29 | Roscoe
Two days, that’s how long Silver’s been gone.
And I’m unraveling. Holy shit am I unraveling.
Have been ever since I came to after she was taken and it’s not getting better.
We’re cooped up in Dante’s apartment, planning our rescue mission. Just like we have been for the past—I check the time—twelve hours. I’m about to go out of my skull with frustration. I need to get to her. To scoop her up against my chest and then find us a ride out of the city.
We’ll go someplace that’s quiet. Or maybe we’ll go somewhere louder and we can disappear in the crowd. I don’t know. Don’t care. Just need Silver with me wherever we go.
Zeph paces the length of Dante’s apartment, wearing a hole in the carpet. He looks like a caged beast, about to snap and snarl and take anyone’s head off that’s dumb enough to engage.
The only time he’s taken a break from pacing was to disappear for an hour. He then returned with a massive suitcase filled with old books which he’d apparently stolen from Victor Blackthorn’s place. Thankfully, the vamp was nowhere to be seen and his house looked like no one had been there in weeks.
At least we don’t have to worry about Z getting arrested too. One of our people trapped in a cell is plenty to deal with.
“We’re gonna get her out of there, man,” I tell him.
He growls. Actually fucking growls at me and I step back. He’s in full unhinged beast boy mode and I value my fingers too much for him to snap them off. I need to touch Silver when we get her back and that’ll be tricky if my hands are broken.
I slump back on the couch and tip my head to the ceiling.
“Are you going to put a shirt on anytime soon?” Dante asks me.
“I got hot,” I tell him. It keeps happening. I get these hot flashes whenever I think about SIlver’s face as she was taken, or how she’s locked up right now and we have no way of knowing how she is.
The only positive about this whole fucking nightmare is that I’ve heard from Anna, the techno mage. After seeing the absolute carnage down by the riverside, she’s agreed to provide whatever help she can. Which is something, at least.
Not entirely sure what we can do with a techno mage, but she insisted she had some ideas of her own and to let me know whenever we needed her.
I’m getting hot again just thinking about it. Next I’ll be all sweaty and panicked and I might have to resort to taking my pants off, even though Dante and Fabian keep complaining when I do.
Dante risks slapping Z on the shoulder and, surprisingly, comes away with his hand intact. He murmurs something too quietly for me to hear and Zeph nods and lowers himself to sitting on an armchair. His legs are stiff and he keeps his hands bunched into fists, but at least he’s not pacing.
Weird how Dante is now the Z whisperer. He’s somehow keeping his cool better than any of the rest of us.
It seems like even Dante’s apartment is calming Z. We started out planning in The Spire, but Silver’s scent was all over the place and that seemed to make Z go feral. Like I said, he’s fully beast boy at the minute.
Hence the two new fist shaped holes in our drywall and the torn and bruised skin on Z’s knuckles.
“You’re growling again,” Dante comments, and Z glares at him. I figure maybe this is the point he’s gonna snap, but he just curses under his breath.
The door flies open and Fabian strides in, looking like a sweaty mess. His hair’s plastered to his forehead and his t-shirt is clinging to his chest.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Zeph growls at him.
“Moving Ember. I figured it would be better if he was somewhere safe, so Silver doesn’t have to worry about anything happening to him while she’s not around.” He drops onto the sofa. “I’ve also put word out to all our contacts that there’s a fifty grand reward if anyone can come up with a way of breaking him free.”
That’s... pretty thoughtful, actually. We should have thought of it before.
I tip my head to glance over at Seb who’s sitting at the far end of the couch, his head buried in his laptop. Pretty sure he’s not slept since Silver’s been gone and he hasn’t taken more than a ten-minute break to shovel some food into his mouth before he continues with whatever he’s searching for.
I’m feeling pretty useless right now. I tried helping in the beginning, but I’m not so good at planning and plotting. My instinct is to charge in there and deal with whatever comes our way as we go.
That got nixed pretty quickly.
“Any luck?” I ask Seb.
He snaps the lid on his laptop shut and rubs his eyes. “Not that much about the building. Everything seems to be hidden under layers and layers of security systems and there are no records of anyone having escaped from the building before. The cells are locked electronically and there are likely to be wards all over the place. Cameras. Guards. The whole nine yards. Any of us getting in and out unnoticed is looking unlikely.”
“Fuck. She’s been stuck in there for days. How scared is she going to be? We need to get her back today,” Zeph rasps, tugging at his hair.
“If we can’t get her out unnoticed, then perhaps we should revert to Roscoe’s plan,” Dante says.
His words pull me up short. Pretty sure everyone had discounted whatever I said as a load of unhelpful garbage, but D’s watching me patiently. His hair’s disheveled and there’s a stain on his shirt, but otherwise he looks like he’s got his head screwed on better than any of the rest of us.
“What are you thinking?”
“Burn the fucking place down. They’d have to evacuate,” Zeph says.
Fabian scoffs. “Sounds like you’re channeling Hanna.”
Z just shrugs and mutters something about it being a valid idea. I think he’d set the entire city on fire if it got Silver back safe.
I can’t say I disagree, either.
“Has anyone heard from her or from Rook or Luna?” Fabian asks.
They’re all still at The Spire, trying to come up with their own solutions. But even escape expert Rook has come up with nothing so far.
“They’re all fine. Safe. Together,” I say. I had a very one-sided conversation over the phone with Rook earlier to make sure.
“I might not be good at all the blueprints or the door codes or security staff or whatever,” I say. “But I know how to cause a distraction.”
Z nods. “I can fuck up the circuitry in the building,” Zeph says. “I’ve got a lot of energy to burn.”
“Dante can sniff Silver out like a bloodhound,” I say with a grin, feeling a bubble of hope forming in my chest.
Fabian gets to his feet, smoothing down his creased shirt. “And I’m sure I can be of some use.”
I raise an eyebrow at him as he shoves his feet into his boots. “You’re happy just charging in there half-cocked?” What happened to all the plan A, plan B, blah blah blah.
“Half cocked, fully cocked, or with zero cocks, I don’t care. You’re right, Ro, we’ve wasted enough time and planning things out when there’s no information out there isn’t getting us any closer.”
Man, I never thought I’d see the day we’d have full agreement to do things my way. The last time someone went along with my total lack of plan was Silver in the forbidden archives.
Which reminds me...
“Have either of you found any dirty secrets about the vamps you’d care to share?” I ask Dante and Z. “A secret off button or, like, an aversion to shellfish or something, so we can just lob crabs at Simpson and his cronies and that’ll be that.”
Dante gives me that look. The one I get a lot and have for most of my life. Like he can’t understand what is happening in my brain right now.
Me too, buddy. Me too.
His lips quirk into a smile and he lets out a smooth chuckle and I feel like I’ve won a damn prize. He’s a quiet, serious guy. Kind of intense, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh before.
“Not yet, but I’m still hopeful.” He pulls out yet another book from the suitcase Z dragged in here and starts to skim through it.
“Crabs?” Zeph mutters. “Your mind, man. It’s an interesting place.”
The judiciary building isn’t one I’ve ever paid all that much attention to before this. It’s ugly. Grey. Somehow simultaneously imposing, but it blends in to the rest of the city skyline.
We stand a few streets away, checking out the joint to work out our best way inside.
Today, it’s a challenge. A puzzle to work our way through.
And I fucking love puzzles.
I’d prefer it if I had my partner in solving problems. The dream team back together again, cracking codes and jokes with just as much ease. Diving through laser fields or solving riddles, whatever it is we need to do.
But I need to get my partner back for that.
“The main electrical input is on the top of the building,” Fabian says and Zeph nods.
“I’ll head inside with you,” Dante says to me and I hold my hand out for a fist bump, which he reluctantly returns.
“And I’ll follow once the lights go out,” Fabian says.
“Nice,” I say. “Let’s fuck this place up.”
Tension is thick in the air as Zeph takes a deep breath and thunder rolls in the near distance. Storm clouds form overhead, unnaturally fast, like they’re in a time-lapse video.
There’s a crack and the sky lights up as a massive bolt of lightning hits the tippy top of the building.
Perfect shot.
“Nice.”
Dante and I race over. I activate the rune on my leg to give me a burst of speed so I can keep up with his vampiric speed.
A, now dead, electric fence surrounds the building. No telltale buzz to say it’s live right now.
There are two guards standing just outside a little cabin at the front of the gate, apparently unaware that anything out of the ordinary just happened. Dante and I make our way to one side of the fence and he tears through the wire fence like it’s made of paper.
Shit. Dude’s stronger than he looks.
As we approach the door to the building, there’s a guard behind a thick layer of bulletproof glass. Before we’ve even got the door open, he slumps in his seat, unconscious. I glance behind me and see Fabian, who gives a nod.
The inside of the building is creepy as hell. It’s all bare walls and floors and dim emergency lighting. It looks like a place that’s been long abandoned, as though we’re going to spot plants growing through the walls around the next corner.
Like as soon as you step inside, you’re forgotten.
A shiver of unease goes up my spine, and Dante squeezes my shoulder.
“Focus now,” he says.
I nod. Right. Need to keep all my attention and energy on causing a commotion.
“How’s the nose? Can you sniff her out yet?”
He shoots me a long-suffering look. “Nothing yet.”
We head deeper inside, still moving at heightened speed as we find a stairwell and make our way up the endless stairs. Thankfully, it seems like Fabian’s worked his magic on all the guards we’ve come across so far and knocked them out cold. No one has sounded the alarm just yet.
“Shit, this place is massive. I hope we don’t have to go door to door,” I mutter.
Although... maybe a bunch of escaped convicts milling about the place is exactly what we need.
Pretty sure it’s what the city deserves too.
Maybe I’m just cranky and it’s making me needlessly bloodthirsty. But needs must at the minute. I can chill out later, when I have Silver safe in my arms and we can snuggle for hours. Or maybe a good hard fuck to get out some of the tension. She can ride me and tug my hair and call me a good boy, or—
“Focus.”
Right. Yes.
“Focusing.”
One thing I didn’t consider was how damn dark it would be once we got inside. There are no fucking windows anywhere. Maybe we should have asked Zeph to save the power cut until after we found Silver.
Oops. Too late now.
“There should only be a couple of guards per floor,” Fabian says. “No doubt, they’ll have noticed their colleagues have passed out by now.”
By the time we’re onto the next floor, someone must have sounded the alarm—either that guards are dropping like flies, or that there are intruders, or maybe that the power’s gone out. Maybe all the above.
Who cares? They know we’re here.
There’s yelling and booted footsteps marching along somewhere close by.
We’re gonna get caught any minute, unless we—
Distraction.
Good thing I’m an expert at unlocking doors. And making a mess.
I tap a bunch of my runes. What we need right now is for there to be a bunch of shit going on so the guards don’t know what to focus on. Then Dante can sneak through and sniff out Silver.
I activate the rune that shows me where there are active wards and quickly blast my way through them. It’s easier than expected. Also easier than expected is unlocking the damn cell doors. I guess once the electricity keeping them shut tight is disabled and the wards are gone, there’s just a thick metal bolt on the outside.
I hurry along, unbolting as many as I can and flinging the door open.
“Go free, my prettys. This is a jailbreak,” I yell.
The first inhabitants are more confused than anything and they don’t spring into action like I was expecting. But as soon as one goes, he lets out a yell, and that draws the attention of others, which causes a ripple effect. Then there’s movement from all angles, a stampede of escaping convicts.
Just the chaos we need.
I make the emergency lighting flash like we’re in a club and I wish I could make music blast out to add to the fun. Instead, I resort to singing about a jailbreak. I magic up illusions of people escaping, leading the people out of their cells and out of the building.
And then we move onto the next floor.
More illusions of people. More broken wards.
I keep on singing at the top of my lungs, letting out a whoop every so often and ‘yeehaw’ for good measure.
Every time we come across a guard, Fabian is there, and he gets them to drop almost immediately before they’ve had a chance to engage their shock sticks.
Thankfully, not a euphemism for their dicks.
It’s kind of messy. Every time a guard drops, someone notices and the escapees swarm toward them, kicking the shit out of their unconscious forms. I would feel bad, but then I remember that they locked Silver up here. That they locked a damn kid up here and they were going to execute her without a trial.
Then my tears dry right up.
We move through the building. There’s more mess, blood spattering the walls.
Onwards and upwards, until I hear the magic words.
“She’s close,” Dante says. “Somewhere on this floor.”
By this point, we’re more than halfway through emptying the building of its inhabitants. A surge of energy goes through me and Dante moves faster than I’ve ever seen before, darting through the fray with single-minded focus.
One more ward to smash. Another door to open.
“Breaking you out, breaking you out,” I sing as I yank the bolt and fling open the door.
And there she is. The center of my universe.
Dante steps into the shitty cell and Silver lets out a surprised cry as she flings herself at him. I wrap my arms around her too, for good measure. She hugs Dante close and then turns in his arms so she can wrap her arms around me.
The chaos inside me stills, just for a moment and I let out a relieved breath.
“You came for me,” she murmurs into my chest.
“Always.”
When I get control of my limbs again, I pull back and turn to the open door. Fabian’s waiting there, holding back.
Silver steps close to him until their chests are touching and he cups her cheek, staring down at her with fierce intensity, like he’s trying to communicate everything he’s feeling with just his eyes.
Relief. Happiness. Anger at the vamps and the judiciary. Love.
He rests his forehead against hers before pressing a gentle kiss to her lips.
“Ready to get out of here?”