Chapter 38
Arax
With introductions and pleasantries hurriedly made in our sprint down the stairs, Callista’s arm rounded about my shoulder, bringing me in for a hug like I was her own daughter. I wished I was meeting Konstantine’s mother under different circumstances.
She was tall and extremely attractive, probably in her early to mid-fifties and looked exactly like Penelope, just an older version, with pure white hair and the palest crystal blue eyes.
Her skin, however, had the same naturally sun kissed glow as her son.
She was exceptionally warm and carried an air of elegance and regality.
“You are uncommonly beautiful, Arax,” she smiled, even while the mood was so charged, “I can see why Tinos is so smitten.”
Any other time I would have died of embarrassment thinking of how much his mother might know, but right then the best I could do was nod at the compliment and try not to show how much said enigmatic son had upset me.
She held me and her granddaughter in the other arm, and Eleni laid her head on her grandmother’s chest, inquiring why her father was absent.
“Leni, sweetheart, I told you. He’ll be back soon,” Callista said soothingly and placatingly, but unconvinced of what she was saying.
“Is it the bad men again?” Leni whispered, and her little fingers went to her scar. She was scared, and seeing her so lifted me out of my own feelings, away from my anger toward Konstantine.
“Pen,” I said to her quietly, having had a disturbing epiphany. “‘The bad men?’ That’s why she has that scar, isn’t it?”
Penelope chose to remain silent, which was a first. I wished her brother were here so I could knock both their heads together. The Grigoriadis siblings had a way of trying my patience. I looked at Callista, begging for anything, a snippet of an answer to the riddle this day was becoming.
She blinked once, when she was sure neither her daughter nor Eleni would notice. She was more forthcoming than her children, but what she’d done had raised more questions. About the past, the present, and more so, the future.
I hated how I’d left things with Konstantine, and the walk to the elevator, though not far at all, was taking me farther and farther away from him. I was being ushered to the confines of safety, while he had gone to face terrors unbeknown to me. Was it like this when he was called away as well?
It was unnerving how quiet the castle was.
Usually filled with the white noise of the staff talking among themselves, the distant clattering of dishes, and the general hum of comings and goings, the very air was reluctant to stir.
My companions stepped lightly, whereas my socked feet made a tremendous amount of noise in the abandoned halls, and the hardwood, disturbed by my ungainly stride, groaned and complained under the balls of my feet.
This specific elevator was hidden inside a secret passageway, the entrance of which was sealed by a nondescript wall.
The paneling lined up smoothly, invisible unless one knew exactly where to look.
We kept a rapid pace, stopping only to wait for the car to arrive.
It was different from the other elevators in the castle, the size of it closer to a freight, and me, being an architect’s daughter, could easily see its walls were reinforced steel, designed to withstand an attack from any number of “bad men.”
The ride was smooth and deathly silent. Neither the gentle whirring of the cables nor Callista’s soft murmurs into Eleni’s ear could break the tension between us five.
Dorian was calm but primed, never letting up on the grip he had on his dagger, and Penelope could not take her eyes off the operating panel, her shoulders lowering just millimeters at a time as the numbers decreased.
We had only descended a few floors when a heavy jolt shook the cabin.
Metal on metal, it scraped side to side into the walls of the shaft, and I flew forward, smacking straight into Dorian’s back.
He didn’t lose his handle on the blade, and with a light but steadying touch on my elbow, he kept me on my feet until the car came to a screeching halt.
I looked around at the faces around me. No one moved, and in the quiet, my heart pounded in the cavity of my chest.
“Damnit!” Penelope’s curse rebounded in the hollow tube, and she turned her head toward the wall for a few seconds. She gazed back at us, at me in particular, hesitated, and shrugged. “Fuck it, I had to let Cyrus know.”
She had no phone in her hand, so I stared, confused by what she meant.
Dorian pressed a few buttons, but the car did not restart. They stayed lit, then every light bean flickered ominously before everything went dark.
“Damnit!” Penelope said again in the pitch-black, and I heard a small whimper come from the corner. Eleni was crying.
“Where’s Daddy?” she asked through her sobs, and my heart clenched out of fear, especially for the little girl. No one said anything except for Callista, who was doing her best to calm her granddaughter.
“Maybe we can just wait it out?” I suggested after a few moments had passed. I took a deep breath. “Someone is bound to come looking once they—”
My words were drowned by a crash of something landing on the roof of the car.
It shook violently, almost knocking me down again, and an ear-splitting bang was heard, followed by the sound of something sharp dragging against the ceiling and pounding into the steel.
It beat my eardrums in the enclosed space.
I let out a startled cry, and Eleni screamed.
“Luna, Penelope.” Dorian’s voice cut into the noise, firm and deep. “I’m going to pry open the doors. We have to move.”
It took me second to understand it was Callista he was addressing. Alpha and now Luna. What the hell?
“Arax, darling,” Callista called, and an ice-cold hand found my arm. “Take Eleni. I’m going to assist my daughter and Dorian.”
Despite my shaking hands, damp with sweat, I obliged, and the Leni stuck to me, her tears wetting my—Konstantine’s—shirt while I rubbed her back, holding her close.
Where are you? I thought desperately, my heart rate increasing. I brought my nose to the collar and inhaled. I regretted saying so little to him before we parted. Had I known… I shook my head. Hindsight was about as worthless as I was at this juncture.
Panic was taking over me, so I felt around the walls of the car, sank low in the corner, drawing in my knees, and rocked Eleni gently, telling her everything was going to be fine, then wondering if my role in this was to be the auntie who lied.
The pounding from above did not stop. Metal creaking, it was obvious whatever was up there was trying to find a way in. I closed my eyes, seeing no point in keeping them open. The dark was the same either way.
I couldn’t tell what the other three were doing. They didn’t speak a word to each other, so I went off the assumption that Dorian was doing what he could to procure an escape.
A tiny sliver of light pierced my eyelids.
I opened them slowly. Dorian had wedged both of his daggers between the joint of the elevator doors, applying pressure in opposite directions.
The steel along the length of them was bent, folded upon itself, and Callista and Penelope, with their bare hands, were pushing them apart, then holding them open so Dorian could do a quick scan.
He nodded at them and sheathed his blades.
My brows furrowed. I was unable to swallow, and saliva accumulated in my throat in utter disbelief at what I was witnessing.
The elevator had stopped between floors, with a mere crawl space worth of room to exit either. The guard’s muscles were straining under his tunic, sweat poured down his neck, and he was using the whole of his body to ensure the doors would not snap shut.
The sounds coming from the ceiling had grown more incessant, and in the light, I saw what I thought couldn’t be possible. The metal was warping. Several dents had formed, the steel weakening under the pressure of constant impact.
Callista went first, sliding out with feline agility. I was still sitting, frozen to my spot, until Penelope’s voice shouted at me through the haze.
“Rox, give me Leni, hurry!”
Robotically, I did as I was told and watched Penelope crouch and drop a wailing Eleni down to her grandmother, then slide out after her daughter.
“Your turn, Arax.” Dorian breathed hard, giving me step-by-step instructions, to position my body this way and that.
I dangled my legs precariously over the edge and felt only air.
My height was working to my disadvantage.
With my torso flattened against the floor of the elevator shaft, I couldn’t see anything below.
I had not dared sneak a peek to assess how far I’d be falling for fear of seeing nothing except an endless black tunnel, but I wished I had.
“Lower yourself.” He wheezed, growing exhausted. “Slowly.”
“Dorian, I can’t see where I’m landing!” I gasped. My palms were so slippery with sweat that I was losing my grip and started scooting backward.
The sound of twisting metal had us both looking up. The roof of the cabin was a hairline away from being breached. A deep crease had taken shape straight across it, the steel so thinned, it could almost be peeled away.
“Arax, go! Now!” he shouted, and with time running out, I had no other choice but to push off and let myself fall.
It wasn’t imminent death that was lying in wait for me but a pair of thin arms that had the strength of ten men.
Penelope clutched me around the knees and staggered backward, my height and swaying momentum causing both of us to topple to the floor.
Dorian’s form sailed over our heads, and his feet hit the ground gracefully.
The elevator doors slammed together; their hinges relieved of his opposition.
He wasted no time pulling Penelope and me to our feet.
“Follow me!” His whisper was hushed, and he took the lead. We ran through the castle, Callista behind him, holding Eleni, and Penelope and me bringing up the rear.
“Cy is on his way,” Penelope said, her voice low.
“How do you know that?” I was struggling to keep up, but it wasn’t the physical exertion that was tiring me.
It was the silence, the inability to process one thing, let alone the next.
“Answer me!” I snapped. “Damnit, Penelope, answer me.”
“In the bunker,” she said finally, over her shoulder. “We need to get to the bunker, then you’ll know soon enough.”
Her response, as vague as it was, satisfied me for the time being.
I had no idea where we were headed. My sense of direction was gone.
The halls, rooms, and everything they contained were simply blocks of shapes and colors as we whizzed past. We approached the living room, its floor-to-ceiling window exposing us to the outside, and Dorian slowed, holding up his arm, indicating we should stop.
He assessed the perimeter, and deeming it safe, we resumed our pace.
Penelope turned to look at me. “We’re close,” she stated, smiling.
It was a relief. I went to smile back, but movement from the outside caught my eye. I only had a second to react.
A scream strangled my throat, and I pushed Penelope with all my might into Eleni and Callista, who slammed into Dorian.
I saw all four fall out of harm’s way missing the glass that shattered around me.
Sharp points struck me in the face, and I was taken out by a blurred mass of light brown that had crashed through the window and smashed it to smithereens.
The mass tracked with it a rain of shards and wood, and together we landed several feet away.
I heard a pop! and felt pain so intense, I blacked out, then regained consciousness to see a beast, that blur of light brown, rising to its feet in front of me.