Chapter 3 #3
The code is only necessary to access the third subfloor as well as the armory on the second subfloor, but still.
“You need to calm the fuck down. And stop fucking channeling so much of the dragon. The two of us barely fucking fit in here as it is.” Seriously, working out daily, even as obsessively as he’s been doing it, can’t account for the bulk Rath’s gained in just a few months.
“It’s like last time all over again,” he snarls.
“It’s not remotely like last time,” I say, really, really trying to not let the asshole rile me.
“For you!” he snaps. “You got to complete the bond. Both times! You got —”
“Don’t fucking compare us, and don’t compare now to then,” I say. “You didn’t try to fucking kill yourself because you couldn’t exist in a world where your mate was —” I grind my teeth, stopping myself from continuing.
Rath clears his throat quietly. “I didn’t. But I ran. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore.”
“I know,” I say quietly.
It’s only then that I fucking realize the stupid fucking elevator isn’t moving. I huff out a sigh at my own idiocy, scan the access code a second time, then press the fucking button.
The elevator lurches into motion. With Rath’s new bulk, it’s possible that the two of us combined are almost too much weight for it.
My brother chuckles under his breath.
I grin, shaking my head at him, then sober as the elevator slows. “It’s better this time.”
“How so?”
“We know Zaya’s coming back.”
The elevator slides open — revealing Presh and DeVille attempting to break into the lower-level holding cells via the thick, security-riddled steel door barring their way.
Presh meeps, whirling around to look at us.
Her freshly dyed, pastel-rainbow-colored hair falls over her wide, deep-violet eyes.
She attempts to stuff the phone in her hand into a pocket of the pink-and-brown plaid skirt she’s wearing.
A T-shirt with a cartoon character bear printed on it and buckled biker boots that likely only fit her because she’s stuffed multiple pairs of socks in them round out the outfit.
Unfortunately for my little sister, there are no pockets in the skirt, and she was clearly holding the phone near the security pad next to the door when we arrived.
DeVille, in torn jeans, a faded glam-band T-shirt for the Blitz, and what looks like a newer pair of biker boots, folds his arms, leaning back against the concrete wall and sulking. At Presh. Because there’s no way he hasn’t been trying to stop her from breaking into the Outcast’s holding cells.
A voice emanates over the speaker of Presh’s phone. “You’re welcome, AD.”
Coda.
“For what?” I ask. “Helping Presh get into shit with the one person we’re going to have trouble going up against without Zaya?”
It’s seriously possible that Rath and I can’t take the Outcast in an outright fight on his territory. He can pull power from practically hundreds of shifters. Plus, there’d be serious consequences if we did win, because neither of us wants the responsibility of leading the MC or the pack.
“I didn’t help her last time, so maybe be happy that baby girl actually reached out to someone this time,” Coda snaps. “To me. You all are spinning your fucking training wheels —”
“You’re spinning your own fucking wheels,” Rath snarls, a fuck-load of his dragon in his voice.
Presh practically jumps out of her skin. The phone in her hand goes flying. DeVille catches it smoothly, reflexively. Rather catlike, actually. Then he has the fucking balls to tuck Presh slightly behind him, placing himself between her and Rath.
For once, Coda doesn’t immediately snap back.
It’s possible that the connection got cut, but doubtful.
More likely, the tech awry has eyes on us from my apartments over my off-site garage, the space they effectively kicked me out of after commandeering it.
They can see us through the security system, as well as the camera on Presh’s phone.
“I’m fine, Andy!” Presh snaps, shoving at DeVille’s back. “You don’t have to crowd me!”
Though slim and long limbed, DeVille towers over my little sister, but he instantly gives her the space she’s demanding.
She couldn’t move him otherwise — especially with the last instructions Zaya embedded into his brain, even inadvertently.
It had taken us days to figure out why DeVille kept transforming into the sabertooth tiger and assaulting anyone between him and Presh after the Outcast tried to completely segregate her.
Of course, I’m looking at a shining example of the ‘why’ behind the Outcast’s overprotectiveness — Presh leading an attempted break-and-enter into the holding cells where our evil-as-fuck, newly discovered, completely manipulative elder sister is being held.
And in that context, it’s hard not to recall that it was Presh’s sneaking off the Gage estate to meet with Bellamy that triggered Zaya going after her, then getting taken.
But it’s also hard to place blame for that on anyone but Reck. For me, at least.
“How did you get past your guards?” Rath asks.
“What? Like it’s supposed to be difficult?” Presh counters belligerently.
DeVille unsuccessfully tries to quash a smile. Presh glares at him, completely misinterpreting his reaction to her sass.
“The access code should work, AD,” Coda says to me over the speaker of Presh’s phone. Addressing me as ‘Adonis Dick’ again because he knows how annoying I find it. “I fixed it for you in the elevator. Also delayed the kids until you showed up.”
“What?!” Presh sulks in the direction of her phone. “You said the code had changed and that you had to run it through your algo-thingy.”
Coda snorts belligerently. “Please, baby girl. As if that would hold me up for even a second.”
I huff, shaking my head. So the elevator being stuck in place hadn’t been user error. The Outcast must have had me locked out of the system. Smart, but annoying. “Who’s handling the Outcast tech now?”
“Some complete amateur,” Coda snarks. “Don’t worry, I’m shoring him up. He probably thinks he’s a fucking genius.”
I laugh, because why the fuck not, and step past Presh. Holding my phone to the security screen on the wall, I unlock the steel door barring us from the holding cells.
“We were coming for you,” Rath says to Presh quietly.
“Took you way too long,” Presh sasses back, pressing herself against his side for a half hug.
Rath cups the back of her head gently, peering down at her seriously. “Bellamy is dangerous.”
“She made her choice,” Presh says, without offering any further info about what that choice is. Then she attempts to step by me and hightail it down the sporadically lit hall.
I carefully transfer my little sister from in front of me to behind, with DeVille right on her ass as always. Apparently, we’re going to have to get used to that. I share a look with Rath over the teens’ heads, and he grimaces in agreement.
Both of us are completely and hypocritically ignoring that we were all over Zaya at the same age. Even younger in my case.
The tube lighting flickers overhead, casting weird shadows across the floor and walls.
“Love the ambience,” Coda snarks from Presh’s phone speakers. “Are you breaking the batshit-crazy bitch out or —”
“No,” Rath snarls.
A woman cackles — literally — from farther up the narrow corridor. “I could hear you assholes bickering from the other side of the door.”
Bellamy.
Trying to keep my expression neutral — because we’re here to ask for her help, after all — I continue up the hall.
The other cells are empty, doors open. This space is rarely used except for when a young shifter is having serious trouble with their beast or a feral shifter wanders into Outcast territory.
The holding cells are fairly spacious, with benches, a toilet, and a sink attached to the walls.
Extra restraints are only brought in as needed.
Even the shifters Reck practically beat to death months back never made it down here.
Of course, they also didn’t make it out of the interrogation room off the MC tech hub after Chains’s attempt to destabilize the club made their loyalties clear.
Bellamy is sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor in the center of the three cells on the left, easily seen through the thick, essence-enforced, clear polymer that completely seals her cell.
A neatly made single bed is tucked against the right-side wall with a tablet tossed on the pillow.
The tablet is limited access, allowing Bellamy to access and read the thriller and murder mystery novels she seems to prefer, or to play various solitaire games.
Her bathroom facilities are behind a thin, translucent privacy screen, which isn’t the only oddly thoughtful addition to the space.
The other cells are simply barred, with protections built into the metal that help quell whatever shifter needs to be temporarily caged.
But the polymer sealed over Bellamy’s cell was a retrofit, specifically spelled to hold an awry.
Though I have my doubts about that even being possible, Bellamy hasn’t seen sunlight for eighty-seven days.
The essence-etched polymer being readily at hand was suspicious, at least to my mind. Like the Outcast already had it on order. But that’s another question we’ve all been silently ignoring — the awry in the Outcast’s previous plans that might have needed to be confined. Presh? Zaya?
I note Rath scanning the cell with a deep frown, and just as closely as I did when I saw the mage installing the polymer via the security cameras. But we’re both too on edge to start questioning the Outcast’s intentions right now.
Bellamy is dressed in gray sweatpants and top, barefoot. Her light-lavender eyes — so different than when I first saw her true face — instantly settle on Presh as she shoulders her way between Rath and me. “Hello, youngest.”
“Fuck,” Rath mumbles. “She does look like fucking Reck.”