24. Chapter 24 #2
Danielle snorted. “I’ll be waiting.” She clambered up.
Kate hung the backpack on a hook on the wall and headed to the coffin. “Let’s move this to the room.”
“It’s pretty heavy,” Raz said.
“I can handle it.” What I can’t handle is your expression when you see…
She banished the thought and grabbed the coffin’s grip. Raz moved to the other end. This part—Sajani and a guard’s usual equipment run to the torpedo room—would appear natural to the cameras.
In non-verbal sync, they lifted the coffin. It strained Kate’s shoulders and spine.
She grunted. “Okay. That’s heavier than I expected.”
Together, they maneuvered down the hall.
Careful not to hit anything in the tight space, they walked through more halls.
The gray walls stretched ahead, cluttered with pipes and tack boards.
With each new section they entered, Kate had to lift her leg and the box over the large entry step.
The strain warmed her body against the submarine’s cold interior.
“You doing okay?” Raz asked, breaking their silence.
He probably felt her nerves building beneath the surface. They were always there, but this…this threatened to break her normally confident composure. Sweat trailed down her back and her eyes stung. All she wanted was to run to the torpedo room. I’m almost there, Mimi.
“I’m good,” she said.
Her arms quaked with the burden as they headed through a small cafeteria decked out with nice leather chairs, modern compared to the rest. The berthing even looked updated, with the normal submarine gear being swapped out for nice beds.
At the rear of the berthing, they reached the closed door to the torpedo room.
“How are we doing, Caige?” Kate said, breathing hard as she set the box down. Two cameras sat above the door, staring at her, but they couldn’t hear her.
Five years of planning led her to this door. And she’d spent less than a week with a man she was going to lose when he learned what lay on the other side.
“Programming is still booting up,” Caige said. “Ah, wait—feeds are a go. Keep me updated.”
“Got it.”
She placed her hands on the hatch of the watertight door and twisted. Breathing out a sigh, she put her game face on. No matter what happens, I am getting you out of here.
The seal released, and she swung the door open.
An automatic light flicked on. A storage hall lay before her, with an opening on one side.
Steady beeping came from within the room.
A bleach odor permeated the area. No cameras peeked from the corners: Matsuda didn’t want proof that the room’s contents existed.
Kate lifted the container with Raz’s help, the burden numbed for her by the sudden adrenaline coursing through her. She struggled to breathe as she drew closer to what she wanted.
Around the shelving sat a hospital bed with monitors surrounding it.
Wired to the machines, a woman lay still as death.
Her steady heartbeat beeped, alive but unconscious.
She wore a white sports bra and boy shorts.
A sweaty mess of midnight-black hair haloed her face.
Her pale skin appeared as smooth as Kate remembered.
Crust lined her beautifully plump lips. Deep bags sank into her cheeks—her features speaking of the Japanese ancestry Kate had to forfeit so Matsuda wouldn’t recognize her.
She looks the same. Not the eighty-year-old Kate was expecting to see. She must have reincarnated under his control. Kate bit her lip and metallic iron filled her mouth.
A row of car batteries sat behind the bed, aligned in a contraption someone connected to the feeds like leeches to the woman’s chest, arms, and legs.
And Lucifer’s Bell rested beside her on a metal table.
In a typical bell shape like those on church towers, the polished surface looked made out of darkened aluminum, as if a shadow cast upon it had stolen its shininess.
Demonic etchings crisscrossed all over its surface, and it appeared as if thousands of nails had been half hammered into the surface.
The video she’d watched on Raz’s computer hadn’t provided the same detail as standing next to it did, nor the ominous air that stroked darkly against her skin.
A wired thumper poised beside it, ready to strike if given a radioed signal. Kate shivered.
Naomi. I’m so sorry…
As Raz rounded the shelving behind her, the container dropped with a thud, pulling Kate’s arm down with it.
“What the fuck?” Raz whispered.
Kate raced to Naomi and ripped off the sticky connections to the batteries.
“Kate.” Raz’s voice shook as he walked toward her. “Who is this?”
“It’s Midnight,” Caige said.
Kate whipped around. When did he get here? A blank expression masked Caige’s emotions, but his eyes burned with too much to read when they met hers.
Raz stepped back. “Why is she like this?”
Jumping to the monitors, Kate turned them off. Her brain latched onto the task instead of the emotion clawing up her throat as she admitted, “Naomi is like me—a Fallen. Matsuda is using her”—she pointed to the batteries—“torturing her to do what he wants while she’s stuck in her spirit form.”
“Naomi? Your Naomi? I thought he killed her?” Raz asked. “How did you know?”
She closed her eyes against the truth, not wanting to voice it aloud.
“Kate,” Raz said, voice heated. “How did you know?”
“Because I’m the reason she’s here.” Kate sucked in a shaky breath. “Matsuda knew she was a Fallen and where her human body was because of me. After he trapped her outside in her spirit form, instead of helping her back then, I ran.”
Disbelief and disgust washed over his expression—pinched brows and puckered lips, a direct blow to Kate’s heart. He walked away, looking anywhere but at her.
He stopped and whirled back. “Where’s the LRAD replica?”
“I didn’t find it on the submarine,” Caige said.
She swallowed, the truth lying thickly in her throat. “Listen…”
“This is fucking unreal,” Raz said. “You used us. Used me so you could save someone you don’t know anymore.
“It’s not like—” She stopped and sucked in a breath. “I can explain later.”
“Why should we help you?” he asked.
Fear strangling her, she choked out, “We can still destroy the original Bell. Matsuda moved the LRAD replica to another location that Naomi will either know or can find. She can get closer to Matsuda and has the desire to take him down. But she can’t if he has her body.”
“She has a point,” Caige said. “Midnight is Matsuda’s weak spot.”
“You’d trust Midnight?” Raz asked. “She murdered Lukas.”
“I know. But look at her.” Caige waved a hand toward her. “If someone kept my body strapped like a circuit board, I’d kill him.”
Bile rose to Kate’s mouth and she closed her eyes against the reality of Naomi’s condition. “We don’t have time for this. You’re either going to help me or you’re not.”
Raz’s jaw locked—the betrayal in his eyes hard to swallow
Caige stepped forward. “What’s the plan?”
Yes. She knew she could count on Caige’s practical thinking. “After we take out the medical equipment, I will sandwich with her and the Bell in the coffin’s bottom.”
It was the only way to leave the sub undetected since Sajani was supposed to stay on her rounds.
“That’ll be tight,” Caige said.
“I can handle it. Naomi won’t wake until we are closer to her spirit. She won’t be anywhere near here.”
“All right.” Caige nodded.
She turned to Raz, who had been quiet, his face a mask. But the link boiled with too many emotions, bordering on shock. Please, Raz.
“You’ve backed me into a fucking corner, Kate.”
“I know,” Kate whispered, eyes stinging. “I’m sorry.”
“We can’t stop now.” Raz waved his hands. “Get her ready while Caige and I empty this container.”
While they dumped the coffin, Kate focused on Naomi’s body, blurred in her teary gaze.
She turned off all the monitors, rid every wire from Naomi, and took care with the needle in her arm.
Kate winced as she pulled out the long feeding tube.
The tears clinging to her eyelids slid onto Naomi’s skin in a puddle, but Kate didn’t stop until Naomi was free.
“You good?” Raz asked.