended, the cold increased, but it went beyond actual temperature. It was a visceral sensation. Stabbing pain hit her stomach and left her numb. She rubbed at her wrists and up her arms, ineffectual at alleviating their ache.
“Anyone else feeling this?” she asked.
Roman paused on the stairs and held up his hand to signal for all of them to stop. He examined the entire space through the coin with a hole in the center. Then announced, “It’s not a spell.”
A sense she needed to retreat hit her. Leave. “This isn’t right. Feels like a trap.”
“I get that, too,” Flynn said.
“Felt it since we entered the building,” Roman said. “But I have to see what’s at the bottom. I feel it in my soul. I don’t think whatever is down there is in itself casting magic. I think…” Roman jogged down to the lowest subbasement floor exit and pushed through. Automatic hallway lighting lit up a row of doors all the way down. Each door had a small metal number tacked in place.
Looked like a secret prison, but it smelled like a hospital. The walls were spotless and painted a sickly green. A human might be fooled into thinking it sterile. Nova could smell the truth beneath the disinfectant in the air. There was sweat, piss, puke, and blood—the aroma of torture. Beyond that was a smell of starvation, the smell a body emits when it begins to digest itself—ketosis. How she recognized that, she didn’t want to dwell upon.
She followed the boys, peeking through the first window into a clean, closet-like room with a single bed, a sink, and a toilet. Silver chains with manacles were fixed to the walls. From the depths of somewhere in her mind came the certainty the chains allowed enough leeway to make it to the toilet and sink, but not the door.
That meant she might’ve been in one of these or something similar. Chills slithered through her shoulders.
Hoarsely, she said, “They’re cells. I think I’ve been housed in one like this before.”
A flash hit her brain with an image of a cell splattered with blood from one end to the other. So much pain. Was the image from her past or someone else’s?
She fell to her knees, holding her head.
Roman touched her back. “Can you make it out of here? You want me to carry you?”
Flynn opened one of the doors and stuck his head inside. “Beyond the stench I detect…lycan? Why the hell would it smell like one of our kind was in here?”
“Maybe it was Ky.” Roman sniffed. “Not Ky, but it was lycan. More than one.”
“If he got free, where is he?”
Roman snapped upright. “This is a death trap. Someone lured us here. We have to get out. Go!”
He helped her to her stand and lifted to carry her to the stairwell. A few seconds after they entered, an explosive detonated behind them, throwing all of them against the far wall.
“Up!” Roman ordered as he caught her arm and lifted her to her upright.
Ears ringing, she stumbled up the stairs in front of him. Three turns and up to Level One; the door was locked. No re-entry allowed, at least it said so on the sign. He rammed the door several times, but it didn’t budge. “Up!”
Flynn leaned over. “Smoke coming upward. We have to get out of here.”
Roman led up to the next level and shook the door. He rammed it, which did nothing. “It’s reinforced. It won’t budge. This isn’t a normal door. I should be able to push it off its hinge. This is designed to keep someone like us inside.”
“Let me try.” Flynn rammed all his weight into the door several times.
Roman pivoted to peek over the edge of the rails and dramatically sniffed. “That’s not smoke. That’s gas.”
Nova coughed. Her lungs burned as if she’d inhaled fiberglass. Each movement of air stung. Her eyes watered and vision blurred.
Flynn rattled the door, pushing again with all his strength. He fell to his knees coughing. “Gas…shouldn’t affect…us.”
“Death trap.” Roman threw out a hand to steady himself against the wall and succumbed to coughing. He slid to his knees.
Nova’s world began hazing in and out as her lungs refused to work. She took Roman’s hand as a lifeline.
The door flew open.
“This way,” a male voice ordered.
None of them moved.
“Oh, for crying out loud.” The guy lifted Flynn as if he were weightless, then threw him through the door and did likewise to Roman. He lifted her and carried her through, placing her down gently. “Get up, boys.”
Roman coughed and sucked in air, yet managed a shaky stand. He bent at the waist and coughed spasmodically. A quick eye swipe and he held out a hand to help her up. Once standing, she propped herself against the wall and tried to see their rescuer but couldn’t through the steady tears blurring her vision. A few good wipes helped, even if the world remained hazy.
Was this Ky?
His voice sounded familiar, somewhat Spanish accented, which sent her heart racing even faster. He might know her.
Roman moved faster than a blink. He pinned their rescuer by his neck against the wall and growled low, menacing, “What the fuck are you doing here, Antonio? Is this your doing?”
The vampire’s teeth were out, and his eyes almost glowed in the light. “I’m saving your inept ass. If I wanted you dead, I would’ve left you in the stairwell. Get off me, or I’ll lose it, kill all three of you, or leave you here to die.”
She blinked, swiped across her face, and blinked again. The vampire? Antonio? He wasn’t in a suit this time, but dark tactical clothes. Wasn’t he an enemy?
No one moved.
“Why should I trust you?” Roman asked.
“Nothing is as it seems.” Antonio pushed Roman off as if the lycan’s strength meant nothing.
Roman moved as if to reengage, his chest still heaving with ragged breaths as he recovered from the gas.
Antonio hissed. “One more step toward me, and I’ll attack. I’m not interested in finding out which of us can kill the other. Since you can’t breathe, I’m pretty sure I’ll win. Stand down.”
They stared at each other for several endless seconds.
Antonio waved for them to follow him. “Let’s get out of this building before the second detonators explode. That gas was intended to stop you. The next explosion is meant to end you and hide your remains. We have to move.” Antonio sprinted up the hall into an office.
All three of them stared after him, none moving.
“So…he’s not a bad guy?” Nova asked.
“Hell if I know. I still don’t trust him,” Flynn said.
“Me either.” Roman made the first move to follow him. “We have to get out of here.”
Antonio strode to the back of the office where he yanked open the window and jumped onto the fire escape. Another detonation exploded before they reached the bottom of the rickety metal ladder, throwing them over a story to the ground.
“Get up,” Antonio hissed. He tugged her to her feet and then Roman.
Flynn managed to stand on his own.
“They’re watching the other side of the building. We have to make that tree line in the next thirty seconds, or they’ll know we have her with us.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
What was the vampire doing here?
Roman’s lungs objected to their workload as he jogged behind Antonio through a wooded lot up a street and into another wooded lot. He took Nova’s hand to help her keep up. She panted with a wheeze on each exhale. He hated that her lungs must burn every bit as much as his did. Every few yards, he glanced behind them. No one followed. Yet.
That gas…tear gas didn’t affect them. The fact that someone had found a gas that did freaked him out on several levels. First, they’d been set up. Second, someone knew what they were and how to weaken them. Third, if not for Antonio, they’d be dead. Now he owed the vampire. His enemy.
Antonio held up his hand as they came to the edge of the wooded lot. They halted to watch a dark sedan cruise by.
Antonio whispered, “This modern age sucks. Satellites, cameras…everyone’s watching. It’s a bloody miracle neither of our species has been outed.”
For centuries, their species had warred. Eventually, they signed a shaky truce in order to keep their existence secret from humans. But the hate persisted. The distrust ran deep.
Roman couldn’t conjure any logical reason for the vampire to risk his life for theirs.
“You had to have followed us. Why go to all this trouble to save us?” Roman asked. “This seems out of character.”
Antonio rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m with the Alliance. We’ve been observing you boys for a long time. I often admire your work. Sometimes, you get sloppy. Like the other night at the club. Or today. Your intuition had to be telling you before you even went inside it was a bad idea.”
Roman met Nova’s gaze when he referred to the club.
Nova shrugged and pointed at him in a silent, don’t say a word. A snort-laugh almost escaped him, which would’ve been a highly inappropriate noise for this situation. But the world had gone crazy. They followed their archenemy, who had saved them, after almost dying in what should’ve been a simple meet-up with Ky.
“What’s the Alliance?” Flynn asked the exact question pinging inside Roman’s head. “And what they are you talking about as watching?”
He knew a lot about non-human creatures, but he’d never heard of an Alliance.
“Quiet.” Antonio darted across the street and behind a house to cut through the yard. They zigzagged in this fashion for at least a half mile. A black van stopped in front of them. Antonio opened the sliding side door and hopped in. “You coming? Guarantee if you go back for your car or to your plane, they’ll do something to unequivocally eliminate you, like a missile.”
Once they’d climbed inside, sitting on bench seats that faced each other, the van moved onward. No one spoke. Nova sat next to Roman, their thighs touching. He wanted to ask if she was doing okay. He sure as hell didn’t feel okay.
Worry met him when he glanced down at her. She squeezed his hand in silent affirmation she would survive. Afterward, she didn’t let go.
“Not even a thank you from any of you?” Antonio finally asked after endless silent minutes.
Roman and Flynn remained quiet. He was proud of his brother for not breaking. Flynn wasn’t historically good at keeping his mouth closed in this kind of situation, especially when they needed answers. Flynn usually went bullheaded, full-force assault to get information.
Eventually, the vampire would talk. He was the kind of person who enjoyed a good monologue.
The vampire gave an exasperated sigh. “The Alliance is an organization that includes representatives from many different species,” he said. “We protect the world from other inhuman beings who have gone rogue. Our mission is to keep non-humans secret from humans. Sort of what you guys have been doing for the past few decades. But we do it by choice. And…” He clasped his hands. “You might be a little bit better at it than many of us are.”
Flynn crossed his arms. He didn’t even smirk at the compliment, which meant he was freaked out. “You lurk because you’re in awe of our skills? Right,” he said sarcastically. “I don’t buy it.”
“Who is the they you think watched us?” Roman asked.
“The ones who owned the building and tried to kill you.”
“And they are?” Roman held up his hands.
“I don’t know.”
“Then why are you following us? How do we know this isn’t some sort of elaborate setup?”
“I almost got blown up myself.”
“But you didn’t,” Roman said. “Why were you there?”
“My assignment is to protect you from whoever they are.”
“Who gave you this assignment?” At this point, Roman wanted to strangle him for not answering anything directly.
“The leader of the Alliance. There’s some precognitive ability involved. We know you guys are important.”
Roman signed in frustration. Typical of a vampire to answer but not. Annoying species.
Nova asked, “That place…what was it?”
“I hoped you could fill me in. You were led here. FenCor is desperate to eliminate you, Nova. If you dig deep, you’ll discover they own this building through one of their bogus shell corporations. There are contracts circulating for you on every circuit. You popped up on Interpol today, and even the CIA and MI6 are hunting you. Since the new King of England is a member of FenCor, I bet he asked Roman and Flynn to kill you as well.” He turned to Roman. “The fact you’re still alive means what?” Antonio leaned forward to look around Flynn and make eye contact with Roman.
“I’ve got amnesia,” Nova said. “Self-inflicted. I have no answers. Roman and Flynn are helping me try to figure out my past before they make a decision on killing me, not that we’ve gotten anywhere in filling in the gaps in my head. What was that place?”
Antonio sat straighter. “This isn’t the first of such facilities we have encountered. Obviously, they moved the inmates before you arrived. By my guess, I’d say they abandoned this place weeks ago. They never house humans or other species in them, only lycans.”
“That’s what Ky must’ve discovered,” Flynn muttered.
Roman knocked his foot against Flynn’s. Not the vampire’s business what Ky had been up to. “Why are they torturing lycans at these facilities?”
“I think something evil is going on.” He fisted his hands and relaxed them. “It’s a theory. I have no proof. They never leave evidence behind. They wipe everything from all cameras and other monitoring devices in a ten-mile radius whenever they move inmates or they set fires to destroy the places. We can’t find the facilities until they’ve left.”
Roman held up both hands in a “well, what?” gesture.
“I think it’s a breeding facility.” Antonio didn’t expound.
“Breeding lycans for…?” Roman kept his voice even, while inside he’d gone cold and his stomach twisted.
“You think England is the only country that wants its own private lycan warriors? Imagine a group of trained lycan soldiers forced to work for a country or a person rich enough to afford them, but he or she wasn’t limited by a curse to hunt only non-humans? They could target anyone.”
“No…that’s…not possible…” Flynn shook his head back-and-forth in a slow sweep of denial.
Antonio said, “Lycans are physically stronger than a
ny of the other non-humans. If I were to consider which non-human was easiest to mentally manipulate…to brainwash, I’d chose a lycan. One who’s not a Lanzo brother, that is. But, then again, you guys aren’t exactly all lycan anymore. Roman, you’re like half witch with all the magic you use. Ky has got the superpower to be able to kill almost anything. And Flynn…okay, I don’t know if you have anything non-lycan going on other than being a sugar-addicted doofus.”
“Hey,” Flynn said.
Roman elbowed Flynn to get him to shut up. He swallowed several times and glanced at Nova, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place. She was a trained assassin. Had she been forced to assassinate those FenCor executives? Somehow without remembering?
Had she been forced to breed?
Something awful welled up inside him. His gut twisted. Bile rose. Sweat broke out at the thought of some male forcing himself on her.
As if she sensed his rising emotion, she linked her hand with his and held tight. “Could children survive without others of their kind?”
To envision young lycans not allowed to grow up guided by the rules of their species, which although antiquated and often annoying, had purpose, was horrifying. He carefully enunciated, “That is a horror that cannot be allowed. Is this happening with species other than lycans?”
“We know almost nothing, but it’s possible. If I was to run a non-human brainwashing facility, I’d try all types, if I knew about their existence. We have to assume they are well aware of all of us. Vampires, witches, warlocks, mage, demons…” Antonio drummed his fingers on the seat for a moment. “Your curse is interesting. I don’t think the witch who cast it actually wanted to do it. If she had, she wouldn’t have put all those stipulations on it. To only eliminate non-humans. To protect the innocent.”
Roman’s shoulders tensed. “How do you know the specifics of our curse?”
“You weren’t exactly quiet when you asked other witches across the world about it.”
