Chapter 23 Emery
EMERY
The building shakes with another explosion. It’s closer this time, but I’m in too much pain and my mind is too heavy to give it much thought. The only thing I have room for in my head and heart is the horrible realization that everything I thought I knew is a fucking lie.
My knees sink to the ground and I quickly find the knife my father left on the floor after the lights cut out.
“How would you know to tell him about that, Cam? How long have you known him?” I clutch the knife desperately, feeling my mind dip into hysteria. I don’t know what to believe anymore.
Cameron winces as he hobbles toward me, crouching down to my level.
“Emery, please listen. It’s not what you think.” He reaches for me, but I smack his hand away.
“It’s exactly what I think. You’ve been using me this entire time, spinning me along like a thread on a spool, haven’t you? How do you know Reed?” My legs tremble as I lean against the wall for support.
Two days of absolute hell and Reed didn’t tell me anything. That makes it hurt worse.
His expression dampens into grief. The sadness in his gaze is almost enough to be my undoing.
“I’ll explain everything once we’re out of here, I promise, but you need to trust me,” he says calmly, opening his hand for me to give him the knife.
It’s laughable that he thinks I would give it to him so freely.
“Trusting you is the last thing I need. Do you have any idea what Reed made me go through these past few days?” I throw my free hand into the air with rage.
“He put me in the basement and watched silently as a guard beat me senseless until I could actually feel it, then until I couldn’t stop screaming.
He cut my hair to ruin the image of me he helped build. ” My raspy voice is scathing.
I know Reed said to trust him and he wouldn’t enjoy what Greg wanted him to do, but part of me doesn’t know how much truth lies with those words.
Cameron’s eyes break, but he remains firm. “Please, Em. You need to listen to me.” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me tightly against his chest. I’m consumed by his warmth, sinking farther into his hold as his heartbeats become all I know.
“All we seem to do is hurt one another,” I murmur in a hushed tone.
Gunshots pop off and echo down the hallway as another rumbling passes through the building. It feels like a grenade several floors below. The sound rolls between us. Almost as if to remind us that we’re on borrowed time right now.
Another moment passes before footsteps thunder across the hall and something crashes into the door.
Wood splinters everywhere and pelts around us.
I have to lift my arm to shield my eyes but manage to see Gage’s sandy blond hair as he rights himself.
His mask is hanging loosely around his neck and his face is streaked with paint.
Gage quickly sweeps the room for any guards before patting dust from his pants and giving us a manic smile. His pupils are blown wide with adrenaline.
“Nice to see you assholes again,” Gage mutters smugly, looking us up and down. “Jesus, they really fucked you guys up, didn’t they? Morphine, isn’t Mavestelli your dad?”
Trust me, I’m as mortified as you are.
I scowl at him, even though I’m beyond relieved that he’s here. “Nice to see you too, jackass.” A weak chuckle escapes my lips.
“Hey.” Gage laughs as he easily evades my attempt to shove his shoulder back. I wince as a flash of pain ripples up my throat and I cough out more blood. Crap. Gage’s eyes widen as he looks at Cameron.
Cam glowers at us. “We need to get to Reed. He should be on the first sub-floor. Emery needs the next injection soon or she’ll continue getting worse to the point where we can’t save her.”
If I was still impervious to pain, I would dismiss what he’s saying, but the agony that spreads in my bones is nearly unbearable. It’s a wonder that we can operate when under the influence of death pills.
I think that’s what made Cameron finally lose himself in the Under Trials. Nolan gave him another injection right before. I remember seeing the small puncture on his jugular artery as he was bringing the stone down.
“It’s not the same one that caused you to lose control in the last trial, right?” My voice is pleading. If he’s going to start telling the truth, then it needs to be now.
Gage raises a brow at me. “Cam?” he asks sarcastically. I ignore him.
“No. There’s one more after this in a few weeks that you’ll need to take.
But there isn’t choice in the matter even if it was, Em.
You have to take it or your body will give out.
” Cameron’s brows knit with anguish, he looks like he’s been dragged through hell and back. I probably don’t look much better.
“Em?” Gage’s voice keeps rising the more he decides to continue with his incessant comments.
“But what if I lose control like you did?” My throat tightens at the thought. I almost killed him in the aftermath of the hideout in the desert. When he lost himself in Alaska, it was the worst I’d seen him, nothing would get through to his mind.
Cameron gives me a lopsided grin as he takes the blade from my hand and tucks it into my boot. His eyes flash up at me as he’s kneeled at my feet. “I’ll bring you back.” Then he stands and runs his hand through my short hair. “I always will.”
My lips press together. I want to hug him and kiss him, but my heart is conflicted. Reed isn’t exactly someone you just know by chance. He’s someone who makes himself known to those he takes interest in.
I settle on giving him a curt nod as Gage unhitches his handgun from his waist and tosses it to Cam. “If you two are done being gross, I suggest we get moving.”
Cameron glares at him and unclicks the safety on the pistol. “Where’s the lieutenant? Did the lieutenant give you a bottle of pills for us? Otherwise we’re not going to be of much use, I’m barely able to stand right now.” He says the latter with more hesitance.
Gage pulls out a black bottle and tosses it at Cameron, then lights himself a cigarette as he watches us each take four. Cam swallows his quickly. I chew mine so they hit my bloodstream faster. The bitterness has a bite to it, but I force it down anyway.
Gage passes his cigarette to Cameron and I watch as he takes a deep inhale of smoke, relishing in it like a delicacy as he shoulders on his tactical jacket.
It’s dirty and stiff with blood. Not that I’m dressed any better.
I’m still stuck in my dress from the meeting the other night.
Though now it’s ruined with rips and blood.
“Lieutenant Erik is engaging in close combat with Mavestelli’s men downstairs. Power is with him and so are the new guys. Mikah is on comms, watching from the Humvee parked a klick away.” Gage speaks quietly as he signals for us to trail him down the dark hall.
I snag a silenced pistol from one of the dead guards near the elevator so that I’m not the only one without a weapon.
“Wait, what new guys?” I ask as we slip into the stairwell.
Gage’s flashlight is the only source of light we have besides the small emergency ones that illuminate every third step going down.
Our combat boots make a considerable amount of sound as we race through the levels, but the gunfire and shouting from below is much louder.
Too loud for there to be only three of our soldiers engaging with them.
My father has at least twenty men in this building alone.
We stop on the third floor’s landing to catch our breath. Gage sullens as he explains, “After we lost Kayden we needed to replace him. That guy you spoke with in the Under, what was his name…” Gage pauses to think.
My pulse leaps. “Damian?”
“Yeah, that’s it!” Gage claps his hands together and jerks his head toward the next set of stairs to indicate that we’re moving again. “Him, and we added another one. He’s a bit more unruly and dangerous, but Fury is good for those kinds of soldiers so we figured why not.”
“I’m guessing you don’t know his name yet either,” Cameron chimes in.
Gage laughs. “Not worth remembering since we were already gearing up to go out on a mission like this. If we all make it back, I’ll ask them.”
The door to the second level flies open as a guard kicks it in. Gage’s rifle is up in the next breath. He puts two bullets into the man’s chest before hooking his ankle with his boot, sending the guard to the ground. Then one final round to the guard’s forehead.
“Pretty good for a sniper,” Cam muses.
He sounds relieved to have Gage back with us.
I’m shocked that Fury was able to pull this off, but then again, if Reed is working with them, then it makes sense that the Dark Forces were finally able to infiltrate the fortress.
They must know where all the hideouts are and the trade locations now that they have that flash drive.
Even the bunkers buried in many locations and countries were on there.
I would know, I helped my father catalog them. Things even Reed didn’t know.
I knew that the bunker we used while we were in the Under Trials was familiar. It was built using my father’s designs and corrupt methods.
“That’s still four against like twenty-five guards. How are they planning to take over the building?” I ask between breaths.
Gage almost trips on a step but manages to catch himself. “We’re not going to try to take the building, we’re just saving you two and getting the fuck out. Mikah hacked their security footage and auto-lock doors so half of the guards are trapped in their rooms until the power comes back on.”
“Smart,” I murmur. No doubt this was entirely Mikah’s brilliant idea.
“Yeah, yeah. I pull my weight around here too,” Gage says as he clears the landing on the lower level.
“I was talking about Mikah.”
“I never get any gratitude,” Gage complains.
Cameron gets us back on track. “The lab should just be—”