One
“This is officially the worst idea I’ve ever had.”
It was true. Alex may have made some questionable decisions in the past, but the dilemma she and her friends now faced was off the charts, comparatively.
“We can still pull this off,” Bear whispered from somewhere to her left.
It was too dark for Alex to see anything other than his silhouette blacking out what little light shone through the crack in the door. But she knew both he and D.C. were right there alongside her, as always. What she didn’t know was who else was nearby—namely, just how many guards were patrolling the high-security ChemTech facility they were trying to break into. And how dangerous their weapons were.
Alex was fully aware they were being reckless. But after losing their best friend, Jordan Sparker, to a fate of being a mindless pawn in Aven Dalmarta’s blood-bonded, brainwashed army, Alex and her friends were more than motivated. They were desperate.
“We need to move,” D.C. said. “It won’t take long for them to find us here.”
A light flashed in the darkness when Bear activated his ComTCD, casting a bluish glow over his face. His pupils were wide and beads of sweat dotted his forehead despite the cool temperature. “The codes Johnny gave us only work for another hour,” he said, flicking through the data stored in his Device. “We need to be in and out in that time, or we’ll be stuck here.”
“Right,” Alex said. “So, it’s a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation. We can work with this.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” D.C. said with a half-hearted grin. Had Jordan still been with them, her smile would have been more genuine, but Alex knew to take what she could get from her friend. “We trust you.”
Alex wondered, not for the first time, if their trust was sorely misguided. After all, it was her fault they were stuck in some dingy janitor’s closet to begin with. Sure, her motives were honourable, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t brought her closest friends on a fool’s errand.
It had all begun just over a week ago, when the three of them had left Raelia and returned to Bear’s home in Woodhaven for the Kaldoras holidays. The loss of Jordan had caused such a hollow ache in each of them that it had been impossible to enjoy their holiday break. So instead, they’d begun planning.
All they’d known was their endgame: freeing Jordan from Aven’s clutches. Their friend might have been ‘irreversibly’ Claimed, but they still had hope, knowing Alex had once freed herself from Aven’s grasp. But even if that didn’t turn out to be possible, their back-up plan was to isolate and protect Jordan from the immortal Meyarin, using any means necessary, even imprisonment.
Their task was made infinitely more complicated by the fact that Aven had promised Jordan something important to him—the deliverance of his previously-believed-deceased-but-now-apparently-alive-and-only-missing brother. Luka had supposedly killed himself six years ago, but Aven had shown the brainwashed Jordan surveillance footage of Luka breaking into a ChemTech lab just last month.
So that was where Alex and her friends had decided to start. Their plan was to verify whether or not the footage existed, and if they found evidence showing Luka to be alive, then they would just have to find him before Aven could use him as leverage against their friend.
Easy, right?
The good news was that Johnny, Bear’s eldest brother, was a Techno—basically a technology genius—and as a ChemTech employee he had insider knowledge of its facilities. It hadn’t taken much coercing from Alex, Bear and D.C. to convince him to join Team Saving Jordan, and he’d been forthcoming with as much intel as they’d needed. While he’d never been to the exact lab in Mardenia where Luka had been sighted, Johnny had managed to hack into the highly classified TCD server to download an entire data file containing the layout of the facility, complete with security codes and a detailed map of the building.
With access to so much information, Alex had originally thought her plan infallible. They would arrive just outside the building’s security ward via Bubbledoor, sneak through the entrance using Johnny’s codes, hike up the eleven floors to the surveillance room and search through the database until they found the footage of Luka.
Sure, there were a few holes in the plan, but it should have been a breeze.
What they hadn’t counted on were the unforeseen complications—complications like the decidedly human guards.
“How close are we?” Alex asked, looking over Bear’s shoulder as he used the touch-screen of his TCD to project a holographic map of the facility into the air between them.
“We’re here,” he said, pointing to their location. He then expanded the map and swivelled it around, indicating to another room three floors up on the other side of the building. “We need to get there.”
“Not impossible,” D.C. said. “We’ve managed to get this far; what’s a few more stairs?”
Alex bit back her retort and just hoped she wasn’t about to get the crown princess of Medora arrested—or shot. They’d already had one close call with a security guard who’d thankfully been looking the other way when they nearly walked into him—an encounter that clued them in to the fact that they weren’t alone in the building. And Alex had clearly seen the Stabiliser holstered to the man’s belt. She wasn’t sure if he’d carried other weapons, but that alone was cause for concern—one shot would lead to ten minutes of unconsciousness and a second shot instant death.
Not a pleasant thought.
“I don’t suppose you guys would be willing to stay here and keep watch?” Alex asked. “Lessen the chances of us all getting caught?”
Firm headshakes met her question, not that she’d expected anything less.
“We’ve talked about this,” Bear said, his tone unyielding. “We’re going to help save Jordan, no matter the consequences.”
“No way are we staying behind,” D.C. confirmed, her arms folded and an expression of distaste on her face. “Don’t even try to stop us.”
Alex raised her hands in a placating manner. “Fine, fine, but you can’t blame me for trying.” She attempted a conciliatory smile, but she knew it fell flat. Straightening her shoulders, she told them, “Stay close, then. And don’t make a sound.”
Bear shoved his ComTCD back into his pocket, extinguishing their light source. As soon as Alex’s eyes adjusted to the nearly black room again, she pushed the door open, silently leading the way out into the corridor beyond. She had to blink her vision clear when the hallway’s brighter, halogen-like lights seared through her retinas, all the while keeping a lookout for the slightest indication of guards nearby.
Frustratingly, the facility didn’t have one central staircase that led to different floors. Instead, the staircases were designed in an architectural nightmare of ups, downs and all arounds. As if it were a Snakes and Ladders game, each set of stairs ended in a different location, but never directly where Alex and her friends needed to go.
Their staircase dilemma could have been avoided if they’d simply used the elevator, but the access codes Johnny had hacked to activate the lift were for an emergency only, since any elevator usage was monitored closely and their presence would undoubtedly be detected. For obvious reasons, they wanted to avoid that.