Chapter 36
Zephyr
We haven’t even opened the door yet, and the alarm is already screeching at a deafening level.
Nyx winces and ducks her head, and Erich growls loud enough I can hear him over the alarm.
“It isn’t us.” Laurant’s voice rings clear in my mind, along with the panic of his inner voice.
If it isn’t us, then the soldiers inside must be distracted by something else going on.
I don’t think, just act, holding my palm out to the security door and calling on my power.
Everything about my abilities has gotten so much easier since we’ve all mated and bonded, but I don’t give that much thought, either, as one of my contained black holes swallows the door, sending it who knows where.
“Let’s go.”
Erich leads the charge, rifle at his back, hands encased in balls of fire. The moment he passes into what must be the main reception area of the facility, his fire shoots out in jets in front of him, met by screaming soldiers who don’t have time to react.
The space is wide open, everything bright, the dividing walls glass both on this floor and the completely open corridor on the floor above us.
When Nyx steps up, her arms encased in tiny blue arcs, sizzling and popping, she hurls electricity like baseballs at soldiers, who, once caught by them, begin to jerk and foam at the mouth as they drop to the ground.
I suck up a group of soldiers before they can even start descending a nearby staircase, and Laurant surprises me by using telekinesis to toss a few more armed men into my bubble.
“Move!” Erich charges for a door across the room, using his fire as both a weapon and a means of shielding us behind a wall of flame so hot, my lungs begin to scorch. But it’s gone as soon as we reach the door, which I vanish like all the rest of the obstacles in our way.
We hustle down the stairs, Laurant at the rear looking up at the staircase once we reach the bottom.
He’s our watchdog, so to speak.
It takes me a moment to register my surroundings, and when I realize what I’m looking at, I trip over my own feet and right into Erich’s back.
This place is almost a carbon copy of Tenebrosa’s holding cells. Only much, much larger, able to hold so many more prisoners.
Experiments.
Sterile and barren cells enclosed by reinforced glass, no privacy, nothing inside but exam tables that served as beds, too, if you were desperate enough not to sleep on the cold floor.
Terrified Cursed inside, wearing hospital gowns or white institution garments, wide and frightened eyes lit up by the golden collars around their necks.
I open my mouth, but no sound comes. My voice won’t work as my rage builds, control slipping from my grasp.
“Zephyr!”
Arms wrap tightly around me from behind, Nyx’s small hands join at my waist.
“Zeph, breathe. We need you. They need you.”
Yes. Yes, they do need me.
I stick my hand into one of the side pockets of my tactical pants and pull out the collar control unit I’d placed there. As I step out of Nyx’s arms then look at my packmates who nod at me, I press the button.
All the lights of those collars shut down at once before the control boxes fall to the floor, clacking loud enough that we can hear them through the glass walls.
As Nyx rushes off to a large computer screen in the middle of the room, Erich in tow, I finally find my voice, scanning the people in the cells. “We’re here to help. Anyone who can fight, do it. Anyone too injured or weak, let us know. We’ll protect you.”
It takes a couple of minutes for Erich to siphon the data, but once he does, the computer begins to sizzle with Nyx’s telltale electricity encasing it, and a new alarm sounds, this one down here.
The overhead lights shut off, leaving only the red swirling beams of the security alert to light up the room as all the cell doors pop open, the computer finally fried.
Pandemonium breaks out immediately.
There are screams, roars, flashes of light from unknown abilities, and a near stampede for the stairway.
“Shit.” Laurant is behind me when he speaks. “We should have made them wait. They’re disorganized.”
“They’ll be fine.” I turn to him. “They’re fighting for their freedom now. Let them earn it. They’ll be more grateful for it that way. Believe me.”
His brow tightens before he nods, then looks past me to Erich and Nyx, who are talking to a small group; more than one of them limps and staggers.
Laurant and I near the group together.
“—ut I can make it.” An injured Alpha looks around at all of us. “I’ve just been here too long. Made me weak.”
And just like that, I’m back in Tenebrosa, shivering and huddled in the corner of my cell at ten years old. A frightened and caged animal.
“But you made it out, Zephyr. You’re strong now. More than strong enough to help these people who need you. You can help them get out. Help them start new lives.”
I lift my head to find Laurant there, crouched before me in my cell. He holds out a steady hand to me. When my trembling fingers touch his, I’m back in the facility on Long Island, twenty-two years old again, hand in Laurant’s. He smiles at me with such love and kindness.
Processing what just happened, or asking how he did what he did isn’t possible as a large group of soldiers begins to rush down the stairs at us.
The battle is on again, this time with far more Cursed powers on our side.
Laurant looks like a sex-personified badass as he tosses several blades in the air, waves his hand at them, and sends them flying into the faces of the first line of soldiers to reach the bottom.
Then, Erich sends the next group screaming, dropping dead much quicker than I’d expect, his fire far hotter than it had once been.
With the soldiers dispatched, we make our way back to the main floor, prisoners helping injured prisoners make it up the stairs. The released prisoners who made it up here before us slaughter soldiers and scientists all around them, screams and blood, flashes and beams of light.
And in the air above us, a dark puff of smoke, from it falling four familiar figures.
“Arlowe?”
Nyx’s shocked voice carries over the commotion as her friend grins at us.
“We were in the area and thought we’d drop in!”