Chapter 4 #2
“Check the asset’s pulse,” a man muttered.
“Dude, it’s normal,” another answered.
“Impossible.” My wrist was grabbed roughly before fingers pressed to my throat. “Damn. It is normal. Let’s hurry and take her in before she wakes up.”
“Should we give her another dose?”
“Yeah. Just in case.” A sharp prick hit my neck before they argued about my pulse again.
I counted the steps and turned to the facility, but Worthy manifested quietly as they took me. He reported directly to Slater.
When we entered the facility, it smelled of disinfectant. My rough estimate was that it took them two to three miles to make it there from our camp.
They processed me in with scanners.
I stayed limp.
Tourmalyke burned against my skin as they dosed me three more times, but it did nothing.
Eventually, they strapped me to a metallic table in a small chamber. The Tourmalyke restraints hummed with dampening energy.
When the door shut and footsteps faded, I cracked one eye open.
“Fuck this place,” I muttered.
It looked too much like the real lab I’d been held in before, with the same sterile surfaces, gray walls, and humming machinery.
The difference was that the air wasn’t saturated with tourmalyke the way that facility had been.
My veins didn’t feel iced, and I could still feel my matebonds. They were fuzzy, but they were there.
They buzzed like a faraway signal instead of dead silence.
I had to assume it was because this facility wasn’t built with the magical energy-sucking crystal like the one I’d been held in.
I pulled carefully at the restraints. They were strong, but I could easily break them if I needed to.
A camera watched from the upper corner of the room. The red recording light blinked.
A grin curved my mouth as Worthy sent me an image of Slater finding the facility on his tablet and locking in on the room I was in.
He’d hacked the feed already.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” I murmured to my chaos manifestation in awe as Slater’s magic sparked through my irises.
“Worthy!” he hissed, his tongue flicking out as he flapped his wings to stay level in front of my face.
“Hi, Slater,” I said sweetly to the camera in the corner.
As soon as I said his name, curiosity and focused calculation pulsed faintly down our bond.
“Worthy showed me what you’re doing through Snakey,” I explained. “Cool, huh? My comms are between my boobs, but I’ll grab it later. I didn’t want the humans to take it.”
Surprise flickered down the bond, and I giggled before I shut my mouth with a snap.
Tilting my head, I shifted my senses outward, letting myself hear past these poorly made rooms. Voices filtered through the walls, halls, and into a shut-off room.
One sentence stuck out to me.
“That brings us to forty-three supernaturals total in containment.”
Fates…Forty-three. Not just the three teens had been taken, which we knew, but forty-three supernaturals?
I turned my head. “Where are the teens?”
Worthy connected to Snakey again, and I could see the blueprints of the facility. I could also hear whatever Snakey could hear.
“The teens are separated by different rooms, but they’re right down the corridor to Rune’s,” Katie explained.
“There are so many more supernaturals… The lab layout has a lobby where four hallways connect, each hallway lined with containment rooms on either side. At least two security doors are between us and the exit.”
“The doors…what do they use to access them?” Solon asked.
“Doors require handprint authorization,” Katie answered.
“Nasty,” Zuko muttered, but anxiety at being away from me filled the bond. “Solution?”
“Option A: chop off a guard’s hand,” I said automatically, knowing they were listening to me through the camera. “Option B: Dimitri compels someone to open the doors for us. I prefer option A.”
“Option A is off the table,” Eleanor’s voice cut in. “No violence, remember? Conditional permission.”
“That was before we found out they’re experimenting on over forty supernaturals,” I scoffed. “But I guess we can try to play nice. You rescue the teens first. I’ll get myself out once I hear you break in. These restraints are nothing to me.”
“We’re at the outer perimeter,” Ivy replied, her voice echoing in the room Snakey was in. “Slater’s guiding us to a weak point in their external security.”
“Snakey,” Slater murmured. “Tell my venom baby I love her, then go forward and get us an idea of what we’re walking into.”
“I love you, too.”
“This is what we get for being on a squad with mates,” Solon said, tone somewhere between amused and awkward.
“Aren’t you lucky?” I closed my eyes as Worthy pulled me back and faded back into Slater’s mark.
The crackle of disabled security protocols sounded almost immediately, and I flexed my hands once, letting my basilisk magic roll through my muscles before I yanked.
The Tourmalyke restraints snapped, shattering around me. I swung my legs off the table and stood, stretching out the stiffness.
I reached down my top and grabbed the comms, putting it back in my ear.
Lights flickered. Somewhere down the hall, an alarm went off before it stopped and panicked voices started.
“Surveillance scrambling is live,” Slater called. “I’ve got their cams looped. We won’t be tracked.”
I punched the keypad on the door, and it crunched as it buckled inward. The door swung open, and I stepped into the hall.
Five humans rounded the corner. They were security guards in tactical gear with guns and tasers.
“Hands up!” one shouted.
“Sure.” I stepped toward them casually, lifting my hands.
They hadn’t expected me to be free of cuffs, and they didn’t expect me to be fast enough to clear the hall in a couple of seconds.
One brush of my fingertips against one of their wrists, and the guard stiffened, eyes rolling back as my venom surged into his veins.
I pivoted, grabbing another’s exposed skin at the neck.
Two dropped in seconds, paralyzed but breathing.
“Shit…she’s using her powers!” one of them yelled.
“Bet you failed at basic observation,” I muttered.
The third fired a dart at me.
I leaned back and caught it midair, drenching it in my venom and flicking it back at him.
It hit his thigh, and he went down.
The last two tried to retreat, but I was faster than they were.
I simply vaulted over them, using their shoulders, and landed in their path, shoving my palms into their faces. They dropped together.
“My hallway is clear,” I said into the comms. “Five neutralized. No fatalities.”
“Show-off,” Zuko muttered approvingly. “Thank the Fates you’re okay.”
“I’m fine,” I assured him.
Slater let out a low groan. “I love hearing your voice, venom baby. I want to hear it before I perish.”
“You’re not perishing,” I growled.
“So hot when she’s angry,” he gushed with a giggle.
“Ivy, Solon, hallway junction in three meters,” Katie said. “Rune’s to your left.”
I met them at the intersection.
“Nice entrance,” Ivy said, noticing the bodies.
“Same to you,” I replied, glancing behind them where a trail of knocked-out guards lay.
We moved into the lobby toward a terminal with a scientist who spoke quickly into a phone.
“You have to hurry! We’re under attack!” she screamed. The scientist was frail and old. Humans aged terribly compared to us.
I feared that if I even attempted to grab her, I’d break her bones.
Dimitri appeared behind me in a blur seconds later, red eyes glowing as he tapped into his compulsion power.
“You will hang up and open all supernatural doors,” he told her calmly. “Then, you will go to your office and wipe every file related to their biology and magical signatures. You will destroy all supernatural DNA you’ve collected.”
She repeated his words back, dazed, and moved to the controls.
One by one, the doors in the facility hissed open.
“I love that power,” I blurted.
Dimitri’s fang peeked out as he smirked. “I love yours.”
“You okay?” Koa’s warm hand rested on my shoulder as he sent blue flames all over me to make sure I wasn’t hurt.
“I’m okay,” I promised, biting my lip to contain the moan that tried to pry its way out from my throat. Pleasure rippled down the bond from his magic against my skin.
“Fuck, Rune.” Zuko jogged toward us and kissed my forehead gently. “I know you’re going to torture us like this again in the future, but remember, aftercare is important.”
I giggled and rolled my eyes. “Noted, toxin.”
“Let’s get all the supernaturals out of here, starting with the teenagers,” Ivy ordered.
Solon, Ivy, Dimitri, Zuko, Koa, and I freed and led the injured out. Slater and Katie guided us through the comms.
By the time we hit the outer fence, with all forty-three supernaturals, including myself, accounted for, human guards were panicked, alarms blared, and the power flickered on and off. Yet through it all, not one human had died.
As annoying as it was, we kept our word on not murdering anyone. The only reason we had kept our word was that we had found no dead supernaturals.
At the edge of the facility’s land, the rest of our squad waited for us.
Eleanor was already on a call with the Human Council rep again when we came up.
“Your facility is past the point of violating the peace treaty,” she said calmly, and I assumed they had been arguing with her.
“We entered with permission, neutralized your personnel non-lethally, and extracted forty-three supernaturals.”
“What about the personnel who were working?” the human asked. “How did you neutralize them?”
“Does it matter? They’re all alive,” she told them.
“You had conditional permission to enter our territory,” they snapped. “If you used your powers to knock our citizens out—”
“What exactly will you do about it?” Eleanor’s voice turned sharp. “We saved our people from inhumane experimentation. Perhaps you should worry more about the consequences of you breaking the treaty and law.”
The rep stayed silent for a moment. “Let’s not escalate the situation…”
“You’ll hear from the council directly. Make sure the human guards at the border let us through,” she cut in and hung up.
We ushered the rescued supernaturals back across the border without incident.
Once we were back in Fate Hollow, the scenery shimmered.
“Well done,” Jarvins's voice boomed with finality.
The border vanished.
We were back in the simulator’s chamber.
Jarvins chewed on his twig, looking proud.
“The entire squad did a great job.” His gaze swept over us.
“Rune, letting yourself be taken was a calculated risk. It was also the right call to make. You found the facility, confirmed there were far more captives than reported, and kept your head while in a familiar trauma scenario.”
I swallowed. My wrists rolled once, trying to rid the phantom sensation of the Tourmalyke restraints. “Thanks.”
“Ivy and Solon,” Jarvins went on, nodding at the enforcers. “You both had excellent breach work and squad protection during the extraction. You kept focus on the objective and team safety.”
Jarvins's gaze snapped to my sister-by-mating.
“Sylver, creating the thin spot in the ward convinced them to strike. Katie,” he said, moving his attention to her. “Your intel and research were solid. You tracked patterns and kept everyone updated mid-mission. That is exactly what an intelligence analyst is supposed to do.”
Katie flushed, eyes bright behind her glasses. “Thanks.”
“Slater,” Jarvins continued. “Getting the footage from their broken drone, looping their surveillance, and providing navigation gave your team an edge. Very nice work.”
Slater grinned, fist-bumping the air.
“Zuko,” Jarvins called out. “Some missions do not call for torture, even if we wish that wasn’t the case. It was necessary to avoid violence in this mission, and you did well with helping extract supernaturals instead.”
Zuko nodded, but his jaw twitched.
“Dimitri,” Jarvins murmured. “Excellent use of compulsion to clear their data. You protected the captives from further exploitation.”
Dimitri gave a small nod, face controlled, but satisfaction flickering through our bond.
“Eleanor,” he called. “You played a dangerous game with the Human Council. You secured access without sparking an outright conflict. That’s the good kind of political manipulation.”
Eleanor smiled proudly.
“And Koa,” Jarvins continued, “your healing work on-scene ensured the captives could leave the facility on their own two legs. You did well.”
Koa ducked his head with a smile.
Jarvins bit down on his twig, eyes narrowing in satisfaction.
“This is the reality you’ll be walking into after graduation, though, sometimes, you cannot locate the missing supernaturals.
Humans are experimenting on us once again.
There will be off-the-record labs. Peace treaties will have loopholes.
Missions where you cannot kill, even when you want to, and even when it’s the easiest option.
You all handled this mission exactly how you are supposed to.
You coordinated, adapted, avoided casualties, and brought your people home. ”
Pride filled me, and my matebonds filled with it. I was sure the other squad members were feeling as proud as we were.
He snapped the twig clean in half, pocketing it. “Simulation complete. Dismissed.”
The others started filing out behind Jarvins, their voices rising in low, excited chatter about the mission and how we could’ve done it even better.
I stood there for a second longer, looking at where the lab walls had been, feeling the phantom weight of tourmalyke in my blood that had no effect on me anymore.
Dimitri came up beside me, shoulder bumping mine.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he murmured.
“Yeah,” I murmured. “It was just a simulation.”
Slater slid his hand into mine and squeezed. “You know damn well these simulations are as lifelike as it gets. That’s no way to make us feel better, venom baby.”
“I know,” I admitted. “I’m sorry. I’m okay, though. I’m just pissed the humans took me in the first place.”
“And that will never happen again,” Koa muttered, anger lacing his voice.
Zuko squeezed my other hand. “We’re going to be stupidly overqualified when we graduate.”
“Good.” I let them lead us out of the simulator and toward the houses. “The world’s a mess. Someone has to know how to make it better.”