Chapter 24 #3
My stomach clenched and my heart began to pound, but that’s all the information they were willing to give me before they each grabbed an arm and escorted me out of the room.
Wherever we were, it appeared that the building had once been a hospital of some kind.
Long-abandoned—by the looks of the peeling paint and the cracks in the stained floor tiles—but partially remodeled by Blake and his team.
Along with the doors, the lighting was new, and the security cameras I could see at each end of the hall were definitely from sometime this decade.
I peered into several rooms as we passed, but they looked much like mine.
Perhaps exam rooms, offices, or patient rooms in a treatment ward.
All the windows appeared to be boarded up, and nowhere did I see computers, files, or any kind of printed material.
No medical supplies, clothing, or bedding. No signs or personal belongings.
Nothing to point me to a location.
We took two flights of stairs up, then went through a set of double doors, down a wider hallway with rooms on each side.
There were probably fifty to sixty people coming and going, most of them dressed in similar dark clothing, but all with a sense of intensity and purpose.
There was tension in the air, as if they were preparing for something, and I wished I didn’t know what that something was.
After a sharp right turn, our way was blocked by another set of doors, this one with two guards and a keypad on the door. My escort typed in a code, then waited for the door to unlock before pulling me through and into a space that could only be the promised control room.
If this had once been a hospital, we were likely looking at a record-keeping or administrative space of some kind.
Wires ran everywhere, and at the U-shaped desk on the far side of the room, a half-dozen people wearing headsets tapped away at computers or held sharply worded conversations.
On the left side of the room was a platform—empty except for what looked like a doormat with something printed on it.
A bank of screens hung on the wall to my right, each of them showing a different view of city streets, crowds, buildings… all too familiar, but for the seething masses of people crowding those streets.
It was downtown Oklahoma City, and the march was clearly already in progress, playing out across those screens like a movie, but one that was completely, terrifyingly real.
From what I could see, the bulk of it currently appeared to be taking place on Broadway, between Automobile Alley and the Convention Center. There was no sound, but I could see the waving signs, the intense, fervent expressions, and the mouths open in angry shouts.
Standing in front of the screens, looking like an average office worker at the end of a long day, Blake stood with his hands in his pockets, watching the events play out.
He wore dress pants with a shirt and tie, but the tie was loosened and his jacket was off.
A vicious burn scar ran down the side of his neck, but his hair was neat and his posture relaxed.
Literally nothing about him screamed “psychopathic murderer about to start a war.”
“Ah, finally.” He turned from his contemplation of the monitors to regard me with a look of relief. “You’re here. That means we can begin.”
“Begin what, exactly?”
“Begin building a new world, of course,” Blake said, as calmly as if he were suggesting having eggs for breakfast or going out for a drink.
“In a few moments, I’ll be taking my team to Oklahoma City to start the operation.
I need to ensure that we’ll meet with minimal resistance, so I’ll be sending a picture to every one of your friends that I can reach. ”
“A picture of what?”
The words were barely out of my mouth before I was forcibly placed in a chair, my hands bound behind me, my feet in front of me, and tape placed over my mouth again.
“Of you, Raine,” Blake said softly, lifting his phone and snapping a picture of me looking helpless and frightened, with two of Blake’s goons in the background.
We’d known this might happen, but that didn’t mean I had to be happy about it.
Considering that Blake had managed to get ahold of my cell number, I assumed he would also have found a way to reach Faris.
And through Heather, he would already have contact information for at least Callum, Ryker, and Kira.
I knew what this would do to them, so even though he couldn’t hear me, I silently begged Callum to hold on.
“There.” Blake lowered his phone and smiled at me. “Now we’ll be off, and you… You’ll get a front-row seat to everything I’ve been planning.”
A front-row seat—as he prepared to destroy my city, murder defenseless humans, and kill my friends.
And just as he’d promised, all I could do was watch as he clutched his gem and called up a gateway on that empty platform. The doormat must be his anchor, and when he saw me watching, Blake smiled and picked it up to show me what was written on it.
Beware of Dragon…
It was Callum’s.
Blake was using an anchor that would lead him straight to The Assemblage.
Right into the heart of our home and our defenses.
When I realized what he’d done, I started to struggle against my bonds, but Blake only laughed.
“Can you finally see it now? I’ve been ahead of you every step of the way.”
He set down the anchor, stepped through that perfect circle of swirling colors, and disappeared, followed by pairs of his minions moving together.
Two, four, six… I counted until I reached forty-eight, and then just sat back in my chair.
At least a hundred people followed him through that gateway, armed with stolen magic, ready to wreak destruction.
And standing against them were my family, and however many of Faris’s people he’d been able to summon in time.
Certainly nowhere near a hundred.
Nowhere near enough to win this battle and protect the humans at the same time.
It was possible that even with all our efforts, we would still lose. That Blake would succeed, and hatred would win.
And I was tied to a chair. My hands bound. My magic barely beginning to reawaken.
I was so used to being the one to act. The one to step up and protect others. The one to carry the burdens. But once again, there was nothing I could do except wait. Wait to see whether our plans would fail. Wait to see if hope was lost. Wait for someone else to rescue me.
I didn’t care for it at all, and honestly, my patience wasn’t quite up to the task. By my calculations, it had been nearly ten hours since we arrived here.
Plenty of time for our plan to be put in motion.
Plenty of time to explore the facility and find the missing kids.
So where in the hecking heck…
“What was that?”
One of the two minions behind me turned to look over his shoulder.
“Did you hear something?”
“Someone’s knocking on the door.”
The second minion shrugged. “No code, no entry. Don’t worry about it.”
Behind the desk, the six people wearing headsets suddenly began to murmur and point, looking confused as they moved from monitor to monitor.
“What now?” One of the men behind me strode towards them with an impatient curse.
“About half of our cameras are offline,” a woman called out. “And three of the doors are throwing error codes. Started down on the first floor. Where the…” She paused. “Where the test subjects are being housed.”
If it hadn’t been for the tape over my mouth, I would have been completely unable to stop the evil grin from spreading across my face.
And it would have grown even wider when we all heard a strange grinding sound from the locked doors, like gears full of sand, cracking under the strain.
My guards finally began to look concerned and mutter swear words under their breath, but it was much, much too late.
There was a loud pop, and the air suddenly filled with my new favorite smell—the unmistakable aroma of deep-fried wiring.
A moment later, the doors flew open, and everyone stopped to gape…
At the pale, slender form of Kes standing in the hallway outside.