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I wait anxiously in the silence that follows the last piece of dirt falling to the ground. It’s creepy quiet. No one is moving inside the house and there are no guards or soldiers rushing out to meet us. It’s completely calm and still. Almost like no one is home.
“Now!”
People spill off the boat, our feet pounding down the small ramp and onto the dock. We run in teams, each of us with our own orders of where to go. We’re fa
Everyone’s goal—find Westbrook.
We burst into the house and I do my best to not be distracted by it, but damn. It’s ridiculous. It’s unholy. It’s so freaking normal that it’s stupid.
Nicely upholstered chairs and couches, undented, unscratched tables, glass that hasn’t been shattered, lights that are glowing warm and strong. It’s completely ignorant to the world across the water. It’s everything that a
It makes me sick.
I snap out my ASP. I clench my knife in my left hand. I breathe in steady, I breathe out even, I swallow back the angry bile, and I calm my heart.
“Joss!” Ryan calls over his shoulder.
I nod, quickening my steps to follow him. “I’m right behind you.”
We’re the team searching the lowest level. Trent and Ryan move cautiously through the hallways, trying to find us a door that will take us down. Trent guides us through a huge, gleaming kitchen, past pristine bathrooms, some kind of game room. Finally he comes to a stop in front of a glass enclosure with a sturdy metal frame.
“No way,” I mumble, staring at it like it’s a unicorn in a tuxedo.
Trent pushes a circular button beside it. It lights up, followed by a polite ding!
“Yes way,” he says in equal awe.
The doors to the elevator slide open silently in front of us. Soft classical music pours out into the hallway.
Ryan shocks me when he barks out a short, loud laugh.
“What’s fu
“I don’t know. When was the last time you rode an elevator?”
I shrug. “Not since I was kid. Are we taking this thing down?”
“Why wouldn’t we?” he asks me like I’m crazy.
“How do we know we can trust it?”
Trent steps inside and jumps up and down fearlessly. When he doesn’t plummet to his death, I sigh with relief.
“What if we get trapped in it?” I ask.
Trent shrugs. “Then we know it doesn’t work.”
Ryan steps inside, offering me his hand. “Are you coming?”
I don’t hesitate to take his hand, but when he pulls me inside I feel like I’m going to hyperventilate. I don’t trust this thing at all, but I trust Ryan and Trent so when the doors close behind me, I do my best not to scream and claw at the walls.
Trent pushes another button, a B this time, and we start to drop down smoothly.
“This is weird,” I whisper.
“But also kind of fun,” Ryan whispers back.
“We’re here to take down the evil head of a totalitarian regime. We’re not supposed to have fun.”
Trent leans forward to look at me around Ryan. His face is shocked.
“Totalitarian regime?” I ask him.
He nods.
“I heard Todd say it. It sounds better than oppressive dickbag.”
Trent smiles proudly at me.
Ding!
Seriously so very weird.
We pile out of the elevator and step into another hallway. Down here we find a massive swimming pool, a gym, a smaller kitchen, more bathrooms, and absolutely no people. By the end of it we aren’t creeping cautiously anymore. We’re walking around tossing open doors and shouting out what we find.
“Another play room!” Trent calls out.
“Showers!” Ryan shouts.
“I don’t know what this is,” I tell them, staring at the smallish room with all wood walls. “But there’s no one in here.”
The boys come to stand behind me.
“Sauna,” Trent tells me. “You sit in there and sweat your cares away.”
“Down in Fraggle Rock?”
Ryan claps twice.
“Well, that’s it for down here. This place is empty.”
“It can’t be,” Ryan argues, not sounding convinced by his own argument. “The survivors from the last Colony said he was here. They said he had a small group with him.”
“Maybe they’re hiding,” Trent suggests as we head back to the elevator. “It’s a big place. There could be secret areas.”
“They definitely saw us coming,” I agree glumly.
We load back into the potential deathtrap, this time Ryan getting to push the buttons. I want to punch him when he hits all of them.
“We’ll check the other floors,” he says defensively when I glare at him. “Maybe another team found something.”
“Shouldn’t we go ba—”
There’s a loud crash from somewhere in the house. It sounds like an explosion tearing through the walls and my knuckles go white around my ASP and knife as I picture the elevator giving out under us.
“Where’d it come from?” Ryan asks urgently.
“How do we know?! We’re in an elevator!” I shout.
He looks to Trent. “Up or down? Was it below or above us?”
“I’d say above,” Trent replies calmly, though his eyes are narrowed. He’s listening. “Someone’s shouting. Do you hear that?”
“Who can hear anything over this stupid music in this stupid elevator?”
Ryan frowns at me. “Joss, calm down.”
“You calm down! If there’s another explosion this thing could kill us all!”
Ding!
I run sideways through the doors before they finish opening, desperate to get out of there.
“Left!” Trent shouts to me.
I turn to the left and sprint down the hallway. We’re back on the floor we started on, but it looks completely different. There’s smoke in the air, meaning I was right—it was an explosion. I don’t know who set it off but it could have been any one of the ten or so men fighting against Vashons in the living room and entryway of the house.
Looks like someone did find something.
There are at least three bodies on the floor, none of them Vashons as far as I can tell, and when I see how the Vashons fight against the Colonists, I’m not surprised by the body count. In fact, I’m surprised it’s not higher. There’s a savage anger in the air that I haven’t felt since the day I watched Ryan fight in the Arena. It’s a nearly tangible thing, the bloodthirst.
A Colonist lunges toward me with a knife. I dodge it easily, bringing my ASP down on his arm with a hard crack that breaks his bone and leaves his knife useless on the ground. I kick it away, bring my ASP back up, then hit him in the shin. He goes down hard, alive but useless.
“Joss!” Ryan shouts.
“I see it!” I shout back. I swing my ASP around to hit a guy in the knee. He screams, falling to the ground in pain. “I’ve got it.”
“Joss,” he croaks.
I spin around, put on alert by his fading voice. He’s up against a wall with a Colonist pi
He’s slowly sinking a knife into Ryan’s stomach.
I run toward them, raising my weapon high. I don’t hesitate and I definitely don’t hold back. I come down on the guy’s head with the force I would give a zombie. My arm aches from the resistance when it meets the hardest part of his skull, but he’s hurting way worse. He drops to the ground as the life slips out of him and I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, but he isn’t getting up anytime soon.
I rush to Ryan, taking his shoulders as he slumps forward. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he groans. “I’ll be okay. Hurts, though.”
“Getting stabbed usually does. Can you stand?”
He tries to stand up straight, but winces and crumbles before he can make it. “Maybe not right now.”
I growl in frustration, searching the men and women fighting around me. I spot Trent as he grabs a guy’s wrist and then spins him around. The guy screams before Trent lets him fall to the ground, the guy clutching his arm as it dangles uselessly from the socket.