Chapter 16
16
T he doctor and his staff ignored Pari all morning as they repaired the door their prisoner tried to break down. They moved with incredible efficiency, and she despaired of ever escaping. In fact, she was beginning to think the urgency was more than efficiency.
Pari smiled to herself. They were scared.
She looked at the man in the cell next to hers. They’d put heavy irons on his ankles, and they were fastened together by a short length of chain. They’d done the same to his wrists, and she eyed the padlocks locking the irons. Could he break them? Would he?
Pari frowned. Even if he did, Dr. Charles would only shoot him with a tranquilizer gun, knock him out, and that would be that.
She noted the dear doctor hadn’t shown his face since he left a couple of hours ago. If her friend in the next cell was indeed burning through the sedatives they were pumping into him, then it was only a matter of time before his body burned through this latest batch.
She stared at the darts on the floor of his cell. No one had bothered to pick them up. Their captors might be proficient in some areas, sloppy in others. It could also be that they hadn’t got around to it.
She sank onto her bed, realizing she’d been watching over her friend in the next cell. Her Bondrah Miah .
What did the term mean? Was it a title of some kind? She’d figured out that Kahtala Miah meant my heart. Or possibly your heart. So, Miah, must be the word for my. Bondrah … she shook her head in frustration. Was Bondrah his name?
The rustling of chains caught her attention, and she came off her bed. Bondrah was stirring.
The men in the cell noticed too and doubled their efforts. “Dr. Oswald!” one of them cried.
Oswald came out of a closed off area with a half wall of windows. She didn’t know what was in there as the window blinds were closed. Maybe it was some sort of office.
“What?” he looked at her, then the men in Bondrah’s cell. Pari decided to call him that for now. It had to be some sort of title or name. But the “my”? She pondered it some more as the men in Bondrah’s cell picked up their tools as fast as they could and were getting out of there. One of them even snatched up the used darts from the floor. Okay, so they weren’t sloppy.
They ran a card through a small box on the outer side of the cell and the door slid shut and locked. The men who’d fixed the door sighed in relief and started congratulating each other on a job well done.
Pari stood at the wall and watched Bondrah as he stirred some more. Should she speak to him? Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Did they even know his language? She didn’t think so.
“Well, big boy,” Oswald said and shoved his dark rimmed glasses up his nose. “Looks like we beat you to it.” He smiled at Pari. “For once.” His smile faded, and he nodded at the men. “Good job, everyone. Drinks are on me tonight.”
The men smiled, congratulated each other again, then froze.
Oswald’s eyes rounded to saucers. “Oh...” He cursed, and Pari looked into the cell next to hers. Bondrah was on his feet. How did he manage that without making a sound?
“ Bondrah Miah ?”
He didn’t look at her, but she could see his eyes were that bright blue again, and he was staring hard at the men outside his cell.
“Oh, man,” Oswald grunted and bent at the knee. “Doc…tor… Ch-ch-ch…”
He went down, eyes wide, and looked like he was fighting some unseen force. They all did.
One man started to crawl toward the cell, a key card in his hand.
Pari couldn’t believe it. Was he going to open the door?!
She looked at Bondrah again. His eyes were just as intense as before as he watched the men before him. One of Oswald’s hands shook as it dipped into his pocket and pulled out his key card. He too, started toward the cells, and it looked like it was against his will. “No…” Oswald squeaked.
The man closest to Bondrah’s door raised his key card, his entire arm shaking. “I… I c-c-can’t st-stop.”
Oswald trembled as he slowly headed for her door! “N-neither… c-c-can I.”
“Bondrah Miah!” she blurted with excitement. He was making them open their doors! She didn’t know how he was doing it; she was just glad he was.
The other men in the room were on the floor, unable to move. Some were reaching for what she surmised was a weapons cabinet. There were rifles in there loaded with those dreadful darts.
Dr. Charles waltzed into the room from the hallway. “Oswald, I want…” his eyes went wide and he almost stumbled. “What…?”
Bondrah was not happy to see him. He frowned and the doctor reeled backward toward the door.
“No…” Pari breathed. He was going to escape the room. And did. She watched him stumble out the door into the hall and disappear from sight. She didn’t know if he was subdued in the hall or…
“OW!” a man shouted.
Some of the others looked his way, including Oswald. “Wh-what…”
The man that yelled “ow” gave him an agonized look, then fell flat on his face.
Pari’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Ouch!” another cried. “Something bit me!”
Pari watched in fascination as another man cried out, then another. Within seconds, they were on the floor.
Oswald yelped as he looked at Pari, then the lock to her door. He ran his key card through it, and just as he entered, she knew what was happening. He was going to grab her, not free her.
She ran to the back of the cell and pinned herself against the wall. Fear gripped her, and she looked to see how many of the men outside her cell were still conscious. At least three. Great.
Oswald looked at her and went into a slight crouch. “Be nice. I’m not gonna hurt you, okay?”
“Yes, you are,” she pushed out. “Bondrah!”
Bondrah’s head snapped to hers, and Oswald sank to his knees. He grimaced, his eyes going wide. “Ow! What was that?” He managed to look at his leg. So did Pari. She screamed when she saw a black tarantula like creature race over Oswald’s leg and scurry out of the cell. Pari screamed again at the sight of it. She hated spiders!
Bondrah ran at the wall and banged on it with one hand.
She looked at him, noticed his cell was filling with white smoke, and tried to call out. “Oh… no…”
The smoke was filtering into her cell from his. Pari blanched. Gas.
Bondrah slowly slid down the wall of his cell as he succumbed to whatever it was Dr. Charles was pumping into it from the air vents.
She sank to the floor, unsure if breathing in the gas would paralyze her, knock her out, or kill her. Her eyes were still open, but she couldn’t blink. What was happening?
Before she knew it, Dr. Charles was leaning over her, wearing a gas mask. “Lucky for me, I always have a plan B.” He smiled and started to reach for her when an alarm went off. “Blast it! What now? Oswald…” he looked at his assistant lying on the floor. “Never mind, you’re out of commission.” He left the cell, ran his key card through the outer lock and the door slid shut, locking her inside with Oswald. That done he went into the windowed office and disappeared. Air blew through the cell, making the smoke dissipate, then the air changed directions, and she wondered if it was sucking the gas out of the cells now. Not that it mattered. She and Bondrah were once again at the mercy of Dr. Charles. It was her last thought before blackness took her.
Tylahs scurried down the hall to Lany who was waiting around the next bend. As soon as he reached him, Tylahs jumped onto his leg, climbed up the length of his body and jumped into the backpack.
“Mission accomplished, little buddy?”
“Yes! But Tylahs no bite the man with the mask. He got awaysssk.”
“Mask?”
“Yessssk.”
Lany shrugged and hurried back the way they’d come. Dallan and the others were waiting not far away, and they didn’t have a moment to lose. “Okay, everyone’s been taken down in the main lab.”
“There was smokessssk,” Tylahs said from the backpack.
“Smoke?” Dallan said. “A fire?”
“It came from the ceiling and smelled badsssk.”
“Then we’d better hurry this up.” Dallan forged ahead, leading the way. Lany, Kwaku, Markhel and Asher followed. Zara brought up the rear.
“That waysssk,” Tylahs called as he poked his head out of the backpack. “The big metal doorsssk!”
Dallan reached it, peeked through the small windows and motioned everyone to follow. “I see them.”
He entered and wrinkled his nose. “Hurry.”
Lany frowned and covered his nose and mouth with one arm. “Smells like some kind of gas. Don’t breathe it in.”
Tylahs ducked his head back into the backpack. Men littered the floor, and Lany had to step over a few to get to the two glass and concrete cells at the far wall. Melvale was in one of them, clad in a hospital gown, his wrists and ankles chained. He looked like he was out cold. Probably from the gas still lingering in the air. “Let’s hurry.”
A girl with pink hair, also wearing a hospital gown, lay a few feet from a chubby dark-haired man wearing a white lab coat. His dark rimmed glasses were askew on his face, and he had a key card in his hand.
Lany frowned. “I think he’s holding what we need to get these doors open.”
“Like this one?” Markhel said and plucked a similar card from one of the unconscious guards.
“Yes.” Lany approached, took the card from him then studied the lock on their side of the door.
“Hurry, Master Lany,” Dallan urged.
Lany slid the card through the slot, and there came a decisive click. The door slid open.
“Kwaku, Markhel,” Dallan barked. “Get Melvale out of here!”
Lany went to the next cell, ran the card through, and the same click sounded followed by the door opening.
Dallan hurried into the cell, scooped up the girl, and headed out. “Archer, Master Lany, bring that one.” Dallan tossed his head at the man still in the cell. “We’ll question him.”
Lany looked at Archer with raised eyebrows then reached for the unconscious man. Each took one end of him, and they carried him from the cell. An alarm sounded, this one louder than the first, and Lany spied the cameras in both cells. “We’ve been found out! Hurry!”
They left the lab and started racing for the exit they discovered earlier. Lany was already tiring. “Archer, this is too awkward!”
Archer didn’t hesitate. He picked up the man like a sack of meal, slung him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, and took off down the hall at a run.
“Being half Muiraran must be nice,” Lany muttered and took off after him.
They sprinted down a connecting hallway, the sound of booted feet getting closer. Lany was sure their pursuers were well armed. He and the others would have to take the exit they found earlier, then sprint across a wide expanse of open ground, unless Dallan told Shona to have Evan bring the car. If so, Markhel would have left Melvale with Kwaku and Zara at this point and was sprinting for the van.
They reached the building’s exit moments later and burst through the door. Sure enough, the car and van were racing toward them.
Gun fire exploded through the air, and Dallan put his back to the sound, protecting his precious cargo.
“They’re on that roof,” Lany called out as he spied two gunmen atop an outbuilding. They took aim at the vehicles and fired off another round, trying to hit the tires most likely. Good, they didn’t want to risk hitting Melvale or his mate.
Lany glanced at her. She was young, like Shona, with a pixielike face and short pink hair.
He gave his attention back to the fast-approaching vehicles. They’d shoot the tires up as soon as the vehicles stopped to let all of them in. “Dallan or Kwaku… do something…”
“Yes, Lord Councilor,” Kwaku said. He looked at the ground, and despite Melvale being slung over one shoulder, bent down and picked up a couple of rocks.
He eyed the two gunmen as their getaway vehicles were skidding to a stop, and threw the rocks, one after the other. Hard.
Lany heard the “uggghs” of both men, before their heads met the surface of the roof.
“Good shots,” Dallan said appreciatively.
The van door slid open, and Shona hopped out. “Hurry!”
Kwaku and Zara put Melvale in first, followed by the girl. Archer loaded their prisoner next, then hopped in and slammed the van door shut while Lany, Dallan and Shona jumped into the car with Evan. More shots fired as the car peeled out and took off with a screech of tires.
“Go-go-go, Dad!” Shona cried.
“It’s a good thing your old man watched a lot of Steve McQueen movies while you were growing up!” he called back.
Lany turned around, saw the compound falling farther and farther back, and breathed a sigh of relief. The worst was over. He hoped.