Chapter 43
Forty-three
Jada
Orion sketches furiously, his pencil moving rapidly across the page as he brings the cavern Elio described to life.
He pauses, allowing Elio to move closer. “Does this look right?”
“There’s a corridor here,” he points, “and an entrance in the Hall that we could easily access right… here.”
Orion nods, focused and determined. He begins drawing arrows, and the rest of us crowd closer around the table to see what he comes up with.
“Okay, so I’ll go in first—”
“No,” Lando cuts him off. “I’ll go first. You’re too vital. I’ll take the guards by surprise, and then you can back me up.”
Orion stops, looking at Lando as they have an unspoken conversation. Finally, he nods in confirmation before pointing his pencil to the makeshift map.
“If Elio’s assumptions are correct, she’ll be in one of these three rooms. We need a distraction to deter most of them above ground.”
“On it,” Brinn replies, walking away and grasping her chin as she calculates her plans.
“Leo, you can use your powers to reduce visibility down there. Can you do anything else with that fog? Or is it a void? Can you disintegrate things?”
Leo glares intensely at Orion. “What? If you’re going to have these powers, you may as well use them for good. They’d all find out eventually, anyway.”
A tick beats in Leo’s jaw before he responds. “I think it works like a black hole. Things kind of go in and just… don’t come back out.”
“Think you can do that with some guards?”
“I thought we weren’t killing people?” Lando chimes in.
“Fuck that, they have my girl. Have been doing who-fucking-knows-what to her. Anyone that is in our way is a problem.”
“Noted,” Lando confirms, eyebrows raised.
Leo awkwardly clears his throat. “Yeah, I think I could do that. I can definitely increase the density of it, so that they can’t see us coming.”
“I can put together some tech lenses that allow you to see through it. Go on clear, don’t hurt at all.” Seb adds, turning towards his computer and pulling up a program.
What can’t he do? The room goes quiet, and he glances over his shoulder. “What? I get bored down here. I’ve created color-changing ones before. This should be just as simple.”
“Great,” Orion says, turning back toward the table. “Jada, you stay here.”
“No. I’m coming with you.”
Orion sighs, “Jada—”
“No, Orion! That’s my best friend down there. I may not have fancy magic like you all, but I’m not leaving her down there. I can help..”
Lando and Orion look to each other again, and I’m getting really fucking tired of them reading each other’s minds.
“Okay,” Orion concedes. “Here’s what we’ll do…”