US (Formerly The After Effect - Book 2)

43 - B U S T

"Will she come down h—"

"Come out, come out, friends," I hear in my head. Goosebumps raise up on my arms at Xena's taunt.

The other Five seem to ignore her voice, but it echoes in my head like a song I can't forget.

"Will she come down here?" I gasp.

"No," Brink replies. "She just wants us, that's it. I don't think she even knows how to get down here."

I take a deep breath of relief knowing we have some control over this situation. She will wait.

"I wouldn't say she'll be very patient," Brink affirms. "She'll torment the place."

I grit my teeth and shiver at the thought of her hurting all of these innocent people.

We slow down somewhat as the tunnel narrows. "It'll be okay," he adds.

"So are we just going to surrender after all we've gone through? All we've done?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "We need to try to get her to stay. Hopefully she's alone."

I gulp. That's the plan?

Suddenly I watch the key card slots illuminate blue on each door as we pass them. The light is returning.

"Is she giving us our power back?"

Brink glimpses at Zeriah who is abnormally sweaty and a funny white color. I've never seen him so off.

"I think Zeriah has been begging," Brink says with a roll of his eyes.

"Well it worked, didn't it?" Zeriah fires back with a golden glare.

The gravity of the space turns harsh and uncomfortable as we pass familiar doors on our way out: lockup, the decontamination and sorting room.

"We're getting close," notes Travis. "It's up through this door."

Once we met up with the other Five, Travis has been surprisingly quiet. He usually has something to say about everything. I nearly forgot he was with us.

I wonder if he's scared.

"Right there!" cries Stella. "I see it!" She throws her pointer finger out at the door ahead.

As anxious as we are to get it open, we all stop in our tracks when we approach it, clueless. I'm guessing this is the part where we're supposed to "wing it."

After a good three second pause, Travis shoves around those in his way, digging in his pants pocket. He retrieves what looks to be his key card, and I cock my head. He told me he wouldn't have clearance here.

We all hold our breaths as Travis holds the card up to the sensor and the light goes green, prompting the door to unlatch and pop forward.

The wide eyes and raised brows last milliseconds before the adrenaline kicks in for the next phase: unscrewing the vault. As we jog toward the massive metal beast, I expel a sigh everyone can hear. Now, we wing it.

Before I step up to the plate, I can't help but ask Travis how we got through, despite everyone else's lack of interest in the matter.

"One of those Secret Service douche bags had one," he mumbles.

So he pulled me away from the president because he knew we had what we needed? And here I thought...

I want to say "thank you," but the words don't surface, so I swallow the thought, and steer my concentration back to the task at hand. This huge, heavy barrier keeping us in for good is about to open. If it opens, all of these people's lives will be at stake. More innocent civilians may be hurt in the process of what we're about to do. More guilt. More hurt. More destruction could ensue if we follow through with this. Sure we gave them the recipe for the antidote, but if no one is left, what's the point?