The Renegade

Chapter 25

 "Put your hands up and don't move a muscle!" the first guard yells, a heavily muscled man with short cropped black hair.

Instinctively, Luk and Ryke form a wall in front of Hayl. They found us. How? Was there some secret security measure we didn't know about? Did Ior or Audra betray us? What happened to Orrick and Elz? Either way, it doesn't matter. Father Paul's cronies have captured us and we're as good as dead. And we still don't know if Hayl's dissolution compound worked.

"I said hands up!" the guard barks again when Luk doesn't comply.

Luk tilts his head and crosses his arms over his muscular chest. "I'm Luk Adrian. I don't take orders from you."

The guard lifts the stalk of his gun and rams it into Luk's chest, backing him up a step. "You do now. Turn around and put your hands behind your back."

"What, gonna shoot me?" Luk says with a smirk. One of his hands inches closer to the gun at his belt. Blitz. If Luk shoots, all of the guards will too. This vault has steel walls--with bullets bouncing everywhere, we'll all die.

"Stand down, Mart," an older man with gray hair says, pulling the black-haired man back. "The Father wants him brought in alive." He nods at Luk and my blood runs cold. He didn't say a word about the rest of us.

"Well, in that case," Mart says, turning towards me with his gun cocked. "We can just shoot the girl if he doesn't want to cooperate." Mart swings the gun toward me and Luk jumps in front of it, grabbing the barrel.

"No, wait!" he yells, and Mart stops with a confident grin.

"I thought that might work. Ready to--"

Mart and the rest of the guards stop when they see Hayl, no longer hidden behind Luk. She kneels in front of the canister, but the plastic bottle is empty, the lid to the canister is off, and none of us are dead. It worked. Despite our situation, I grin. We succeeded. The gas is gone.

The older man curses and commands the guards to lock us up. None of us fights back--they know what we've done and we can't escape this underground vault. The guard who locks me up rips my gas mask off along with a few strands of hair. Does he understand what we've done? Obviously the older man recognized the significance of Hayl's handiwork, but maybe Paul's acolytes don't even know what he was planning, and now he's going to kill us before anyone can find out.

"In the elevator, let's go!" he barks and we're crammed inside the small box that lurches under our weight. Luk, Hayl, and I are taking up in the first load, and I watch as Tali and Ryke disappear beneath us. Will I ever see them again?

They might keep Luk, Hayl, and me alive long enough to learn how we figured out how to destroy the gas, but after that, they'll kill us. I have no idea how to keep us alive. We only found safety in Domus because we saved their children, but this time we've destroyed their most powerful weapon. Father Paul will be happy to see us go.

We exit the elevator on the Father's floor, but it's no longer quiet. Instead, guards flock the hallway and wait for us with weapons pointed. A motley band of civilians is now Domus's biggest threat. I search the crowd for a familiar face, and my eyes light on Audra, back in her black suit and looking as perky as ever. She's probably the only one of us whose loyalty hasn't been compromised.

I try to think fast--somehow, I need to find a way for Father Paul to let us leave Domus alive, but if no one knows we're in danger, he'll just kill us and claim it was an accident. I know Domus won't care if we die, but they will care if they find out about the gas.

Blackmail.

It's our only hope, but I can't tell Domus in chains. Audra is the only one who can, but she's the last person I trust right now. Still, I don't have any choice. I need to have something to hold over Father Paul's head to convince him to release us. Sure, the arctic wasteland outside Domus might kill us too, but at least we'll have a fighting chance.