Succeed or fail.
Chapter 24
Time sped up, and before any of us knew it, we needed to get to Mount Weather. Kat had spent the morning with her mom, and I’d monopolized her afternoon. I’d given her the opal I’d fashioned into a necklace, slipping it around her neck. She’d wanted me to wear it, but that wasn’t going down.
We’d just lain together, both of us awake. Nothing like last night…or this morning, but I really couldn’t think about that at this moment.
Right now, Kat was inside her house. She’d be out in minutes, along with Ash and Dee, because we needed to hit the road.
“Andrew is staying behind this time, at the farm. He’ll be waiting with Ash and Dee,” Matthew explained. “But since he’s been working on and off with the onyx, he should be able to come in in case…”
In case shit went bad, which was why I wanted to talk to them before we headed out. “I need a promise from each of you,” I said, meeting Matthew’s and Dawson’s gazes.
Matthew sighed as he leaned against my SUV. “Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like what you’re about to say?”
“You’re not.” I folded my arms. “If things start to go bad there tonight, no matter what, I want both of you to promise me you will get Kat out of there.”
The older Luxen’s brows flew up. “Daemon—”
“I know you’re going to be focused on Bethany. I get that,” I said to Dawson. “But please, I’m begging both of you, if something happens, I want you focused on Kat. Not me.”
My brother stared at me for a long moment, and then he nodded. “I feel ya.”
I knew he did, because he got it.
Matthew cursed under his breath as he looked away, eyeing the woods. “I’m not okay with this.”
“Matt—”
“Let me finish,” he said, flipping his crystalline gaze to mine. “I don’t like this—this whole idea that somehow I’ll have to pick between you and Katy. I don’t even want to think of that happening.”
“Me neither,” I assured him. “And I don’t think that’s going to happen, but if shit starts to go bad, I want you to get her out of there. No matter what. I want to make sure we all have her back. She can hold her own, but I want…”
“You want us to protect her.” Dawson clapped his hand on my shoulder. “We understand.” He looked over at Matthew. “And we will do that.”
Placing his hands on his hips, he nodded after a moment. I exhaled roughly, relieved. “Thank you.”
Matthew dipped his chin. “Please don’t thank us for this.”
“None of this will probably be needed,” Dawson reasoned, running his hand through his hair.
I hoped so. Turning to the porch, my chest clenched as Kat stepped out, dressed in black leggings and a matching shirt. She smiled when she saw me, her gray eyes lighting up.
Damn, I really hoped so.
We arrived at the farm at the base of the darken access road with a few minutes to spare. Like before, we’d taken two SUVs, and when we all climbed out, Blake got the text from Luc.
Then it was go.
We raced up the mountain again, nearing the gate, and I was the one who took out the guard this time. Tense, I approached the gate and entered the first code. Icarus. No problem. Racing across the lawn, we headed straight for the three doors.
This was the first big one. Kat would make it through the doors because she had the opal—we believed—but the rest of us? There was no guarantee the training was going to work. Working with the onyx in an attempt to be able to walk through the doors had been a theory—a theory held together with duct tape and a Hail Mary.
I glanced over at Kat. The necklace was under her shirt, the opal against her skin.
My brother keyed in the word “labyrinth.”
The door slid open with an airlock sound, and I stepped forward, being the first one through. Air puffed, and I felt it. Instead of it dropping me to the ground, it was like standing too close to an open flame. I forced one leg in front of the other and then I was on the other side, standing in the wide hallway highlighted in orange. Looking over my shoulder, I smiled.
Matthew exhaled roughly. It had worked.
Dawson and Blake followed Matthew and Kat through the onyx-protected doors. She stuck close to me as Blake, who’d been here before, moved out in front of the pack. He led the way. The hall was shadowed, lit every twenty feet or so by small wall lamps. I kept an eye out for the emergency doors he’d mentioned before, the ones that could supposedly cut us into bite-size pieces.
“Onyx,” Blake whispered, catching Kat staring at the shiny ceiling. “The whole place is covered in onyx.”
God, what a lovely addition.
The tunnel split into a crossroads with elevators in the middle. Matthew inched toward the opening, checking out the space first. “Clear,” he said.
Silent, we filed into the elevator. I checked on Dawson. Razor-edge determination was set in his jaw. Kat was looking at the ceiling again, and I noticed it was also outfitted with onyx.
Reaching between us, I found her hand and squeezed. I could feel her heart racing. She looked up at me, and I winked. She shook her head. We were almost there. The elevator came to a smooth stop and the doors opened, revealing a waiting room—a white waiting room. Everything was white—walls, ceiling, floors.
“Lovely decorative colors,” Matthew muttered.
I smirked, but it quickly faded as Dawson moved ahead of us, approaching the third and final door. “Careful, brother. We take this slow.”
Dawson nodded. “I’ve never been here. Blake?”
Blake moved to his side. “Should be another tunnel, shorter and wider, and there’ll be doors on the right side. Cells—really, outfitted with a bed, a TV, and a bathroom. There’ll be about twenty rooms. I don’t know if the others are occupied or not.”
Others?
Kat looked at me sharply. “We can’t just leave them.”
Before I could answer, Blake intervened. “We don’t have time, Katy. Taking too many will slow us down, and we don’t know what kind of condition they are in.”
“But—”
“For once, I agree with Blake.” I met her shocked stare, and I hated myself for this. “We can’t, Kitten. Not now.”
Kat pressed her lips together, and I knew she wasn’t okay with this, but we didn’t have the time, and we hadn’t planned for rescuing more than Chris and Beth.
Blake keyed in the last code: Daedalus.
The sound of several locks sucking back into place broke the silence, and a light at the top of the door, on the right, flashed green. I moved in front of Kat as Blake inched the door open, and Matthew had done as I’d asked, blocked her from behind.
“We’re clear,” Blake said, sounding relieved.
We went through the door, discovering another onyx shield. Now we had two to get the others through. This wasn’t going to be easy. The tunnel was like the one above, but it was all white and much shorter, wider.
We were here.
My gaze tracked my brother as Blake called out before rushing down the hall, toward the last of the cells. “The third cell is hers.”
Dawson spun around as Kat and I moved close to him. He reached for the onyx-coated door handle. There was a flicker of pain across his stoic face, but the door opened, and my brother… My brother started trembling. His entire body shook as he croaked out one word, “Beth?”
I saw her then, a slender girl sitting on a narrow bed, and she looked like I had remembered—brown hair tucked back in a smooth ponytail and her elfin face pale. The moment recognition flared in her eyes, the second her gaze locked with my brother’s, I wanted to whoop with relief.
Dawson staggered forward, hands opening and closing at his sides, and all he could say was her name over and over.
She scrambled forward, her gaze darting all around, but then hitting him and staying.