Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Raegan
I drive the knife into the next agent, ripping the blade through his neck. Another one runs at me, and I spin to meet his attack. My arm is already mid-motion in the swing when the agent I’m attacking suddenly changes to Kell.
Shit!
I let go of the knife and hit him with my empty fist.
Kellan yanks me to his chest just as a bite of pain strikes my hip. He punches the agent who’d attacked me from behind, knocking him back.
Touching my hip, my fingers come back red from a slice that could’ve been a lot worse if Kell hadn’t pulled me away in time.
“Down!” he barks, and I drop. Another agent’s power-imbued disc shoots overhead. I recover my knife from the floor as Kellan leaps after the disc, knocking it down with the length of chain still attached to his wrists.
I take off after the agent while his disc is occupied. He blocks my slash with his arm, and I release the blade to my other hand to thrust it into his gut.
Kellan appears in the agent’s place, taking my knife into his side instead.
“Fuck! Kell!”
He clenches his jaw and wraps his hand around mine, jerking it free with a grunt.
“It’s just a scratch,” he reassures me, even as blood drains from the open wound.
His gift still hasn’t returned, and he’s exhausted.
I need to end this fight before it leaves us too injured to escape.
We’d made it out of the room just fine, but we’ve been bumping into agents left and right since getting to the floor where Aiden and Jackson are.
Kell puts the knife back in my hand. I grip it tight. “Can you hold that guy for me?”
He gives me a wolfish grin. “Anything for you, beautiful.”
We run toward the two remaining agents. Kellan throws his chain at the one who keeps switching us around, and it curves and then wraps around his neck.
I pivot toward them, where Kell now holds him.
The hairs on my neck and arms rise, sensing the powered disc behind me, but Kell bats it down again with the chain on his other wrist.
I raise my hand with the knife, and just as expected, when I’m mid-swing, the guy switches with Kellan. I’d already prepared for it, though, and stretch my arm past Kell to stab the agent before he gets a chance to switch again.
The agent screams. I twist the knife, pushing it deeper.
He swaps with the other agent, who then joins his screams when I pierce him as well. I drag my arm up at an angle, then kick him to the ground.
Kellan’s already rushed the swapping agent, throwing his arms to whip the chains back and forth.
And then I’m there in the crossfire as a chain comes flying toward me.
I duck and run toward him, under his arms, and away from the attack.
“You up for a game of chicken?” Kellan drawls, the chains now dangling at his sides and curled on the floor.
Turning with my back to his chest, I seek out the last agent. He’s holding his side, blood escaping past his hand. I know I did some damage there, but if I’d been a few inches higher, I might’ve hit something more fatal, and we could be done with this already.
“Yeah. I’ll get behind him,” I answer.
We separate at once, and I run wide to get around him before curving so we’re coming at him from either side of the hallway.
The agent’s head swivels between us. I pull out a second knife, readying for a switch.
There’s only me and Kellan left, so as long as we’re ready to swap with each other or him, we can keep fighting with a small adjustment.
He tries to run to the side, but Kell and I follow and close off any route of escape.
The agent switches with me at the last second. I spin on my next step, then strike. My knife finds its target just as Kellan slams his fist into his jaw. He falls to the ground, knocked out.
Kell throws his head back, his chest working as he catches his breath.
“I’ll go scout up ahead—”
His large hand falls gently on my head. “Not a chance. Let’s go.”
Sighing, I wipe the blood from my knives on my pants. It was worth a shot. I nod, and we run down the hallway to the end.
The moment I clear the corner, something dark knocks into me, sending me flying. I hit a soft cushion between me and the wall, saving me from a concussion, before lips crash into mine and the smell of blood burns my nose.
I know it’s Jackson before my eyes can register the black blur.
I can feel it in his touch; in the way he holds me both reverently and firmly at the same time.
Like I’m someone precious, and he’ll never let me go.
His kiss is dark and possessive, feeding off my lips with an insatiable hunger that makes me weak in the knees.
I grip his hoodie and curl my other hand around the back of his neck as I kiss him back with the same fervor, then slide my hand up into his hair until I find long enough length to latch onto. I tug him back, breaking the kiss.
“Where—” I breathlessly start, then stop when I see Aiden using his gift to remove Kellan’s cuffs and chains and transforming them into his whip sword.
Now that I know he’s also safe, I return my focus to Jack.
His eyes shine with a wild look, and blood streaks his face.
Judging by the smell, his clothes are soaked in it, too. “Your knee...?”
“Healed,” he answers, and I exhale in relief.
“Partially healed,” Aiden corrects from behind Jackson, who finally loosens his hold. “The healer only did enough to prevent him from bleeding out. It’s still there, and there’s still the risk of infection.”
Jackson shrugs, as if the details are inconsequential, and I shoot him a look. He flashes me an adoring smile.
Aiden pushes past Jack and pulls me against him, wrapping me in his arms. “Are you hurt?” He releases me enough to grasp my chin and study my face, as if preparing to read past any possible lie.
His eyes narrow, and he strokes one cheek.
The flicker of pain there is brief. I’d forgotten all about the slap, and it’s hardly something compared to a gunshot wound.
“I’m fine. I can fight, although I’d do a hell of a lot better if you could get this thing off.” I hold up the bracelet between us. “It’s been blocking my gift. He didn’t make you guys wear anything?”
Aiden pinches the small band of metal. “The cuffs we were in did. Once Jackson was able to pick our locks to free us, our gifts returned.” The bracelet morphs into a tiny blade.
He presses it to his whip sword at his side, and it joins the other metal.
His brows pinch as he inspects the blade with a slight frown, but I’m distracted when warmth floods my veins in a rush.
I close my eyes and go to that place in my mind, touching my gift and sighing with relief to feel it there, alive and thriving. When I open my eyes, I smile.
Aiden raises a brow, the corner of his lips quirked in amusement. “Your gift’s returned?” he asks for confirmation, and I nod.
“Mm. And I feel much better.”
“Mine should be back any minute now,” Kellan adds. He runs a hand over the back of his arm, as if waiting for the feel of cool scales to appear beneath his fingertips.
“How did you escape?” Aiden asks us, turning to see all of us with a hand curving around my waist to keep me close.
Kellan and I look at each other. “They left the door unlocked,” I reply. “We’ve run into some agents since then, but...”
Aiden nods and finishes my thought aloud, “But not as many as you would’ve expected.
We’ve also run into a fair number of agents, but if we’re at a stronghold or a large enough compound of theirs, then it’s too small of a response.
I haven’t heard any sort of alarm going off that we've escaped, either.”
“So, it’s a trap,” I reason. “How do we avoid it?”
Kell scratches his beard. “Do what he’d least expect, right?”
What would I normally try next now that we’ve found each other?
“Has anyone seen or heard any news on Dane?” I ask, my chest tightening at the thought of him being captured and alone.
Aiden answers, “No, but the smart thing to do would be to separate us from him. I doubt he’s here, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t check.
We would need to find their security room to review all the cameras, rather than fighting with every agent here and Charles by running around to search each room.
There could be other Guild members here, too. ”
We’ll find you, Dane. I have a promise to keep. But I can’t destroy wherever we are until we know where the others are first. “If Charles is expecting that, then what’s our next option for finding them?”
“We don’t,” Jack offers. “We escape instead. Come back with a stronger force.”
Aiden’s brow pinches in thought. The idea of leaving everyone else behind is the last thing we’d think of.
“What if he kills them because we leave?” Kellan demands, his hands clenching into fists.
Jackson cocks his head. “What if he’s killing them right now?”
Fuck. “Don’t say that, Jack!” I snap, that very thought now taking root in my mind and inciting a small panic. “We can’t just stand around talking. Let’s go.” I move to pull away from Aiden, but he tugs me back to him.
“Don’t go running off,” he warns.
I give him a wicked smile. “Don’t fall behind.”
Kellan curses, throwing the stairwell door open and revealing a wall of concrete. “How much do we wanna bet that wasn’t there before?”
Fuck.
“Jack,” Aiden says, and Jackson’s already on the move, checking the other doors in this hallway. Kellan jogs the hallway he and I came from, disappearing around the corner.
While they’re busy with that, I pull free of Aiden, which he reluctantly relents to, and place my palm against the concrete wall blocking our way to the stairs. I close my eyes, dipping into my gift and sending a thread of it into the cool cement.
A small crack appears beneath my hand, but it doesn’t do more than that as I push it further out, sending it deeper to where the concrete runs out.
It doesn’t.
Kellan huffs when he returns and I draw my gift back before turning around.
“There’s a wall blocking the entire hallway now,” Kellan reports, and Jackson, who’s also back, nods.
“The way we came is also blocked. The hallway meeting in the middle of this one is open until two doors, but both are also like this.” Jackson tilts his head to indicate this stairwell door.
Aiden looks at me next.
“I couldn’t feel an end to it. It’s not just blocking the doorway. It’s filling the entire stairwell,” I admit. “But I can break it. I’ll have to be careful it doesn’t wreck the rest of the building with it, but I can do it.”
His dark stare trails over my body, then returns to my face. “Did you sleep at all? Have you had anything to eat or drink?”
“Kell and I split a sandwich about an hour ago. And we had some water.”
Aiden frowns, unimpressed. “Test the walls and the other two doors for the thinnest escape. This could all be an effort to wear us down.”
I do as he instructs, checking the other escape routes and then giving them my findings after the last one. “These two doors don’t have as much behind them. It would be easy to break through them.” The walls blocking the corridors were almost as deep and thick as the stairwell.
He nods. “We’ll try one of these, then.”
I press my hand against the concrete at one of the doorways, sending my gift through its shape until I’ve reached the boundaries, and then triggering a burst of power. It disintegrates, falling to dust at my feet.
Kellan steps into the room first. “It’s a dead end,” he calls out before we can follow him inside. He returns to the doorway. “It’s a storage room. No other doors and no windows.”
Damn.
“I’ll try the other one,” I mutter, turning to the last available door to us other than the stairwell. I use my gift on the concrete there as well. It dusts, disappearing into a floor made of sand.
The wild roar of a crowd echoes so loudly it shakes my bones.
“It looks like round two is here at last!”
Fuck.
We picked the wrong door.