Chapter 36
EMERY
Killing my father’s henchmen feels cathartic in a way. I don’t have the same guilt that I did when I was forced to kill other cadets in the Under Trials.
I don’t have remorse for these people, and certainly not for my father. I hope he’s shitting his pants right now and is having a crisis meeting with Reed.
How poetic it is that his own right-hand man, who he practically took into his own home, should betray him like this.
Wraith takes the left hallway and gives us a short nod. His face is covered with blood and his smile is haunting at best. He’s having the time of his life out here. I’m actually glad he ended up being put with Fury.
Cameron stays tight to my side and stops abruptly when we reach a four-way junction in the hall.
“Volt, are you and Red Turtle together and inbound to the target?” His voice is heavy with his excitement.
I feel it too, the adrenaline is so strong that it feels like my heart will leap right out of my chest. It’s a little fucked up that the death pills make it feel this amazing, but I’m not going to complain.
Damian is the one who responds. “Mori, we are in a bit of a situation, not engaging yet, but we are trapped between two rotating patrols on the fourth floor. We need you guys to clear them out.”
“Copy that,” he says quickly before dashing those sage eyes in my direction. He inspects me briefly.
I know I was hit a few times back there, but I don’t feel any hindrance yet and am too worked up to even begin to know where they are, so I just nod at him. “I’m fine.” He hesitates, but accepts it.
We move through the building a lot slower than we did outside.
The walls create a maze of stone. The structures were likely built in the 1950s so the original stairs have long since crumbled.
Newer iron stairs have been installed and are loud beneath our combat boots.
The grip on the soles keeps catching the ribbed edges of the metal steps and makes me uncomfortable to be this noticeable.
I keep my back to Cameron’s as we ascend the stairs. He holds his rifle pointed forward while I watch our backs.
Wraith’s loud machine gun roars to life and echoes through the halls. The ceiling crumbles a bit, small chunks of debris falling to the floor below and dusting us in what I believe is dry clay.
“Cool it, Herc,” I snap into my mic.
Wraith’s laugh is feral. “I’ll stop when there aren’t so many of them!”
“Jesus,” Cameron mumbles to me. “Has your father always had this many men at his disposal in foreign territory?” He glances back at me before continuing up the next flight of stairs to the third level.
“No, he must’ve requested that the other families send in help.”
God knows the Mavestelli Family has an arsenal of “IOUs.” Greg’s been collecting them for years. Foresight was always his strong suit. He knew his shady shit would catch up to him eventually.
Cameron moves like a lion, every motion and step is calculated and trained into him. He narrows his eyes as we reach the fourth floor. The moment we reach the landing a grenade rolls to our feet.
My mind falters as I stare down at it, heart in my throat.
“Move!”
Cameron tackles me back, and together we tumble down a flight of stairs. He holds me tightly against his chest as our bodies collide multiple times with the iron steps. The air is sucked from my lungs as my ribs smack against the railing.
The explosion rocks the entire stairwell and blows down the clay walls on the fourth floor’s entrance. We’re pelted by the debris, but before I can assess the damage to my body, Cameron is already lifting me to my feet and urging me back up the stairs. He tears off his tattered mask and tosses it.
“We have to keep going!” He grinds the words out through his clenched jaw.
Horror rips through me at the sight of him.
His jaw is drenched in blood, thick with dust mixing on his skin.
He blinks and meets my gaze. The same mortified expression that I feel on my face crosses his and makes my heart give out.
Blood fills his scarred eye, taking me back to the trials, reminding me that no matter how much we don’t feel, we’re only human.
We’re only lovely monsters made of flesh and bone.
Another explosion erupts, this time from below somewhere on the first level.
Dust and smoke rise through the stairwell and spurs us back into motion.
We climb over the rubble and make it onto the fourth level.
Cameron nods to a dark room with the door cracked open and I quickly move for it.
He sweeps the room quickly before turning his attention solely to me.
“Where are you hurt?” he says in a rushed, worried tone that melts my resolve. His hands are trembling, covered in red and brown stains. Some of his fingers look bent the wrong way, but he’s only focused on me and where I’m injured.
I take a second to let myself take inventory of my body.
Pressure and hot liquid bloom across multiple areas, some worse than the others.
“My left arm won’t move at all.” Fuck, I think I re-dislocated it.
Cameron moves behind me and takes a staggered breath before he snaps it back into place.
The pressure disappears and makes another one known.
My eyes shift to my leg, where my ankle rests in a grotesque angle. “Goddamn it.” I take a few deep breaths. I fucking walked on that up the stairs? My limbs are shaking and my teeth start to chatter.
The response to body trauma can’t be completely canceled out, I guess. My heart beats faster and harder, warning me that we’re close to the amount of shock it can take.
Cameron curses and looks over my ankle. “I don’t know if I can set it,” he says with a quaking voice. His eyes flash up to mine, panic contorting his expression.
“Try,” I mutter, pulling out a shot of morphine and sticking it into my thigh. The body tremors instantly die down to a mild shake. I let out a soothed sigh.
He nods and swallows hard as he puts his hands on both sides of my leg and jerks it back into place. A ripple of electricity shoots up my entire right leg, all the way to my hip. I yelp at the strange feeling.
“Shit, are you okay?” He moves to inspect me but freezes and clutches his chest.
“Cam!” I push him over and tilt his chin up so his airway is clear.
His breaths come in raspy and labored. His eyes become unfocused and he stares at the ceiling, gripping at his chest. “What do I do?” I cry.
“Cameron. Cameron!” I unzip his vest and pull his shirt up.
Blood has soaked through the material, and once I have it pulled back it reveals that he has two gunshots, one to the shoulder and one in his right side.
Nothing vital, but maybe his body is going into shock.
Or is he finally hitting his wall after all these years?
Maybe his body is refusing to keep going on like this.
“Cameron, what’s wrong? Do you need morphine?” I whisper as I hold out the last shot of morphine that I have. He looks at me and forces a tight smile. It’s so weak that I have to bury my teeth into my lower lip to keep from sobbing.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t feel pain… I don’t feel—” He spaces out and stares back at the ceiling before blinking and trying to push himself up. “Fuck, I don’t know what’s going on with my body.”
I set my hand on his chest and hold him down. I speak into my mic. “Volt, Red Turtle. Mori is down. I repeat, Mori is down. Where are you?” A few dreadful seconds pass before someone finally responds. Though it’s not the voice I expected to hear from.
“Move forward with the mission, Morphine. No stopping. Remember?” Erik’s cold voice sets ice into my veins.
I glance down at Cameron. Broken. Worst, his headset is on and he hears the careless tone his father figure uses. A teary-eyed grin spreads across his lips. “You heard him. I’m fine, I just need to catch my breath.” He chokes on a dry cough and sets his head back down.
The last thing I want to do is leave him here. But a voice in my head says that if I finish this quickly, we can end this and fucking be free. How will we escape with him incapacitated? I shake the thought. I will get him out.
Even if I have to carry him to the underworld.
If he falls, I fall.
“I’ll be back. I promise.” I press a kiss to his bloody lips and taste the iron of him on my tongue.
“I love you, Cameron.” I swallow the knot in my throat that tries to keep me from speaking.
“I love you and you’re not allowed to fucking die, all right?
” My frown must be painful to see because he curses and lets tears trickle down his temples.
“I’m not dying. Fuck that.” He grins, a small flicker of fire burns in his eyes. “I love you. I’ll be right behind you.”
I nod, though I hope he stays put, and force myself to my feet. If I don’t go now, then I won’t leave his side at all.
Wraith’s voice comes over the headset. “Morphine, I’m on my way up. Keep going, I’ll fix him up.”
I let out a relieved breath. “Thanks, Herc.”
I prep two of my flares and empty the remaining two death pills I have into my mouth and chew them into a bitter paste that makes the heartache fade a fraction. Two spare clips are all that I have, and I’m on my own until I find Gage and Damian.
The halls are loud with gunfire and my headset crackles the closer I get to the center of the building.
Is this why they haven’t responded? It could be a transmission blocker.
I kneel as I take a corner and put ten bullets into two guards who are stealthily moving in the opposite direction. Any mercy I held on to has been shed from my heart long ago. Nothing will get in the way of me ending this godforsaken empire.
After killing a few more men, getting shot in the forearm before slashing a throat, and leaving my knife behind because I couldn’t pull it out from a guard’s locked jaw, I finally find Damian and Gage.
They instantly light up when they see me, and I reciprocate the relief.
“We thought we were going to have to take this entire mission ourselves,” Gage complains. There’s not a fucking scratch on him, and it makes me want to laugh.
It makes no sense how he always gets away so unscathed. Luck, I guess.
Or he’s just really good at hiding, I muse.
Damian on the other hand has dirt and scraps all over his uniform. Only a small amount of blood trickles down from his left glove.
“Holy shit, you look like hell!” Damian’s eyes blow wide as he yanks me down to crouch with them. It’s then that I notice that there is a guard behind them. My heart skips a beat and I grip my rifle, lifting it to shoot him before Gage’s hand comes down on the muzzle quickly.
“Hey, cool it. We’re keeping this one,” Gage scolds me.
I look at them like they’re crazy. “Why?”
Damian puffs out his chest. “Remember my specialty?” He winks at me. Oh that’s right, he and Bree were great at manipulating people and garnering information.
Gage adds: “He’s leading us to Mavestelli.”
I steal another glance at the guard and consider how young he looks. Fear is riddled all over his face. He lowers his chin at me and mutters, “Miss Mavestelli, it’s an honor.” My eyes widen. Gage and Damian share a bewildered look.
“Jesus, I didn’t know we were in the presence of fucking royalty,” Gage mumbles wryly.
Damian follows that up. “My God, right? Would you like some avocado with your fucking toast, my lady?”
“You two are the perfect dumb-ass duo, you know that?” I snap at them before looking pointedly at the guard. “Hurry up and take us to my father.”