“Hi Ace!” she says smiling and giving him a wave.
She walks around, her eyes darting to the smoke coming from the basement door behind me.
“Still got some time to kill,” she laughs.
“Is that Ryker’s first mate?” Amanda asks just as she lunges at me with inhuman speed, slamming me into the glass cell behind me. The air being smashed out of my lungs from the force. Tate and Drake smashing into the cell glass trying to get out when her fist connects with my face. I try to shift.
“We can’t! We can’t shift!” Amanda screams
“Why?”
“I don’t know! I just know we can’t.” she says. She slams my head into the ground and I see black for a few seconds. Only to come to when her hook goes through my shoulder and she flings me, my body hitting the cell door everyone was trapped in.
“She is so much stronger than us!” I gasp getting to my feet and spinning just as her foot comes flying at our face. I let my claws slip free, swiping them down her face and she screams before pivoting and kicking me in the chest. My body goes flying into the cement wall before landing on the floor in a heap. My head is searing in pain as it smashes against the wall.
“She is a vampire!,” Amanda screams which would explain why she is so much faster than us. Hybrids were the greatest predator but vampires were faster. I crawl to my hands and knees just in time to see her foot come toward my face. I put my arm up to block it, feeling my arm snap as it is thrown into my own face, my nose breaking along with it, when she grabs my hair.
“Must suck, knowing your daughter is down there drowning!” she screams before grabbing my head in a headlock with her arm. She tries to cut my throat with her hook and I manage to grab her robotic arm just as it knicks my throat.
I yank on the metal and she flips over the top of me landing on her back. I rush toward her only for her to kick me in the face as she twists quickly. My head snapped back so fast I felt my neck crack.
R yker
We couldn’t find her. We looked everywhere. The cells unlocking when the water reached our necks before the water was finally shut off. Tyson found the water main. We only had to force the doors open enough to let them squeeze through. Tate raced out as he gripped kids’ hands making a chain and pulling them out.
“Ryker we need to get out!” he wheezes.
“Not until I know for sure she isn’t down here!” I call back. I could no longer feel Brax. My wolf was completely gone, from all the wolfsbane.
Ignoring the pain ravaging my body, I felt like I had been doused in acid. I check all the rows of cells when I notice one door right at the back still not opened yet. I swam toward it, swallowing the poisonous water and choking, blood spewing out of my mouth as the wolfsbane burnt my lungs and tongue. I look in the cell to the bunk beds yet didn’t see anyone inside. I move to the next row, the last one in this maze of corridors.
When I hear Tate scream from the exit.
“Ryker! Get out now!” he screams, just as I just make out the door slamming shut, cutting off his screams.
I was just about to turn around when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Something moving under the blanket in the last cell. “Lucy?” I gasp, before choking on more water.
I swam to the door, which was still shut, before trying to pry it open. But it was near impossible without Tate here to help pull it against the water.
I bang on the glass, the bundle of fabric moving, before a tear stricken face appears from under the blanket looking back at me. She looks toward me before looking at the water that had reached the top bunk. She puts her foot in the water before jerking it back onto the bed.
I wave to her trying to get her attention and tell her to stay on the bed. She nods her head staring at me as I try to jerk the door open, yet it doesn’t budge. When something touches my foot. I look down to see one of Tate’s mens dead bodies beneath the surface. One of the many we found as they tried to save the kids. Without hybrid genes, I would be dead for sure, so would Tate and Drake without being marked by Lana.
I grab the handle, lifting my legs and pressing them on either side of the door, on the glass. Using my legs to push off, the door slowly creaked open, the water from inside dropping and pushing toward me through the gap as it rushed out. I pull until my legs are fully extended before letting go. My shoulder was torn and bleeding, tearing under the pressure as the wolfsbane burned my skin.
I squeeze through the gap, “Lucy?” I breathe getting over to her. She stares at me wondering how I know her name. “You know my name?” She asks.
“I have been looking for you everywhere! My name is Ryker, and I know your mummy,” I tell her. Her multi-colored eyes lighting up before she looks at the water.
“The water. It burns,” she says looking at my shoulders and arms covered in blood.
“I know. I know sweetie. But I need you to hang on to me so I can get you out of here,” I tell her. She shakes her head scooting back on the bed.
My entire body was burning so badly, I could feel the wolfsbane eating my skin away. I would hate to think what my body looked like from the chest down.
“You want to see your mummy right? I can take you to her. But I need you to come here. I will be quick, I promise,” I tell her reaching for her.
She nods her head, grabbing my hands before crying out as the wolfsbane burns her. I jerk her toward me before she can retreat. Her screams break my heart as the wolfsbane burns her. I lifted her, placing her on my shoulders yet I couldn’t do anything to protect her legs. Her hands went to my chin as she clutched it. The wolfsbane burning my face from her hands.
“Duck,” I tell her, as I squeeze through the door and she does.
I start swimming back toward the stairs leading out, trying not to splash her. my entire body becoming weaker. I had spent way too much time in the water, my eyes blurring as I try to see where to go. My breathing got worse, as I started coughing. I could taste the metallic liquid of my blood as it stained the water in front of me red.
I grip the railing, reaching out for it before using it to lead me to the stairs, and to stop myself slipping under the water. I crawl up the steps before slumping my top half just out of water. She climbs off my shoulders just before I collapse.
“Ryker!” I hear her cry out, tugging on my face and lifting it out of the water.
“Follow the stairs,” I gasp, more blood choking me as it gets trapped in my throat. My head is spinning, when I feel her step in the water. She screams before I feel her tiny hands grabbing my shirt, trying to pull me up the steps.
“Please! Just a few more steps.” she cries. She grabs my hand off the railing tugging on it.
“You have to help!” she cries, and I muster the little strength I have left. Pushing off the steps as she pulls my body from the water, as she falls backwards on the steps.
“You look so much like her,” I tell her. She peers down at me before pulling my top lip up.
“You’re like me.” she says, and I feel my head roll to the side. My eyes growing heavy as they close, before I feel skin press to my fangs. Making my eyes flutter open as it scrapes across my canines. Blood flooding into my mouth. I grab it while drinking from the source. My senses overtaking as blood rushes into my mouth.
I could feel myself growing stronger as I drank greedily. Feel my wounds healing, when I hear a cry making my eyes open to see her face peering over me. I lift my legs pulling them from the water and sitting up.
She jerks her wrist away from me, watching me warily and I take a deep breath. Trying to fight the bloodlust, urging me to kill her. I look up the stairs. I reached for her, my arms still burning but most of them healed. Yet I still felt weak, when I saw Aamon still stuck on the steps.
I get up grabbing Lucy’s hand, pulling her up the steps toward him. I grab his arm tossing it over shoulder and Lucy tries lifting him. Managing to help hold him up against me as we step into the corridor, yet all I saw was darkness. The door was shut, and the lights out. I place him on the bottom of the steps before racing up them, and trying to pry the door open. I bang on it.
“We can’t open it!” I just make out through the door. “Fuck!” I cuss before realizing Lucy was with me. I race back down and nearly trip over Aamon on the steps. I slap him, and, nothing.
I shake him trying to rouse him awake. “Come on buddy!” I tell him, slapping his face.
He groans yet doesn’t wake, when an idea crosses my mind. He had devils bane in his system. I just had to remove it. I sink my fangs into him and nearly throw up at the vile taste of burnt hair, as it flooded my mouth. Yet I force it down, not only needing his disgusting blood. But also needing to rid him of the devil’s bane. He jerks before gripping my face and shoving me off.
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