Steel Lily ARC (34 page)

The flame danced in my hand as we crouched in the damp tunnel. I ran my free hand along the caked earth that surrounded us on both sides. A thick cable ran the length of the tunnel in the upper right corner of the ceiling.

“What’s that cable for?”

We’d been trekking the tunnel for what seemed ages, and it was beginning to take its toll on both of us. Jaxon’s answer came in short huffs. “It’s a generator. A backup source of energy, should the main breakers surge.”

“Does that happen often?”

“Only when a new Elementalist comes in and doesn’t know how to control their abilities. Otherwise, this place is equipped for anything.”

It made sense that Riggs would take every precaution. Another thought struck me. “Won’t he know we’re coming?”

“I doubt it. He expects us to return I’m sure, but from here? Probably not.”

Jaxon gasped in pain as he tripped over an uneven patch on the ground. I moved forward to help him, but he waved me off.

“Just keep the light high enough so I can see the way.”

“It’d be easier if you let me lead.”

Jaxon laughed. “There’s no way you’re leading. If something bad is going to happen, I’m going to see it first so you have time to run.”

He set off again, this time clutching his bad shoulder. The tourniquet slowed the bleeding, but it wasn’t completely stopped. He needed medical attention, and the sooner, the better.

The tunnel began to ascend enough to make my thighs burn with each step. The sweat that had originated at the nape of my neck created tiny rivulets down my spine and soaked through my shirt at the small of my back. The tunnel lightened and my eyes stung as I adjusted to the new light source; a light bulb dangling from its cord at the dead end tunnel.

“Jaxon, I thought you said this went to Xander’s office?”

“It does.” He said, then rapped on the wooden plank in front of us that was nailed to a door with no handle on our side. The sound was muted, and I wondered if anyone would be able to hear us.

The wood began to squelch in the wet earth as it was pushed to the side. A moment later, Xander stood before us, disheveled and sweaty.

Jaxon stumbled through the new passageway, and took in Xander’s appearance. “What the hell happened to you? You look like you got beat with an ugly stick.”

Xander was in his white medical coat, which was caked with dirt and refuse and blood, and his hair was sticking up on the side of his head. “You two don’t look so hot yourself, to be honest.”

I gasped. “Were you in the tornado?”

He smiled crookedly and crossed his arms, seemingly amused by Jaxon and I showing up on his hidden doorstep. “Trying to find you, as it were.”

Jaxon slumped over the examining table in the center of the room. He pointed to his maimed shoulder. “Well here we are. Medical attention would be appreciated, Doc.”

“An intentional desire to keep yourself and your friends out of trouble would be appreciated as well,” Xander said sternly. Even so, the smile of relief that spread across his face revealed his affection for Jaxon. He undressed Jaxon’s wounds with a quick look back to me as he pointed to the sleeve of my jacket. “Good job working with what you had at the moment.”

I shrugged. “It didn’t do much.”

Xander returned to Jaxon’s wounds. “It helped stem the blood loss. That’s something.” He ripped what was left of Jaxon’s t-shirt from the frayed collar clear down to the hem. Jaxon made a noise in protest, but Xander stopped him. “You weren’t going to lift your arm over your head, were you?”

When Jaxon remained silent, I smiled. I looked for Legs in the small alcove across the room, but he was nowhere to be found. “Where’s Legs?”

Xander’s eyes never left the sutures he was now sewing in Jaxon’s shoulder. “I hid him when the dome threatened to cave in on itself. It seemed cruel to have saved him from that fate once, only to have it happen again.”

His hands moved deftly along Jaxon’s wounds as he fixed one laceration after another. I watched Jaxon in amazement; he never once cried out or winced when Xander pierced his flesh time and time again with the small needle, threading the black stitches under his skin and back out the other side. When it became too much to watch, I moved to sit in one of the lounge chairs.

That’s when our unwelcoming party arrived.

Riggs burst through the doors, his face burning with rage and his eyes wild. Luckily Xander was no longer in the process of stitching Jaxon up, because they both jumped from the crash of the glass door shattering when it hit the wall.

Shards of glass tinkered across the floor and crunched under Riggs’s feet as he strode angrily toward Jaxon. When he reached the bed, he slammed his fist on the metal tray that stood beside him with the instruments used to piece Jaxon back together. A scalpel and tweezers went soaring through the air, the scalpel lodging itself in the wooden stand beside me.

“Jaxon Pierce, you have finally crossed the line.”

Jaxon squared his jaw and stared into the face of his livid father. “Funny, since you crossed the line with me long ago.”

“Jaxon,” Xander muttered under his breath.

Riggs grabbed Jaxon by his good arm, pulled him off the table and gripped him tight. Jaxon seemed to shrink under Riggs’s grasp.

Riggs shook him, but was careful to leave his mangled shoulder alone. “Do you know how worried I’ve been? How I’ve wondered if I would have to send people out to find your lifeless body under a pile of rubble? Do you respect me at all, Jaxon? Do you?”

Jaxon’s emotionless tone broke my heart. “Not at all.”

Pain spasmed across Riggs’s face. His concern seemed genuine; his love for Jaxon visible for the first time since I’d met them. Then, like a veil, anger clouded the distress and the Riggs that I knew returned.

“You’ve broken my heart, Jaxon. Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve given you, and this is how you repay me.” He paced in front of Jaxon and ran his hands through his hair, his eyes stormy.

Riggs focused on Xander, whose face was blank and impassive. While his words fit with what he might say to Jaxon, they seemed to be aimed at Xander. “Fine. Fine. You’ve given me no choice.”

Just then Sari burst into the room, breathless and wide-eyed. She stared at me, shocked. “Holy crap on a cracker! I got here as fast as I could when I saw you two on the screen!”

I tried to wave her off, but she continued on, her ink-covered arms waving in all directions.

“You know how I told you shit was gonna hit the fan? You have NO idea what—”

Another boy sprinted into the room and covered Sari’s head with a black pillowcase. She screamed as Asher or Evan—I couldn’t tell who—wrapped her in his arms and looked toward Riggs expectantly. “She’s the one, right?”

Riggs nodded grimly. “You were supposed to get her
before
she made it here, Asher.”

Of course it was Asher. He was the one that seemed like he had a stick up his butt at the ill-fated breakfast.

He flushed as he struggled to keep Sari under control. “Sorry.” He dodged a flail from Sari and repositioned his grip. “She left her office so fast, it caught me off guard.”

Riggs scowled. “What’s done is done. Take her to my office. Bind her tightly.” He stalked over to Jaxon and pulled the all-access key card from his pocket. “You won’t be needing this any more. Asher, take this as well.”

Asher took the card and dragged Sari, kicking and screaming, from the room. I had been in such shock that I’d stood there and let my friend be hauled away. The realization sprung me into action.

“You evil bastard!” I screamed as I ran toward Riggs.

Riggs shoved Jaxon aside, where he crashed into the counters and sent a barrage of gauze and wraps tumbling from the cabinets. Jaxon crumpled, his hand covering his reopened shoulder in agony.

While I was distracted by Jaxon’s pain, Riggs had the opportunity to grab me by the shoulders. “Don’t you think for a second that you can talk like that. You and your mother aren’t
that
irreplaceable.”

Xander’s cold voice cut through the room. “I’ll take care of them.”

Riggs stopped cold and released me. “Alexander, this is what you hired me to do. To handle —”

“But you’re not handling it,” Xander said quietly. “I’ve seen what you’ve done, allowing Avery to meet her parents, leaving notes and hints in your drawers and on your computer for Alice and Sari to uncover the truth. If you’re unhappy with your lot, you could have said so. It would have kept your son out of it.”

My mind reeled. I looked at Jaxon, whose mouth was agape.

“What do you mean, kept me out of it?” Jaxon said as he pushed off the ground. He put himself between Xander and Riggs. “Xander, what are you talking about?”

Riggs’s voice was hard. “Go ahead, tell him, Xander. Tell him what a two-faced coward you are.”

Xander laughed. “You call me the coward? You’re the one who’s gone along with the lie his entire life.”

“WHAT LIE?” Jaxon roared.

Xander walked over to me coolly and lifted me to my feet. “That your father ran the Academy. That he planned any of this. Chromelius Academy is mine, and you will follow my orders, just as you father has for the past eleven years.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

My world was upside down. Xander was the one running the Academy?

We’d put our trust in the hands of the devil himself.

Run!
My mind screamed, but as I tried to move, Xander put me in a headlock. I struggled to free myself, but his grip was iron-tight.

Riggs placed himself between Jaxon and Xander. “You will not hurt my son. That was our agreement.”

Xander laughed. “And you also agreed to unwavering loyalty. Your actions are treacherous at best. Get out of my way.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Don’t tempt me, Atticus.”

Xander backhanded Riggs with so much force that Riggs crumpled to the ground.

Jaxon stumbled backward. “Xander, what are you doing?”

He didn’t answer Jaxon’s question. Instead, he grabbed Jaxon’s bad shoulder, causing Jaxon to yell in agony.

Tears streamed down my face and I kicked and punched every available part of Xander I could find. “Xander, Jaxon’s like a son to you!”

Riggs jolted after hearing my words. “Jaxon is
my
son, and no one else’s!”

He lunged at Xander once more, but Xander was too fast. He kicked Riggs in the face, and there was a sickening crunch. Riggs laid still on the floor, blood pooling around his nose and mouth.

“Xander! What are you doing?” I screamed.

No response. Instead, he covered my head with a pillowcase and dragged both Jaxon and I out of the room and into the dark hallway. Still, I screamed and yelled and begged him to listen to me.

My throat went hoarse and tears soaked the collar of my shirt as the one person we thought we could trust betrayed us.

***

Blackness encompassed everything like a thick blanket. Where was I? Water dripped and splashed into a puddle somewhere nearby, and the smell of damp underground filled my nostrils.

My hands were manacled behind my back. I attempted to call out, but a strip of bulky fabric gagged me. Panic filled my veins, freezing them in icy fear. Where was Jaxon? Sari? Anyone?

I jerked against my bonds, and the cold metal cut into my wrists as I pulled against the manacles time and time again. Cuts bled and lubricated the manacles, spurring me to try even harder to free myself despite the pain. My wrists burned and pain surged through my forearms. Still I fought.

After what felt like an eternity, I gave up on escaping and instead began to examine what I could of my surroundings in the pitch-black darkness. The ground was rough and felt like cement. I grasped the thick, rusty chain that linked my hands to the cuffs, and followed it to the wall a few feet away. There the chain was cemented into the ground, the thick circular end half sunk in the hard floor.

My bound hands found the wall, and I slid to the floor in defeat. I whipped my head from side to side in an attempt to free my mouth from the gag, but the movements only made it sink further in. Chokes wracked my body, causing the chains to rattle and echo through the room. As tears of defeat welled in my eyes, I heard a shuffle.

Each footstep got louder and echoed against the walls. I pushed myself into the corner, the chill from the damp walls seeping through my already ruined clothes.

Suddenly light burst into the room, blinding me. I shielded my face against my battered shoulder, all the while wishing my arms weren’t restrained behind my back.

Xander stood in his medical jacket, hands behind his back. “Well, well, the spunky loner from Dome Four has finally broken. I thought it would take more than this, but maybe you’re not made of the caliber I thought. You mother certainly took longer to break,” he laughed as he kneeled down to my level and took out my gag. “Now do you understand why you’ll follow my orders? You don’t want to end up in a place like this forever, do you?”

“Go to hell, Xander.”

“If you’re not careful, that attitude will get your parents locked in the cell right beside you.”

I was terrified on the inside, but I refused to let Xander see it. I jutted my chin upward in defiance. “They would rather be there than follow any orders from you. From the Resistance.”

“Don’t act like you know the Resistance.”

“I know you’re part of them, and that they ruined our world. My parents won’t have anything to do with that, and neither will I.”

Xander shook his head in amusement. “Oh, I’m more than a part of the Resistance, love. I’m
am
the Resistance, and you will do as I say. That’s why I brought you here, after all.”

“I’ll die before I help you.”

“No, you won’t. I won’t let you,” he said coldly. “You may not help me physically, but I have your blood, which seems to be the key to creating more Elementalists. I’ll keep you alive, chained here in this cell, fed through an IV if you refuse to eat. You see, you’re more use to me here than if I were to put you into harm’s way.”

He stroked my cheek, and I turned away. He
tsked
. “Such a beautiful face. Shame you almost always wear a frown.”