“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 pinning him there. Ryan is fighting him, but the guy is putting his body weight into the attack. I see red, literally.
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.
Trent is the only familiar face I can find.
“Where’s Ali? You need a doctor.”
“I’ll be fine for now. Just don—Mmm,” he moans for a second, leaning harder against me. “Just don’t let anyone kill me, okay?”
“You got it.”
“Joss!”
I sigh with relief when I see Sam come running down the master staircase. Where Sam is, Ali can’t be far away.
“Sam, where’s Ali? Ryan needs her.”
He shakes his head, his eyes desperate. “I can’t find her. I was hoping you’d seen her.”
My heart plummets. “No. I haven’t seen her since the boat.”
Sam curses. “I screwed up. We were together going through the guest house when we saw people sneaking away over the hill. She freaked and ran off, chasing them. They ran back into the house, but I can’t find her. She was convinced she saw Westbrook.”
“Then what are you worried about? Let her kill him. It’s what she wants. It’s why we’re here!”
“I don’t think she really saw him.”
“Did it not look like him?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen him. But Ali can’t tell… She doesn’t…” Sam curses again, tearing at his hair. “She sees things that aren’t there.”
“Are you kidding me?” I ask incredulously.
He shakes his head. “Hears things too. Not all the time, but when she’s stressed it can get bad.”
“Like during a war?!” I shout angrily.
Why would they do this to her? Why bring her here?
“Or surrounded by zombies for the first time in years, yeah.”
“Or losing Crenshaw,” Ryan grunts. He’s starting to sweat. I need to get him out of here.
“Well, screw it,” I say gruffly. I wedge myself under Ryan’s arm so he’s leaning heavy on me and I start to walk him forward. “I’m getting Ryan out of here. Can you cover us?”
“Can I use your ASP?” Sam asks, a tiny grin on his face.
I roll my eyes as I hand it over to him. “Yeah, whatever.”
We make it two steps. Two labored, difficult steps until we’re stopped dead by the scariest sound I’ve heard in a long time. A sound so terrifying and strange it makes me scream loud and long.
A gunshot.
I throw Ryan to the ground, then throw myself on top of him. He shouts in pain and surprise as my body pins his roughly, but I don’t care. I know it hurts him and I’m sorry for that, but a bullet will hurt worse and that’s not happening to him. Not on my watch. Not while I’m still breathing.
Everyone else in the room reacts to the sound in almost exactly the same way. Most hit the deck, and those who don’t, jump back and cower. Even the Vashons.
“Enough!” Alvarez shouts into the newly silent room.
He’s standing in the doorway. There’s a fine mist of dust floating down on top of him like snow. He’s holding a pistol in the air pointed at the sky and I realize the dust is bits of the ceiling he just blew a hole in. He looks around the room, surveying the situation. There are now eight bodies on the ground. The majority are obviously dead. Only one looks to be a Vashon.