Chapter Twelve #2
"Nicolai will die if we wait," I said, forcing my voice to soften. Not out of respect for Zev, but because I needed him. "You know I'm right. He protected me. Now it's my turn to protect him, but I need those weapons."
The silence stretched, filled only by the static of the connection and the steady drip of my blood onto the console.
"You expect me to arm a teenager? Nicolai would skin me alive."
I was hardly a teenager, but now wasn’t the time to argue that fact.
"Nicolai won't be alive to skin anyone if you don't help me," I countered, my fingers already working on bypassing the armory's security protocols. I could probably hack it myself, but that would take time—time Nicolai didn't have. "I'm not asking for permission, Zev. I'm asking for efficiency."
I could practically hear him grinding his teeth through the intercom. "The boss put you in that panic room for a reason, kid."
"Yes, to keep me safe. I am safe. Nicolai isn't."
The security feed showed Dima moving methodically through the building, taking down another of O'Rourke's men with brutal efficiency. Yuri had secured the kitchen area and was working his way toward the main floor. They were fighting. I needed to fight too.
"Please," I said, hating the crack in my voice but not above using it if it worked. "I can't just sit here and watch. Not when I could help."
Another long pause. Then a sigh that contained a century's worth of resignation.
"Access code is 479-Delta-682-Zulu. You'll need biometric confirmation too."
My lips curved into a grim smile. "Already bypassed that. The code was all I needed."
"Of course you did," Zev muttered. "There are specifications for—"
"I know what I need," I interrupted, already pulling up the armory inventory on a secondary screen. The list made my eyes widen—Nicolai's "storage" would make military contractors envious.
"Thank you," I added, almost as an afterthought.
"Don't thank me yet," Zev replied. "If you get yourself killed, I'll never hear the end of it."
I closed the channel before he could say more, already redirecting my attention to the building's security protocols. I needed to clear paths for our people while keeping O'Rourke's men contained.
My fingers moved with renewed purpose across the keyboard, leaving bloody smears that were becoming harder to see through my increasingly blurred vision.
With each command, I sealed another corridor where enemies lurked, while opening secure pathways for Dima, Yuri, and anyone else loyal to Nicolai.
The system complied, but the effort cost me. Fresh blood flowed from my nose, and spots danced before my eyes. I'd never pushed my abilities this far before, never maintained control over so many systems for so long.
My body was screaming for me to stop, but I couldn't. I wouldn't. Not while Nicolai was out there.
Just as I finished rerouting the security systems, an alert flashed across my primary screen. An encrypted message, coming through on a channel I didn't recognize. I hesitated, then opened it.
The message was brief, its impact disproportionate to its length: Agent Delta: Report status immediately. Aleksandrovich compromise confirms protocol activation. Awaiting confirmation for full deployment.
It was signed with a digital signature I recognized from Nicolai's files—the Director of the Agency of Chaos, the shadowy government organization that gave Nicolai his official sanction to manage paranormal affairs.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard as the implications hit me. The Agency knew Nicolai had been taken. They were ready to deploy resources—probably significant ones—to recover him.
All I had to do was confirm.
But something held me back. The Agency had resources, but they also had agendas. Protocols. Bureaucracy. They wouldn't move fast enough, wouldn't take the risks necessary to save Nicolai before O'Rourke did whatever he planned to do.
And there was something else—something in the phrasing that raised a red flag. "Aleksandrovich compromise confirms protocol activation." What protocol? What exactly would they be activating if I confirmed?
My hand remained frozen above the keys as a timer appeared on one of my screens, counting down the seconds until my window for response closed.
Sixty seconds.
Fifty-nine.
Fifty-eight.
Time was running out, for this decision and for Nicolai.
A series of mechanical clicks at the panic room door jolted me from my indecision. Someone was unlocking it—from the outside. I sprang to my feet despite the wave of dizziness that threatened to topple me, grabbing the heavy metal paperweight from Nicolai's desk.
If O'Rourke's men had found me, they wouldn't take me without a fight. Not after what they'd done to Nicolai. Blood dripped from my chin onto my shirt as I positioned myself beside the door, paperweight raised, ready to strike.
The heavy steel door swung open with a pneumatic hiss, and I tensed, fingers tightening around my makeshift weapon.
Yuri stumbled in, looking nothing like the impeccably dressed second-in-command I'd come to know. His normally pristine suit was torn and soaked with blood—some his, some definitely not.
A deep gash crossed his forehead, and his left eye had swollen shut. He braced himself against the doorframe, his chest heaving with exertion.
"You," he managed, his eyes landing on me with an intensity that made me step back. "You did this. The systems."
I lowered the paperweight slightly, but kept it gripped in my hand. Yuri and I had never been friends. He'd made his distrust of me clear from the moment I'd entered Nicolai's life.
"I did what needed to be done," I replied, my voice sounding strange to my own ears. "Where's Nicolai? Have you found him?"
Yuri's expression shifted, something dark and pained flashing across his features. He pushed himself away from the doorframe, staggering deeper into the room.
"O'Rourke's team has taken him to his torture complex on the riverfront," he said, each word seeming to cost him. "The old processing plant. Informant just confirmed it."
The paperweight suddenly felt too heavy in my hand. "Torture complex?"
"Where O'Rourke breaks people who defy him," Yuri explained, his voice flat. "Where he extracts what he wants from those who have something he needs."
My stomach twisted. "And what does he want from Nicolai?"
"You." Yuri's gaze bored into mine. "Your location. Your abilities. Everything Nicolai has been protecting."
A cold sensation spread through my chest, numbing the pain of my overextended abilities. This was my fault. All of it. Nicolai was suffering because of me.
"How much time do we have?" I asked, already turning toward the terminal.
Yuri's next words stopped me cold. "Thirty minutes, maybe less."
"What?"
"O'Rourke's testing a new compound on paranormals. The informant said they're preparing to use it on Nicolai when their standard methods fail." Yuri's voice cracked slightly. "It's designed to force a shift, then lock the victim between forms. The pain... it drives them mad before it kills them."
The paperweight slipped from my fingers, clattering to the floor with a sound that seemed impossibly loud in the sudden silence. Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to save the man who had risked everything to protect me.
Something shifted inside me then—a fundamental realignment of priorities and possibilities. The fear that had defined my existence for so long gave way to something harder, something that burned cold and clear.
"He won't die," I said, the words coming out with a certainty I'd never felt before.
I turned back to the terminal, wiping fresh blood from my face. The physical pain of pushing my abilities too far seemed distant now, unimportant. What mattered was Nicolai. Only Nicolai.
"What do you think you're doing?" Yuri asked, limping closer to look over my shoulder. "You need to stay here while we organize a rescue—"
"There's no time for that," I cut him off, fingers already flying across the keyboard. "Thirty minutes isn't enough for a team to mobilize, infiltrate, and extract. You know that."
"And what do you suggest? You're just one person, a teenager with a nosebleed."
I looked up at him, and whatever he saw in my eyes made him step back.
"I'm the person O'Rourke has been hunting.
The one with abilities he can't understand or predict.
The one Nicolai thought was worth protecting.
" My voice had taken on that electronic distortion again, my powers flaring with my emotions.
"O'Rourke will regret the day he decided to use Nicolai to get to me. "
The screens around us flickered in response to my surge of power, the lights in the panic room dimming momentarily. Yuri's eyes widened slightly.
"You'll kill yourself trying," he warned, but there was less conviction in his voice now. "Those abilities of yours—you're already bleeding from pushing them too hard."
I turned back to the terminal, pulling up building schematics for the riverfront area. "I secured armory access. Zev gave me the codes."
"Zev gave you—" Yuri broke off, shaking his head in disbelief. "You've been busy."
"I've been desperate," I corrected, locating the old processing plant in the industrial district. "Now I need everything you have on O'Rourke's complex. Security systems, guard rotations, entry points."
To my surprise, Yuri didn't argue. Instead, he leaned over and typed a series of commands, bringing up detailed security protocols and what looked like architectural blueprints.
"We've had eyes on that compound for months," he explained, grimacing as he straightened up. "Nicolai wanted to be prepared if O'Rourke ever moved against us. Never thought he'd be the one trapped inside."
My eyes scanned the information hungrily. Electric fence. Motion sensors. Armed guards at all entrances. An underground level where "special guests" were kept. My blood ran cold at the clinical description of what amounted to a private prison and torture chamber.
"I can handle the electronic security," I said, my mind already racing ahead to solutions. "But I'll need help with the guards."
Yuri studied me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he nodded once, sharply. "Dima is clearing the last of the intruders. He's the best we have for direct assault. I can coordinate from here, direct resources."
"You're helping me?" I couldn't keep the surprise from my voice.
A ghost of a smile touched Yuri's battered face. "Nicolai would never forgive me if I let his little protégé get killed." The smile faded. "And I would never forgive myself if we didn't try everything possible to save him."
I nodded, something like respect passing between us for the first time.
"I need transport routes," I said, turning back to the terminal. "And a direct link to Dima."
Yuri moved to a secondary console, his fingers tapping commands with surprising speed given his injuries. "Already on it. There's a service tunnel that runs within half a mile of the compound. Minimal security checkpoints."
A new window opened on my screen—a satellite view of the route from our current location to O'Rourke's compound, with alternative paths highlighted in different colors.
Another window showed thermal imaging of the compound itself, revealing guard positions and what appeared to be a cluster of heat signatures in the underground level.
"Is that him?" I asked, pointing to an isolated heat signature in the lowest level.
"Most likely," Yuri confirmed grimly. "They'd keep him separate from other prisoners. Especially given what they're planning."
A timer appeared in the corner of the screen, the numbers glowing an accusatory red: 30:00. As I watched, it began to count down.
29:59… 29:58… 29:57.
Each second that ticked away was a second closer to losing Nicolai forever. I wiped the blood from my face one last time and straightened my shoulders.
"Let's go get him."