Chapter 20

TWENTY

SeeingArc before anyone else didn't prepare me for what he was about to do.

Still covered in ice, he darts from a dark hallway, vaulting over Kimba. I barely have time to throw myself to the side to cushion her fall before she hits the ground.

No one catches Roiban.

His head hits the ground with a sickening crack. For a moment, the four men watch, unmoving, guns held ineffectually in front of them as Arc gets him on his belly.

They didn't see Risk and Shock enter right behind him, or Kilo step out of the shadows.

Arc kicks the gun to Kimba as she rolls off of me, but she doesn't reach for it. She unties me with hasty fingers, trusting the others to deal with the larger problem.

By the time I'm freed, the others have them contained and Arc drags Roiban's unconscious body to the center where the rest have been gathered.

Shock makes them kneel the way they made me, I ignore the reversal.

"The CSS will be here shortly," I tell the ones who are still conscious. "Better get your stories straight before they do."

"Assuming you make it that long." Kilo looks down at them with a glower that makes me think maybe he shouldn't be left alone with them.

The way Kimba watches him, I know she's not leaving him unsupervised.

The men who guarded him are definitely dead

There's a phantom of a movement… not a threat. Something else.

Shock lunges for Arc and I drag Kimba away from them.

Shock grabs Arc by the throat and slams him against the wall. "Do you have a death wish?"

Arc stares at him for a moment and I almost step in, but Kimba places her hand on mine and gently shakes her head.

When Arc speaks, it starts with a scoff. "The correct response is ‘Thank you—'"

Shock lets him go so quickly Arc actually yelps as he slides to the ground. Cursing, Shock walks away. And still, Kimba doesn't want me to get involved.

Still on the ground, Arc looks up at us all, an annoyed scowl carving lines around his lips. "Even if he'd shot me, the gun would never have gotten to a place it could do damage."

"The gun wasn't loaded." Kimba says.

Arc looks at Kimba and then up at Shock, "Then why the hell are you so mad at me."

"Because you didn't know it wasn't loaded, asshole."

"And," Risk says, calmly, "There were four others that were."

I leave Risk to play referee between the two of them and go to the door Roiban emerged from.

I expect an office… I find more crates. More construction materials.

"What's in the crates?" Shock asks.

He still looks pissed. Maybe getting him away from Arc is a good idea.

There's a pry bar beside the table stacked with fasteners, and it takes less than a minute to pop the top. We place the lid to the side, and I snatch Shock's wrist before he can dig through the packing.

"Don't."

Shock cautiously takes his hand back. "What is it?"

A contingency plan.

Stepping back out into the room, I count the crates.

Too many.

And I don't remember how many more we passed on the way up here.

Kilo stares down at the tied up quintet, flicking his gun's safety on and off again.

I go to the man on the floor that looks the most freaked out, the one who looks the most likely to talk.

"How many bombs are on site?"

I ignore the curses from behind me.

"Bombs?" The man looks frantically toward the others. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"He's lying," Kilo says what I already know. "Let me shoot one of them. That should get the others talking."

"We don't know, okay." The one with his back to me says it, exasperated. "Roiban told us to be careful with all of the crates, but they can't all have bombs in them."

"Why not?" Kimba asks, looking down at him with her own gun drawn.

Four pairs of very wide eyes watch her. They're terrified.

I don't set them at ease.

He swallows and stammers. "Th-there's over three hundred crates here."

"And what else is in the crates?"

"I didn't ask."

"It's supplies." The one next to him shifts and Kilo stills him with a boot to his groin. "I swear! We needed supplies for them until we moved them."

"You're going to need to get more specific," Kilo says, flicking the safety again.

"The women."

"Shut up!" The first guy who lied shoves him with his shoulder, but he doesn't stop.

"There are cells downstairs. We converted the bedrooms. We needed food, supplies. Even though we weren't keeping them here long. They were going to—"

"I said, shut up!"

Throwing himself into the other man, the first tries to… Honestly? I don't know what he's trying to do.

Muttering under her breath, Kimba shoots him. The electric pulse knocks him unconscious. Then, she shoots the others. Even Roiban for good measure. "Hopefully a little time out will get us better answers when they wake up."

"Should we fold them up, put them in crates and get a drone to take them to CSS headquarters?" Shock asks.

"No. I don't trust them to make it there."

Kimba purses her lips and looks at the crates scattered around the room. "So now, we have to check them all, or play crate roulette."

"What is roulette?" Risk asks.

From the looks on the others' faces, none of us know.

"Earth gambling game with a wheel… I'll explain it later." She waves the question away.

"When the CSS officials get here, we need to make sure they are very careful." I tell them. "You start opening these ones to see what we have. Kimba and I will head downstairs and see if we can find the cells."

"Kilo, too," she says.

"Don't trust me?" He grins at her.

"Until you get checked out, I don't plan on letting you out of my sight."

"She doesn't want you to find a corner where you can curl up for a nap and never wake up again." Arc says, popping the top off of the first crate and gently moving the packing aside.

He grimaces as he pulls a can of spray paint from his belt and marks it with an ugly orange X.

Kimba nods toward the hallway and Kilo doesn't argue. He goes, almost meekly.

Maybe he is in worse shape than I thought.

We find the cells on the third level down.

Interior bedrooms, "converted" to cells with new locking mechanisms.

"Physical keys again?" Kimba asks. And when I confirm, she runs back upstairs to search Roiban and the others for keys.

Once we're alone, I glance at Kilo. "You okay?"

"I'm pissed off, but I'm in one piece." He glances up at the ceiling. "Those assholes didn't do anything worse than the cavrinskh have. It was almost a treat."

I can't appreciate the sarcasm, but Kimba rejoins us, four sets of keys in her hands.

"One of these has to work, right?"

All four rings have the right key. I only take one set to pull the correct one from the tangle and then hand it back to her.

"They'll be less scared if you're the one opening the door."

She nods. "Stand out of sight for me?"

Kilo moves before I do, and she turns the key. We all hear the lock disengage. But she hesitates.

Suspicion and a matching scowl…

She steps to the side as she opens it and a shoe flies out, smacking the opposite wall.

It was aimed for a Sian head, so it wouldn't have hit her. But she cautiously peeks her head around the frame.

"I promise we're not here to hurt you."

The collective sigh of relief is loud enough I can almost feel it. She steps inside. I listen as she lets them know Kilo and I are out here. She explains the situation and then hands one of them the key.

"We're not going to trap you here, but it will be safer if you stay here until the CSS gets here."

The women agree, and Kilo hands the one her shoe back.

I'm not surprised when they test the key to see if she's lying, but they don't venture out.

We repeat the process twice more.

Five, five, and six. Sixteen women who should be with mates who would care for and protect them… not in the hands of someone like Roiban.

With that information, I step aside and call Riann.

"We're on our way," he says as he answers. Irritation isn't the right word for the tone in his voice.

"There are some developments you need to know before your men get here."

"Go ahead."

"Firstly, I have five men in custody."

"Alive?" he asks.

"Yes." I glance toward Kilo. "Several others are not."

"Okay." He exhales. "What else am I walking into?"

"You're going to want to call for bomb disposal."

There's a hesitation on the line and then a curse, "Do I need to hold my men back?"

"I don't think so. The man in charge wouldn't have risked being inside the blast." I hear him relaying information to someone else. "And we have sixteen women in makeshift cells."

"Have him get ahold of Rose." Kimba says and I nod.

"I'll give you the information for a woman who works with a foundation in Gongii. She might be able to help with Agency efforts to re-place them."

"Anything else?"

"Not yet."

"We'll be there soon." Riann hangs up so I turn back to Kimba.

"Can we leave Kilo here for five minutes to update the others?"

She looks at him—sitting on a crate that was open before we got here which has towels instead of bombs. "Only if he promises not to wander off."

"I promise." He looks at the doors. "If they need something, I'll be here."

Kimba leads the way back upstairs, and I don't like the amount of paint I see.

Risk draws an X on the last crate. "Did you find them?"

"Yes. They're safe and in one piece."

"Good." He shoves his paint can back into his belt. "How long before the CSS gets here and can get them out of here."

"I don't know, but—"

"Saints."

There's a low growl, and we all turn toward the shadow of the hallway…

Eyes glowing gold in the firelight, the cavrinskh stalks out of the darkness.

Staggering backward, Risk pulls his gun, and I have to knock his hand down. "We can't risk hitting a crate."

"How the hell did it get in here?" Risk asks, still gripping his gun.

Cursing, Arc holsters his and pulls a knife. "I may have left the door open in my haste."

The creature stalks around the room, keeping close to those crates, as if it knows…

I can't take my eyes off the monster in front of me.

It clacks its beak-like mouth at us, its jaw separating in three places to manage it.

"What do we do?" I ask, quietly.

None of us move.

"Don't let it get behind you." Shock says.

"Right, but what do we do?" I ease my grip on my gun. "Would a stun pulse set off the contents of one of those crates?"

"No, but it would also just make the thing mad," Arc says.

The hair on its back rises and the firelight shifts… changing the color. But its black claws don't change.

It stalks forward on six ugly legs that could probably tear any and all of us to pieces.

"We need to get it in front of the window." There aren't any crates there.

Arc gestures toward the unconscious men in the middle of the room. "Or I could throw one of them at it so the rest of us could get away."

The thing paces, watching us like it doesn't really want to advance.

The dark spot on its forehead seems to glow and it turns as if someone's called its name.

But there's no one in the shadows.

I see the movement a moment before one of the men in the center of the room wakes. Before the screaming starts.

The one that's woken struggles at his bindings, screaming and thrashing… the cavrinskh pounces.

I lurch backward, straight into D's arms and he lifts me, turning us both as he bolts for the hallway.

I don't see that man die, but I hear it. The sickening sound races after us.

D doesn't let me go until we're down the stairs.

"We just left them?"

"I, for one, am not upset that they turned into a snack." Arc says, checking his guns again.

"Even four to one, the likelihood that all of us made it out of there in one piece and without setting off a bomb that killed all of us…" D looks back up the stairs. "We don't stand a chance against them in close quarters."

"And if it's us, or people who deserve to be eaten," Arc says, pausing in front of a door and touching the metal as if he's checking for a fire. "I'd much rather it be them."

He pushes the door open to an empty bedroom with a wide window, kicking a crate inside. "We've got to take advantage of its dinner break."

The cold boys start moving crates out of the way. D shifts Lasap panels over the corridor openings. Setting up the only path the monster will have to get to us.

I know a killbox when I see one.

Shivering, I step into the room with its stacked crates, keeping out of the way. This room isn't lined with Lasap… it looks like it might have been next on the list though.

But when I step fully inside and turn around, back to the wall of windows, it's my turn to curse.

I don't know how D missed it. I don't know why Roiban broke through to this room… but I can see up into the level above… and the crates of explosives aren't the only things up there.

"We have a problem!"

I barely manage to get the words out and scramble backward from the hole in the ceiling before the shadows shift, and the thing falls from it like a sack of bricks.

The cavrinskh rises from where it's fallen. Roiban is underneath it, whimpering as his head lolls on the floor.

Blood slicks the monster's beak, its claws, even part of its tail… the cavrinskh latches one set of its claws into Roiban's chest as it stalks toward me, dragging him along too.

"Wait." D shouts, though not at me. And I can't focus on the argument that ensues.

The cavrinskh backs me into a corner, jaws snapping. The low rumble of its growl ghosts heat across my skin.

Window to my left, hard rock at my back, there's nowhere to go.

"Stay still, Kimba. You're not going to enjoy this."

Arc takes aim, but Shock grabs his hand at the last minute, shouting "No."

The window explodes beside me and the scream of the wind is so loud, I don't hear what they shout at each other this time either.

Shivering, I lock eyes with the creature. It should have lashed out or pounced. Hell, it should have flinched with the glass burst.

But it stares at me, tail twitching and beak chattering.

The dark spot at the center of its forehead pulses.

If I raise my gun to shoot it, it will snap my arm clean off.

If I don't…

It jerks its head away, as if it's been slapped.

Huffing and gruffing, it's almost like it's arguing with itself. And then, it goes startlingly still.

Roiban mutters something and I don't breathe as the cavrinskh raises him up between us.

The creature studies him for a moment, and then snaps his neck. I draw in a sharp breath covering my eyes and trying to squeeze even further back into the corner. But I can still see it through the spaces between my fingers. It drops Roiban to the floor and with a disgusted sound, it leaps out the window.

The tension that had held me disappears and the only reason I don't drop to the ground is because D catches me.

I take a few deep breaths and remind myself that it's gone.

D's eyes trace over me, looking for any sign… "You're okay?"

"I'm okay." I nod and he releases me. He'd know if I was lying.

Swallowing back the ugly coil of panic, I turn to the window and look out at the crater left behind in the snow.

The cavrinskh isn't dead. It struggles to its feet, shakes itself off, and sprints back for the interior caldera.

"Do you think there are others?"

"No." He says, glancing at the cold boys. "But we won't be taking any chances, either."

Arc and Risk pull their guns and start a sweep of the lower levels. Shock goes up to let the CSS contingent in.

Kilo joins us a few minutes later. "Arc took over and sent me up."

He sits on a crate and groans. "Am I going to get a few days off to recover?" He asks. "Or are you going to take those away from me because I went poking around after you told me not to?"

"Get your strength back." D says. "But you are definitely on my shit list."

The last words—said in English—makes me laugh. Laughing makes me cry.

D picks me up, rocking me and whispering gentle words I barely hear as the stress and fear leaves me in streams of salty tears.

I feel puffy and gross when I ask him to let me down, but I also feel better.

"Saints and sorrows." Riann's curse turns our attention.

All three of us look to the door as he steps through and stops dead in his tracks.

He covers his mouth with his hand and looks around the room, unblinking. "How in the everliving fuck am I going to clean up this mess?"

"I'd suggest starting with a mop?" Kilo says, laughing and then grabbing his ribs with a groan.

Riann goes to his side and catches him before he can actually fall. Still listing to the side, Kilo smiles, but it flickers with pain. "My hero."

Riann does not look amused. "The power's not on, I assume the medfac won't be working either?"

"There are generators…" D looks at Kilo. "Are you actually that bad off, or are you being an asshole?"

Kilo sits up, chuckling. "If he had taken my calls, I might not have met so many fists today, so excuse me if I feel like he deserves to take care of me a little."

Riann lets him go, stepping back, and Kilo falls to the floor.

"Ow," he winces, not getting up. "I might need a medic."

Riann calls up for one and I look past him to see human CSS officers following Shock downstairs.

"Roiban's dead." I look down at the mangled remains. "We aren't going to find any more answers in this room."

And I don't want to be here anymore.