102. Ryan Fairview
W e entered Apex, and the entrance was a disaster. It was clear these halls had suffered multiple explosions.
The ground was covered in rubble, and massive chunks were missing from several walls.
The rotting stench of decomposing flesh hit my nose the deeper Vox led us into the building, and I pulled my shirt up over my nose as we stepped over corpse after corpse.
‘I was here when Cal killed all these guys. The man’s a fucking legend.’ Gavin whispered as we passed the devastation Cal had left in his first attempt to kill Damian.
‘I’m going to go ahead and get a lay of the land; tell Vox to wait at the steps to the basement.’
I nodded and relayed the message to our leader. Gavin’s spirit flickered out of existence, and we waited in a tense silence for him to return.
He wasn’t gone long.
When he reappeared, his eyes had a tightness that hadn’t been there when he left.
‘There are four men down there. One is guarding the bottom of the stairs, and there are two holding Naomi’s cell… the fourth one is in the cell with her.’
My blood ran cold at the way he said it. His blue eyes were bright and full of pain, and I knew without asking that we needed to hurry up. Something bad was happening to Naomi, and we needed to get to her before it was too late.
I relayed the message to Vox, and both Vox and Theo’s pupils blew wide with rage when I mentioned that there was a man in the cell with Naomi.
Vox let out a slow breath, and I watched as all the life bled out of his face. I no longer felt like I was looking at a human being.
I was looking at a killing machine, and he would show no mercy.
Vox made the motion that meant ‘ cover me.’
Theo and I flanked him as he pulled a small object out of his backpack. At first, I thought it was a grenade, but it wasn’t egg-shaped. It was cylindrical. He tore a pin out of it and tossed it down the stairs.
‘Smoke bomb, stay low; it’ll rise to the ceiling. The lower you are, the easier it’ll be for you to see and breathe.’
Vox confirmed what Gavin suggested with a ‘get low’ hand signal, and Theo and I crouched behind him, following him down the stairs.
I could hear Damian’s men shout and mobilize as the smoke overtook the basement.
Doing my best to stay calm, I got so low I was nearly on my knees.
‘Ginger dude! Against the wall!’ Gavin hollered, and I threw myself to follow the order just as the deafening sound of gunshots began to explode around me.
A bullet whizzed so close to my head that I felt it pass. It hit the concrete wall behind me, and a chunk of debris sliced my cheek open as I did my best to plaster myself to the wall.
Suddenly, Vox’s demand for me to stay behind didn’t feel so infantilizing.
A few weeks of target practice did not mean I was ready for a full-blown shoot-out. Even Theo, as tough as she was, was clearly just as shell-shocked as I was. We kept as low as possible and hugged the wall, watching through the film of smoke as two shadows engaged in what looked like hand-to-hand before us.
There was a grunt and the distinct sound of someone releasing their last breath before one of the shadows dropped the other shadow to the ground.
I cocked my gun in my hand and pointed it at the approaching figure in case it was Damian’s man that had survived, but Gavin’s voice assured me it was Vox.
The smoke was already thinning as he crouched by Theo and me.
He quickly checked us over to make sure we weren’t injured, then made the motion for ‘ enemy down,’ followed by the signal that meant ‘ low crawl.’
I glanced at Theo, and though her face was whiter than I’d ever seen it, she looked determined as I felt to continue.
Getting down to my stomach, I crawled under a cloud of smoke, following Vox as he did the same.
I swallowed as we passed the corpse of the man Vox had killed. The man’s spirit was peeling itself away from his body, but Gavin descended on him, forcing the spirit to retreat away from us, for which I was grateful.
The last thing I needed was to be distracted by malevolent ghosts passing through my body while I tried to survive down here.
Vox abruptly made the motion to freeze, then motioned ‘ enemy spotted .’
Sure enough, I could see the legs of the men Gavin said were guarding Naomi’s door.
Silently, Vox ordered us to stay where we were. He crawled forward until he was nearly on top of the guards.
Ripping out a tactical knife, he stabbed it roughly through the back of the first man’s ankle. The man screamed as Vox twisted the knife and sliced through his Achilles tendon.
His partner’s shadow turned. I could only make out his silhouette through the smoke as he aimed low, clearly getting ready to shoot Vox.
“Ryan, stay down!” Theo shouted. Without warning, she basically crawled on top of me, forcing my head down.
I heard two deafening ‘ pops’ as Theo fired into the shadow of the man who was about to shoot Vox. The silhouette of the guard’s head exploded in a spray of gore as Theo’s bullets found their home in his skull.
By the time he hit the ground, Vox had eliminated the other man and was already on his feet.
He shot out the handle in the door and kicked it open. Vox didn’t wait for any of us before barrelling into the room. The door slammed shut behind him, and instead of gunshots, our ears were greeted by the bone-chilling sound of a grown man’s screams.
I moved to follow, but Gavin reappeared and shook his head.
‘Just wait. I don’t think Gnomes is going to want many people to see her like this.’ Gavin said, his gaze sad.
I swallowed but nodded, repeating the message to Theo.
Theo was gripping her gun so hard she was shaking. Without taking her eyes off the man she had killed, she asked, “There’s a man in there with her. Shouldn’t we make sure Vox is ok?”
Gavin gave us a dark look and shook his head.
‘Trust me. That man was dead the second he touched Naomi.’