And where Ana was, so too would Steele be.
Her energy pulled me forward with a string of light that had attached itself to me. The light led me up a flight of stairs and to a door.
I stopped. "He's in there."
I looked at Drake, his handsome face hardened, and finally understood the part of him that had always eluded me, the part that would do anything—anything—to protect someone he loved. In that moment, and to some degree in many moments leading up to that, we shared the same determination. Nothing would stand in our way as we rescued our daughter.
"We attack him together. We don't let him hurt our baby."
Drake nodded, but his brow wrinkled. "I've tried mind control on him before, and it didn't work. What if that happens again?"
I held up my pistol. "Then I use this."
I pushed the door open, and we walked through it and into a giant steel room full of containers. My mind was in shock, and it took a few seconds before I could comprehend the scene around me. It felt surreal, like waking up in a twisted Twilight Zone episode or a bad sci-fi movie. Viscous blue liquid filled each container. Inside them, men and women, even children, floated in the fluid, suspended in limbo. Some of them had mutated. Hundreds of these containers lined the room, spanning multiple levels.
At the back, Steele stood in front of a giant computer, staring at a complex display of data on the screen.
The light tethered to me reached into a tiny crib that looked more like a test tube. Is this where I was born? Or made? The thought made me shiver.
Steele turned, unsurprised by our presence, and walked toward us. "Hello, Daughter."
I lifted my hand, unlatched the safety, aimed straight for his chest, and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 113 - Lucy
Robyn and her team ran at full steam, no longer worried about discretion, their images casting a malicious glow against a black backdrop broken only by long shadows. Their heavy breathing filled Lucy's head and reminded her of a prank caller in a horror movie.
She shoved that mental nightmare aside and directed them through the compound. "Go through the hangar. Hurry!"
Flicking back and forth between cameras, Lucy monitored the team, and the duo of Hunter and Luke, who trembled with exhaustion from their ongoing battle with Beleth, even as bruises swelled on their body and blood trickled from wounds. Black blades extended from each of Beleth's hands, and the clank of metals, as Hunter fought him off with his own sword, reverberated through their comm units. Luke bobbed from one foot to the other, waiting for an opening to get to the vent and unleash the sleeping gas in his pack. The clash of steel and the shuffle of steps, the grunts of those fighting—these sounds sat suspended in their own world, seemingly disconnected from the scene in front of her, like a badly dubbed Japanese movie.
A slash from Beleth's blade created a crimson line on Hunter's arm, and Lucy's heart dropped into her stomach. She squinted, imagining the cut, like fire, on her skin. She wanted to ask if he was okay, but knew she shouldn't distract him from the fight.
Instead she switched to Luke's comm. "You have to help him!"
Luke pointed to the crushed remains of his pistol, courtesy of Beleth. "I can't. No weapon."
Lucy nearly clawed through the computer screen in frustration. "Use your powers."
After a brief hesitation, he nodded and ran up behind Hunter, shadowing him as he raised a force field up to block Beleth's spider legs and sword attacks. Lucy could tell that they were not in synch. Luke's shield blocked Hunter's strikes as often as Beleth's, and they couldn't seem to find a rhythm that worked. Had the stakes not been death, their clumsy dance might have been almost comical.
Another click back to Robyn. They were almost at the door. Hurry. Hurry. Please hurry.
Another click. Sam and Drake had gone to find Ana and Steele. Just as she zoomed in on the correct camera, she saw them slip into a room and disappear from her radar. She searched, but could not find a camera for that room. It either didn't have one, or it was totally blocked from her. She sent a silent plea that they would be careful and successful, then focused her attention back on Hunter, Luke, and their friends.
Robyn stopped at a junction. "Left or right?"
Lucy looped through camera feeds. "Left."
They ran down empty hallways.
Beleth continued his fight against Hunter and Luke, and the screech of metal filled the air.
Sam and Drake were off her radar. Why was it so quiet? Why hadn't Beleth raised the alarm and alerted the whole compound of the breech?
And why had he said he was sorry? That man wasn't what he appeared, but she didn't know what to make of him. The tracking device that she'd removed from her laptop sat on the table, and Lucy looked from it to the guard's soda can and back, then dropped the device in the soda, letting the acid eat it away.