Bo and the Beast (Book #1) (Completed)

5. Finding Dad

Bo whipped back into the empty room, heart pounding, and pulled her own door along with her. She left a small crack to peek through, though her blood was rushing so fast that she was surprised she could see anything at all. In fact, her angle wasn't the best, and most of what she saw was one of the pink marble pillars and a fraction of the staircase. She cursed that she hadn't thought to leave the door open a bit more to catch a glimpse of whoever it was that had come up from under the stairs, but it was too dangerous to risk any sort of movement.

With her limited view, Bo had to rely on her ears to locate where the person was. She heard a rumbling voice say something low and short, and then a chirrupy reply, though no words were at all distinguishable. Right after this exchange, movement caught her eye and she saw a blur of a dark shoulders and a camouflage jacket make its way up the stairs in practically a run. She saw nothing more than a flash of whoever it was, but they were massively tall. Even Aston would look small in comparison, which made Bo shift uncomfortably. If whoever it was had spotted her, she knew she'd be at an intense disadvantage. Thankfully, she seemed to have hidden fast enough that her presence was still unnoticed.

However, her worry for her dad was heightened as she wondered what that person had been doing in the room where her father's blood had led to. She knew she couldn't wait for much longer, especially with her injured knee protesting louder and louder with every passing second, but she had to stay put until she was sure that the massive person who had stalked up the stairs wasn't coming back down.

It took her five more minutes to feel safe enough that the person, and whoever their companion had been, were no longer in the hall. She slowly pushed the door open again, and saw that someone had flipped the overhead chandelier off and left the hall in the dimmer glow of lights mounted on the walls. This was perfect for Bo, who now had a few shadows to work with as she crept across the tiles and followed the blood smears straight to the faded door and its rusted doorknob.

She eased her way through the door and left it partially ajar behind her. The dim light from the entrance hall was enough to show her that she was standing on a landing above a flight of stairs leading down, not a room like she had originally thought. A slight breeze stirred her sweat-slicked hair, stirring up the scent of mold and damp, and the hardness of subterranean air. She put one cautious foot onto the first step, and cringed as the wood moaned and buckled under her weight. This was not a staircase used often, and as she trailed her fingers along the wall, feeling each bump and ripple in the peeling paint while she descended, she hoped she wouldn't be suddenly dropped to the bottom in a spray of splinters and dust.

When she finally reached the end of the stairs and was back on solid ground, she looked up to see that she was in a large room paved in cold cement. No decorations softened the hard stone walls or brightened the dark beams above. But none of this was what drew Bo's eyes. Instead, she could only stare at the row of heavy black prison cells lining the back wall. Each one was narrow and cramped, with no bedding or utilities like any modern prison. These were from ancient times, filled with straw and nothing else. They seemed somehow so much crueler than any bullet-proof glass and hardened plastic cell the Terra Preservation could throw someone in. These seemed so... primitive.

Shaking her head to clear it, Bo walked forward with new determination. Her dad had to be in here somewhere. The blood smears had disappeared after the stairs, but there was nowhere else he could have been taken. He was in one of the cells, and she scanned them as she walked.

And then, finally, near the middle of the room, she spotted him. He lay curled in a ball with his back to her. At the sight of his skinny shoulders and tufts of gray hair, Bo felt her already shaky knees turn to liquid underneath her. She forced them to keep going as she rushed the cell door and clung to the bars.

"Dad!" It was meant as a shout, but all the days of worry and lost hope slithered into her throat and strangled it until all that came out was a raspy croak. Tears blurred her vision, but she saw him turn slowly and stare at her as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. He pushed himself to his knees, his white hair quivering as he shook his head.

"What are you doing here?" he rasped.

"You were late coming back!" she replied. "If you hadn't turned your tracker back on, I would have never found you. Good thing my dad's the most resourceful scrounger out there." She grinned shakily.

He didn't return the gesture. In fact, his face went completely white, to the point where Bo reached through the bars to steady him before he fell over. As her hand pressed against his chest, she could feel the way his heart skittered beneath his ribs like a trapped rabbit. Worry flooded her as he gripped her hand in his and stared with wild eyes into her face.

"What do you mean, my tracker came back on?" His voice quivered up and down, weak and watery.

Bo's brows drew together. "Didn't you turn it on? So that we could find you?"

He shook his head, slow at first, and then frantic. "Bo, you have to leave right now."

"Of course. As soon as I can get you out," she said, pulling her hand away and reaching for her pistol. If she could blow the lock from his cell, they could make a run for it and try to get lost in the Dead Wood before the owner of the house could come to investigate.

"No, I mean now. Now, Bo!" He scrambled toward her, his left arm dragging limply and dripping blood. "You have to leave!"

"I'm not going to leave you behind," Bo said, pointing the pistol muzzle at the lock on the cell door. "Move over so I don't accidentally hit you with any shrapnel."

"You don't understand what's going on," her father said, his eyes flickering from her face to behind her, and back to her face. His panicked energy shook his body. "You don't know who lives here."

"Bandits don't scare me. I brought guns. We can make it," she said, ignoring the feeling of doubt in her own chest. 

"No, it's not- " His voice cut off as his eyes settled on something to her right. Bo suddenly realized that the silence in the room was somehow now... filled. This was not the silence of an empty room, but instead of a room waiting for the tension to snap with bloody violence.

Bo's blood ran cold and she only allowed herself one second to freeze up. One second to be scared. After that, she shoved the pistol through the bars to her father and unstrapped her rifle from her torso. They'd have to fight. Whoever it was, she wouldn't let them win. She'd get her father out, and they'd be home at the camp in a few days.

But instead of the sparks of fierceness that she knew her father possessed, his face crumpled and his hands shook. "Please, don't hurt her," he pleaded. He dropped the pistol she gave him and stepped away from the bars with his good arm raised in surrender. His eyes settled on her, the panic in them so acute that it made her own heart stutter. "Bo, just don't- "

She didn't wait for her father to try and talk her down. To bandits, she and her father were of no value. There would be no peaceful end to this confrontation. Best to take as many of them down with her as she could, even if they outnumbered her.

With rifle pressed against her shoulder, Bo spun on her heel, aiming at where she figured the nearest bandit's head might be. Her finger pressed on the trigger, ready to fire, but just before the ammunition power cells hummed to life, she saw she was not aiming at a bandit's head. In fact, she was aiming at a chest. A chest attached to a head that shimmered and pulsed with an otherworldly light. It was as if stars raced through the veins, creating a swirling pattern on dusky blue skin.

It was impossible. It should have been impossible. But an alien stood in front of her. A creature that should have left the planet with all the others when they retreated after losing the war that created the Blast Zone.