Heir of Ashes (The Roxanne Fosch Files #1)

Chapter 25

The corridor was full of roaming preternaturals, auras of every color going back and forth like a human rainbow, some looking dazed, others laughing maniacally, some just plain confused. Some were frisking the dead guards, searching for whatever weapons they could find.

The elevator door was closed, no doubt carrying down some of the preternaturals who decided to keep going, and I cursed myself for leaving my post. The car could return full of Elite guards, ready to dart anything with a pulse. I searched the thinning crowd, finding a few green auras in the mix, but none that belonged to Logan.

Three doors remained closed. Just as I worried Logan had found Archer and left when he didn’t find me and Rafael at our designated posts, he emerged from one of the farthest rooms, supporting a hunched figure with an arm draped over his shoulder.

Archer.

At first glance, Archer looked like someone’s elderly grandfather. White hair, lean-looking body that seemed to have just the right amount of muscles, his compact bulk easily mistaken for extra weight by an untrained eye. He wore a green-striped cotton uniform, identical to the one that had made up my entire wardrobe for the nine years I had spent there. My body twitched with a barely suppressed shudder.

Finding Archer had been half our mission. Now, all we had to do was leave the place without getting caught. Easy-peasy. I was about to suggest to Rafael that we take the stairs to the third floor and then the less used stairs that opened near the kitchens, when Archer raised his head and looked at me.

Into me.

His eyes … They were black, bottomless pits, ancient. He was ancient. No lines marked his face, now drained of any color by whatever experiments he had been through, but no one would ever mistake him for anything but ancient just by looking at his eyes. Our gazes locked and goosebumps erupted all over my body. Then—inside me—there was a tug, a recognition, and his eyes suddenly changed to yellow. I gasped, or thought I did, and his eyes were again black, cold as the darkest night in Hell.

He slumped again, too weak to keep himself upright. Logan took a step forward, and the moment was gone. If it hadn’t been for the fact I had already experienced a similar phenomenon in Vegas, I would have passed it off as a moment of weakness, caused by stress and a wild imagination.

Pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of my life fell into place with a loud crash. Small gestures and meaningless words suddenly made sense. My sudden moment of clarity lasted less than a second before we were moving again.

I stepped forward. Logan draped Archer’s arm around my shoulder. Had it been any other time, any other place, I was sure he’d have refused. As it was, I had no doubt my help stuck in his craw like a badly chewed fishbone. I was a half-breed, an inferior, and a woman to boot.

I wrapped an arm around his waist and held on to the other. My hand brushed against the blocking bracelet around his wrist, and I couldn’t help but notice the skin around it was swollen and raw, an effect the spell caused during prolonged use. A quick glance confirmed there were runes burned into his wrist.

I had never in my entire stay in the PSS gotten any reaction from that bracelet. A mild itch, a rash, but never anything stronger. It was interesting to know Archer was just as susceptible to it as anyone else. Maybe this was the reason he didn’t escape. With the bracelet on, he was no stronger than an ordinary, average human.

The elevator returned empty, and the last three preternaturals—a werewolf and two magic wielders—stepped into the car, nodding their gratitude. Were they all here by force?

“One would think they’d rather stick with us,” I murmured at the closed elevator door.

Beside me, Logan shrugged. “I told them they were on their own.”

“At least they’ll provide some distraction,” Rafael pointed out, then turned and moved to the emergency stairs, with Logan only a couple of steps behind him.

Archer and I followed more cautiously. I told Rafael to stop on the third floor, and he obeyed without question. As I had figured, there were no guards. We crossed the length of the entire third floor to the other wing, where the other emergency stairs was located.

We were nearly down to the ground floor when the claxons mercifully cut off. I stumbled a step, so physical was the relief. Though its echoes still sounded inside my head. We reached the bottom without incident. Archer’s weight kept increasing with every step, and I feared he would pass out at any moment.

God, had the PSS really become that brutal with their subjects, or had Dr. Maxwell been right and they had been easy on me all these years? I thought about all those strange machines back on the fourth floor and shuddered.

Archer stumbled again, and I paused to adjust his arm around my shoulder, my grip around his waist. Ahead of us, Rafael cracked open the emergency door … and a barrage of gunfire greeted him. He cursed colorfully and ducked back, letting the door bang shut again. Live bullets. The PSS was shooting to kill.

My heart plummeted when I saw Rafael had been hit. Blood gushed from a wound somewhere around his hairline. He motioned Logan back with a hand and a frown. “It’s surface, dude,” he muttered. “Just a graze.” He unhooked one of the remaining two grenades from around his waist, pushed the door open with a foot, and tossed it through. Even before the boom was over, while the confusion, shouts, and curses were still going on, Rafael stepped fully into the corridor and opened fire.

Without any hesitation, Logan followed. I stayed back with Archer, waiting for the all-clear. When it came, it was in the form of an Elite guard … wearing Rafael’s aura. Before I could fully comprehend what was happening, a squeak escaped my lips—accompanied by the unsheathing of the talons of my right hand.

It was O’Neil.

Rafael was a human shifter—a doppelg?nger. An excellent one, given that the nasty smirk on his face was a perfect replica of the late O’Neil’s. “I will take him from here,” he said in a strange voice. O’Neil’s, I assumed.

I hesitated a moment. Why hadn’t Logan come instead of him? He raised an eyebrow, his eyes shifting from O’Neil’s blue to the original cold brown before returning to blue again. I let my talons retract and took a step forward. Archer eased some of his weight off me, and I helped transfer his arm to Rafael/O’Neil’s shoulder, then followed them into the corridor and the death beyond.

Six bodies lay dead in various positions, blood staining the white floors and walls, splattering nearly to the ceiling. The stench of bowels released in death permeated the air. There was so much gore. My stomach churned in revulsion. I was sorry to see one of the bodies was that of the bald guy I’d spotted before going into Room 411. My stomach heaved, but I managed to keep the memory of that long-ago soup down.

The emergency stairs opened into a narrow corridor that ended with the kitchen’s back door on one side and a storage room on the other. It was in the kitchen we found Logan, lowering a guard’s limp body to the ground. My body erupted in goosebumps when his empty eyes looked up.

The body at Logan’s feet had no bullet wound, just a horribly crooked neck. I started to speak, though I had no idea what I was going to say, but a sharp motion from Rafael silenced me. He gestured for Logan and me to step back, knocked twice on the exit door, then once more followed by four more knocks before easing the door open and stepping outside.

“What are you doing?” someone hissed.

I looked at Logan, but he stood still, waiting.

“Evacuating the freak,” Rafael/O’Neil said. “It’s a fucking war zone in there.”

“We heard. You’re lucky you didn’t get caught in the middle of it. There are about a dozen of them,” a second person said, their tone brimming with nervous anticipation.

“So far, none have made it through the seventh squad,” the first person added helpfully.

“Or this side. Good Johnson keeps them locked so tight, they don’t know the layouts,” the second one chuckled.

“I say we stuff him inside the radiation tanks,” a third voice suggested, “see how they like it.”

“Heard they got more than ten of ours. Say we off this freak and scatter his parts as a surprise gift,” said the second one.

“Nah. Got orders. How’re things in Building C?” Rafael/O’Neil asked.

“Hasn’t been breached as far as we know. Just the garage and here,” the first person answered.

“Any orders I should know? All I was told before hell broke loose was to escort this one to Building C, down to the labs.”

There was a brief silence while I held my breath. It was protocol for all guards to know and practice occasional emergency drills. This was something O’Neil would have known.

“Dunno ‘bout your orders, but the breach hasn’t spread to B and C,” the third person said. “Reports so far confirm we lost all sentinels on duty, squads two and four. Some injuries in five and six, but the seventh is still intact. If you got the orders from above, the squads on duty have no doubt been notified. You know Johnson is nothing if not thorough.”

“The explosion was probably a diversion, so there isn’t much by the parking facility,” a fourth voice added.

“Hey, O’Neil, where’s your communication wire?” the first voice asked.

“Shit, man, I didn’t have time to grab it before I had to move.”

A grunt followed Rafael/O’Neil’s statement.

“Johnson has ordered enforcements at all exit points, including the evac tunnels, though there’s been no activity there,” the third voice reported.

Evac tunnels? What tunnels?

“Hey!” one of the guards cried out in alarm, though I couldn’t tell which. There was a gurgling sound, followed by “Fuck, O’Neil, what the—”

A commotion, grunts, then eerie silence. Then Rafael—still wearing O’Neil’s form—poked his head inside and motioned for us to move.

Outside, night had turned into day with all the spotlights. The wind had picked up, cooling the sweat on my skin. Archer was leaning against the building. I hurried to him, slipping his arm back around my shoulders.

On the ground, scattered around the exit door, lay seven bodies, though I couldn’t tell if they were dead or unconscious. Probably the former, judging by Rafael’s earlier actions.

“We’ll cut across to Building B,” Rafael/O’Neil said, pointing to the darkened building forty yards away. “You ready?”

In response, Logan produced a round device from his pocket. I recognized it as a detonator timer, different from the one he’d used earlier in that this one turned green instead of yellow. I caught the number ten on the display before he pocketed it again. We crossed to Building B in the open and had just reached it when an explosion to our left shook the place.

The back wall. Logan had blown up the back wall.

Oh yeah, professionals. We were literally rocking the place—down.

We ran to the opposite side of the explosion, toward the parking facility, leaving behind the shouts of orders, barking dogs, and yelling.

Oh shit, we were going to make it.

The thought had barely crossed my mind when the rhythm of the commotion behind us changed. Logan broke away from the group, unhooked the remaining two grenades strapped to his waist, and hurled them back. Two explosions rocked the night, one after the other.

Good thinking, I thought. A smoke screen to help our escape. The parking facility was only fifteen yards away. Rafael turned to the left, where the wall was crushed into a heap of rubble—the origin of the first explosion.

We reached the debris well ahead of the guards and began scrambling over loose rocks. Twice I stumbled with Archer, subjecting my knees and palm to numerous cuts, but we pushed on. We reached the barbed wires just a couple of steps behind Rafael. Behind us, Logan returned fire, the sharp retorts of his gun echoing above the chaos, keeping the guards at bay.

At the top of the rubble, I slipped on a loose rock and fell hard, painfully jarring my knees. With nothing else for support, I held onto the barbed wire, ignoring the sharp bite of the needle points inside my palm, and hauled Archer beside me. From my elevated perch atop the debris, I could see the chaos unfolding below. Logan wasn’t much ahead of the pursuing guards. In fact, he wasn’t running at full speed. Once the smoke cleared enough, the guards would have a clear shot at him. Already, some were raising their weapons. Someone shouted, “Down with the live bullets!” And several guards exchanged their weapons for long-barreled guns.

My gaze whipped back to Logan, snagging on the trail of blood he was leaving. He had been hit. No wonder the guards were catching up with him. With a sinking feeling, I realized he wasn’t going to make it. Without hesitation, I whistled to Rafael, leaving Archer perched on top of the rubble as I scrambled down to meet Logan. My heart thundered in my ears as our gazes met, my left hand fumbling to free the bracelet from beneath my sleeve. Logan’s eyes widened with understanding, and he tried to push himself harder, gritting his teeth with every step. Still a few feet away, I raised my arm and pointed behind him at the approaching silhouettes. The slumbering force within me stirred and took notice.

“Help me,” I murmured, unsure if I was pleading with the force or praying. My hand shook as I reached for that gentle hum and willed the kinetic energy to be unleashed upon the guards, who were only a few dozen steps away, their weapons aimed. Logan had told me I only needed to will the bracelet to work.

What happened next was beyond my understanding. Like with the fire mage a year and a half earlier, I pulled on that slumbering presence, then merged it with the humming bracelet, and as Logan had instructed, I willed it to work. My intention was to shield Logan and push the guards back, buying us time.

One moment I was focused on the guards, the next I was looking up at the dark sky, debris and dust swirling around me. Disoriented didn’t begin to describe how I felt. Something had gone terribly wrong.

Logan’s face swam into view above mine, his eyes wild and his face pale as he helped me up with an unsteady hand. The dust was everywhere. I had the presence of mind to cover my mouth and nose with a hand, trying to avoid inhaling it, but soon I was coughing uncontrollably.

What had I done? The dust was so thick that we could barely see ahead, but Logan seemed to know the way, guiding us toward the breach in the wall. A few steps later, we reached the rubble. Logan and I couldn’t stop coughing as we climbed, sometimes using our hands to keep from sliding back down.

We crested the rubble and caught the silhouettes of Rafael and Archer, the latter being carried over Rafael’s shoulder. They were nearly to the woods. Logan swayed beside me, covered from head to foot in gray dust. He was still leaving a trail of blood behind him, the wound somewhere on his leg.

“Shift,” I urged between coughs.

“Can’t. There’s something on the bullet,” he panted.

We helped each other down the other side, his hands working to release a gun from a hoop in his suit, the previous one having been discarded sometime while we were climbing the rubble. Our footing was precarious on the shifting rocks. We cleared the rubble at the same time the gun came free. I was about to ask him if he was all right, a premature sense of triumph coursing through me, when I saw it.

A red dart embedded in his hand. Even as my breath caught, another dart appeared in his right cheek. I whirled around, eyes scanning, my gaze finally colliding onto the dust-covered Hummer parked beside the road, right at the edge of the woods, just as the spotlight on top of it blazed on, blinding me. In their harsh glare, I saw Rafael and Archer collapse, their forms crumpling to the ground.

Before my brain could even command me to run, several darts hit me in my neck and cheeks.

***

Waking up was one of the most dreadful and unpleasant experiences of my life. There was no fog or confusion about what had happened or where I was. I remembered and knew.

I lay on a hard, narrow bed in a small room with a window no bigger than my head. I knew—I didn’t even need to open my eyes to confirm it. The smell of Pine-Sol made my stomach jitter and flutter like a swarm of restless insects was inside it. I took deep breaths, trying to calm myself. I needed to think clearly, to push past the panicked screams in my head. My stomach roiled and churned—a tempest on an angry sea.

A shifter, a doppelg?nger, a born vampire/wolf, a Rejected, and a mixed breed. The Scientists would be celebrating their victory with champagne and caviar. I gulped air but failed to stifle the panic. At the last possible moment, I stumbled out of bed to the small sterile bathroom—exactly where I knew it would be—almost falling face-first when my legs didn’t fully cooperate.

I managed to position myself over the bowl just in time to heave into the toilet. The dry retching tore through me, each spasm of my stomach muscles bringing nothing but cramps. When I finally managed to get up, I flushed and rinsed my mouth, face, neck, and hands with freezing water. I waited a minute, then two. When I was more or less stable, I braced my trembling hands on the sink and looked around the familiar room: a narrow, hard bed covered with thin, cheap white sheets, a small, barred window, and nothing else.

Third floor, east wing, I concluded after confirming the position of the barred window and the reinforced metal door. I’d been in a room like this—if not the same—countless times during my past rebellions. My stomach roiled again, but this time I managed not to start heaving. There was nothing left to bring up but my stomach lining.

I took three steps to the window and peered through the bars. What I saw chilled me to the bone, though it was what I expected to see. Below, angled to the left, were the remains of a four-story building. Nothing but a pile of dust, rocks, and bent metal, with a few support beams where Building B had once stood.

I did that.

Guards swarmed the area—some with long tools, some empty-handed, and some with leashed dogs. Among them were firemen in full regalia, all searching the rubble for survivors I knew they wouldn’t find. I had felt the devastation I’d unleashed as the power had surged from within me, merging with the bracelet’s energy and obliterating everything in its path. Including Building B. I shuddered at the memory, cold sweat breaking out across my body.

I crossed to the heavy metal door and pounded on it, knowing from previous experience how useless that would be. After a few minutes, I spun around and searched the small room. The bed was bolted down, the mattress a thin sponge. There was nothing I could throw around to make a racket.

I paced, then sat for a long time, trying to think of something to do. They hadn’t stripped me of the bracelet—the beautiful blue stone now black and dull, its humming power spent. I was still wearing the spandex suit instead of the puke-green striped uniforms used to separate us preternaturals. All they had done was slap the blocking bracelet on my left wrist and throw me on the bed. No doubt, they were preoccupied with taking inventory of the damage and counting the bodies we had left behind.

Think, Roxanne. How could I use the chaos to my advantage?

I studied the reinforced metal door closely. Previous experience had taught me that no amount of banging or shouting would open it. There wasn’t even a handle or knob on the inside—just a smooth surface.

What could I say or do to get the guard to open the door?

“Bloody murder!” I roared at the top of my lungs. With renewed energy, I pounded and kicked at the door, the bed, even the small sink in the bathroom. There was no plan, just raw, desperate energy. I knew that no amount of huffing and puffing would open that door.

But I did it anyway.

I screamed, kicked, and pounded, until my feet throbbed, my knuckles bled, and my voice was hoarse. Then I heard it: the soft, unmistakable click of tumblers.