Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
UNTIL MY LAST brEATH
Using the desk phone, I called Liana’s mobile. As the office manager for the Tactical Division, it was my hope that she would know exactly what was happening at Headquarters and why.
“Rokin? Did you reopen the office?” she asked in lieu of a greeting.
“It’s not Rokin.” Though I was terribly curious about who that was and why she knew someone who worked in a concrete cube inside a storm drain. “It’s Hamilton Fawkes.”
Wiley stood beside me as I sat on the desk, our ears pressed to either side of the receiver since the phone didn’t have a speaker function. I’d restrained myself and only drunk enough of his blood to remove the tranquilizer, but having him so close made me want to start again.
“Oh, my goddess!” She made shushing noises and everything around her quieted over the line. “Lord Fawkes, I can hardly believe it! How did you find Rokin’s office? Is he there?”
“It wasn’t my destination—” when I impulsively flew out a window— “but it seemed like a good place to hide from our pursuers. I must ask, though, who is Rokin?”
“Gnome monitor. North branch. They’re up in the mountains at this time of year, so he would’ve locked up and left months ago.”
“Yes, it is rather bare bones.” Did Rokin bring office supplies and literally anything else to make this place look less like a crypt? I worried for his sanity if he was here so long that he needed a cot.
Wiley leaned away to give me a wide-eyed stare and a nod at the phone. I knew what he meant.
“Liana, what’s happening there? Who were those people?”
“It’s local police and federal agents demanding access to the building.
They claim they have warrants to search for illegals, but we all know that’s a lie.
A few humans have gone out to talk with them—and see the warrants—but they’ve all been apprehended!
We’re organizing an evacuation now. Oh! We’ll be using the tunnels and going near you, actually.
Representatives from Saint Jude will meet us with vans and trucks at an abandoned warehouse to get us to their facilities. ”
It didn’t surprise me that Coalition members from the state capital were getting involved given the high visibility of events so far. Events I’d contributed to.
“Are there repercussions from my exodus?”
“Oh, my, yes,” she said breathlessly. “You made the nightly news locally and it’s getting picked up online and nationally. That’s partly why they’re evacuating the building—which I don’t mind at all, thank you. One exposure is quite enough.”
I sighed. There were a few supernaturals—not many, but enough—who couldn’t shift to hide what they were.
Those who chose to work in headquarters like the one there in Parnell lived there as well to keep their very existences a secret from the humans of the world.
I’d exposed my true nature and had risked exposing them should those agents breach the building.
“What about Quillan?” I asked. “Has anyone heard from him?”
“I probably shouldn’t say, but I’m really not in the mood. The last update we had was six hours ago when he reported in that the Barnabas lab had been abandoned. They were tracking what scents they could follow toward the coast.”
While it was good that the lab was shuttered, the time lapse was suspicious. Six hours ago? I had to assume they’d run into a conflict of some sort that was preventing them from communicating. Hopefully, it was for stealth reasons and not anything more dangerous.
Switching gears, I said, “Tell me about these tunnels. This is the first I’ve heard of them.”
“Well, I’m not entirely sure how they connect, but if you go out the back of that office, you should see several labeled doors.
You’ll want the one with ‘maintenance’ and ‘hazardous’ on it—don’t worry about that last bit as it’s just to keep the curious away.
From there, you’ll want to keep moving East. I’m sure you’ll be able to find us at some point. ”
I would’ve preferred more detailed directions, but my echolocation had gotten us this far. I had to assume it could continue to do so.
“Thank you, Liana. Be safe. We’ll see you soon.”
“You, too, Lord Fawkes.”
She hung up, and I set the receiver back in its cradle.
“Well, that’s fun,” Wiley said with a tight smile. “A door with a sign and maybe some hallways going East. I couldn’t tell you which way East was even if I wasn’t in an underground bunker, so this should be great. Please feel free to eat my corpse when I get lost and die.”
I slung my arm around his shoulders and pulled him in for a hug. “My echolocation lets me see hallways with great clarity because they’re enclosed spaces, so sound goes farther. I’ll be able to see quite far ahead of us and should see a tunnel stretching from the city out here easily enough.”
He sighed and slumped against me. “I really did have such great plans for tonight, and now we’re running from fake ICE agents instead.”
“Well, we don’t technically need to run.”
“Smart ass.”
I kissed his forehead and stood as I encouraged him upright. “Let’s get started. I’m going to turn out the lights so we don’t leave evidence of our presence behind.”
“You busted the door.”
“Too much evidence then.”
I reached over and flicked off the overhead lights. Wiley immediately grabbed my upper arm and the blanket across my chest. I tucked him against my side and headed for the door opposite the one we’d used to enter. Thankfully, it wasn’t locked.
“Are there rats and bugs and things down here?” he asked before he very audibly gulped.
“Not back here.” Because there had been several before we’d gone into that office, presumably as that part of the storm drain was open to the forest.
“Can you see doors and signs?”
“I can. I believe this is the one we want.” I tried the handle, but it didn’t budge. “I’ll have to break this one, too,” I said before putting my hip into it. The metal frame bent enough to let the door swing open.
Wiley’s grip on me stopped us from walking through. “Oh, lovely. A very long dirt tunnel to nowhere lit by ominous red lights. We’re gonna die.”
“No, we’re not.” Though it definitely wasn’t the friendliest view I’d ever seen. “At least you can see now.”
When I lifted my arm to release him, he stayed exactly where he was.
“Dude, I’m betting on you being the scariest thing in here, so if we come across any gnomes that aren’t in the mountains, I want them to know I’m definitely yours and should not be fucked with.”
I huffed a laugh before clearing my throat. “I’m not sure what a gnome monitor like this mysterious Rokin does, but I do know that gnomes probably dug this tunnel for much the same reason ants dig theirs.”
“So we’re on their turf. Invading. Do you think I stand a chance against a gnome or—”
“They won’t hurt either of us. They’re peaceful miners and nature guardians. And they do literally look like the garden statuary some people collect.”
He stopped clinging to me but stayed under my arm. “So I could punt them.”
I rolled my eyes. “If anything, should a gnome find us in here, they’d probably offer to help.”
“Oh.” Now he moved to walk beside me, holding hands. “Okay then.”
After a few minutes of walking quietly, Wiley looked down at his feet. “I know my shoes won’t fit you, but do you want to wear my socks?”
I shuddered to think of putting socks on over my filthy bare feet. “No, it’s alright.”
We came to a fork in the tunnel, and Wiley looked at me expectantly. I gave a call and closed my eyes, getting immediate feedback on the many passages branching off from here. Only one connected to a tunnel coming from the city. “This way,” I said and went left.
“Scream squeak for the win.” He briefly punched the air with a fist.
Scream squeak… Hammy… He made me sound horribly adorable, and yet I was starting not to mind. Wiley was seeing all of me, not just the bat or the vampire. Not even just the lawyer or noble. He saw every bit and found reasons to want and care for everything I was.
“Thank you,” I said without really thinking.
He looked genuinely confused. “For what?”
For loving me, but I wasn’t ready to say those words. Instead, I pulled him in for a slow, deep kiss that I hoped made known some of what I felt.
When I pulled back, he had his eyes closed and slowly licked his lips before blinking up at me and grinning. “You’re very welcome,” he said and winked.
After walking for a couple of hours at least, we came to a door that I had to damage to open again.
This one led us into the bowels of a building with pipes of all sorts snaking above our heads.
The furnace was cold and rusty, making me think this was the abandoned warehouse everyone else from Parnell was aiming for.
Wiley and I headed up toward the light that shone in through broken windows from streetlights outside.
I opened the outer door to utter chaos.
I should’ve checked. I should’ve paused to hear the words being yelled.
I’d assumed the noise was from the evacuees and Coalition members.
But it was actually armed soldiers in black tactical gear shooting at everyone out there.
A dart hit me in the center of my chest and had my knees buckling seconds later.
“Run,” I croaked at Wiley, pushing him away.
“No! Oh, god…”
“Run!”
I thumped against the filthy floor face first, not even able to brace myself, but I could see Wiley running away. He went back toward the door into the basement, and I was glad to know he headed for the tunnels. He could lose them down there.
But then boots were surrounding me, rough hands lifting me, and the world swam before my eyes. I lost sight of Wiley, but I heard him yelp. He hadn’t made it.
Everything in me raged at being caught again, for putting Wiley in danger, for being completely unable to do more than growl impotently. I was thrown on top of others, snarling and unable to move. They stacked us inside the trailer of a semi, and then they closed the doors and drove away.
I couldn’t smell Wiley. Was he in another vehicle, tranquilized with other humans?
Had he been shot dead and left behind?
If he was gone, no order or weapon would stop me from exposing supernatural kind to the world as I tore apart every single soldier and their masters.
No one would escape me. I would remake the entire American government through murder if that was what it took to stop these people.
I would be the nightmare they thought I was until my last breath.