Page 83 of Heir of Ashes

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. Hemotioned 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 doppelgänger. 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 storageroom 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.”