Ryan and I glance at each other. At first, we don't obey, and we keep our guns drawn at Isabelle. However, the look in her eyes is a clear indication that she's not bluffing. I consider she has two guns facing her. If she wants to get out of this alive, then it's wise if she listens to us. I must also consider that she knows where our fathers are and is the only one in the universe who knows their location. We have no choice. After finally lowering our guns, bending down to drop them, we push them across the floor towards the villain. Isabelle catches them with her foot and starts relishing the amount of power she has. The weapon in her hand, more prominent than Ryan's pistol and my handgun, is more deadly than ours put together.
"What are you doing here?" Ryan demands.
"Tying up loose ends," Isabelle says.
"You're president of the Exchurch!" Ryan barks. "You were supposed to protect the Orichalcum. So why didn't you?"
"Why would I?" Isabelle retorts. "The Orichalcum has been safe in my possession for almost a year now. I only needed Maxwell so he could teach me how to use it. Unfortunately for Frankie, I forgot to explain that part of the job description to him. Poor guy. Frankie had a lot of knowledge of traveling to Earth because of his father's connections to Nightfire. It made him the perfect man to frame."
"You never intended Frankie to be on your side," Ryan confronts. "You needed someone to frame when the Orichalcum went supposedly missing. You used him."
"I hate Frankie," Isabelle says slowly. "The poor, oblivious kid listened to anything I said to him after he was promised a spot on Nightfire. Even the gullible Seekers believed me. For a while, at least. I must admit, Sagittarius, putting Frankie into a coma like that put a jab in my plans. And taking out the biochip I had him plant in you...You're very clever." She's trying to hold in how impressed she is with me, but I can tell it's triggering her. "But as for your father, Noah Devlin, I have bigger plans with him."
"And what about Luka?" Ryan outbursts. "Where is he?"
"I assume he's with Noah by now," says Isabelle. "Sag, I told you from the very beginning to stay out of this, but you and your new friends just couldn't stay away." She points her gun at Ryan. "Now...Let's see how concerned you are about the Nightfire elite team." She fires the weapon at Ryan before I have a chance to scream. The bullets are raucous, reverberating against my ears, yet Ryan doesn't react to them. The rounds crush against his chest and bounce off! Like Superman! I release a smile from the outcome.
"Ryan's muscles can operate at a cybernetic level," Isabelle lectures like she expected the aftermath. "The level of their strength can vary greatly. From the outside, he looks completely normal and not a bodybuilder. He's not, though. It's just genetic modification." She tucks away her intricate pistol and pulls out an Amorcore! An Amorcore!
"Now this gun," Isabelle explains, pointing at Ryan. "Is an invention from Kor, the Covenant Leader himself. It deteriorates the muscles."
"DON'T!" I bark. "Please, can you just put down the gun and talk to us? What do you want?" I can't sound more desperate than I already am.
Isabelle's eyes are full of amusement. With a grimace, she glances at me and is ready to pull the trigger. Ryan maintains the terror in his eyes and doesn't say a word. Momentarily, she doesn't take her eyes off him, and their staring contest becomes dreading. "What could he possibly want with you?" she mutters, mysteriously indicating Ryan. I'm perplexed by what she means, and clearly, so is he. Neither of us has enough time to ask. Because Isabelle fires the gun, and I hear Ryan outburst a, "NO!"
Three things happen simultaneously after she pulls the trigger. First, I flick my fingers toward Ryan's direction. A forcefield, quick and almost sharp, appears in front of him like a bodyguard. And whatever bullets were supposed to deteriorate his muscles backfire—bouncing off the forcefield— strike Isabelle from the outside in.
It's graphic!
Steam rises from Isabelle's face, making a sizzling sound. Her skin melts away as if someone had poured hydrochloric acid on her. Her blood boils to a point until it evaporates. I can see her muscles rising to the surface and then completely breaking apart. She momentarily tries to cover her face with her arms, but those break off. The Orichalcum rolls across the floor without a scratch. What's now left of her entire body is hot and sticky flesh, a skeleton, and black hair strands.
Dazed, all I can think of is the brilliance of what I just did. The only reaction that comes from me is a startling gasp of glee. "I—I did it!" The unimaginable cleverness printed behind Ryan's eyes makes me smile even more. "I did it!"
"I saw you," Ryan says indifferently, squatting to retrieve the Orichalcum. It's safe with us but a terrifying artifact to have possession of. "What are we going to do about finding our dads?" Ryan grunts. "Our only lead is dead."
"Maybe not." I run over to Isabelle's disturbing body and kneel. Her body is boiling enough to where it burns when I touch her. Carefully, I try pulling out the pager with two fingers. It's sticky, bloody, covered in a few pieces of hair, but to my surprise, it still works.
Even Ryan is shocked. "You're joking." He snatches the pager from me. He must be immune to that burning heat. He wipes off the blood and flesh, turns it on, and a virtual display rises out of the screen. "She's been talking to someone. I still might be able to get the I.P. address, but—"
"Ryan!" I dash over to the window in a panic. "Someone's coming."
Ryan rushes to the window with me. Outside, a car drives by, a teenager rides her bicycle without a helmet on, and a group of Seekers crosses the street towards the house. Leading them is a strong, incredibly muscular man wearing a gray tank top, army pants, and black boots. His veins are bulging out of his arms and head like caterpillars, a sure sign he's not looking forward to this visit.
"A'Dimsyte," Ryan mutters under his breath, stepping back. He takes me by the shoulders and shoves me back into the sanctum. "We need to leave!" he says urgently. "Now!"
"The warp gate!" I can already hear the front door open as we dart back to the sanctum. "Go, go, go!"
"Wait!" cries Ryan, skipping steps down. His adrenaline causes him to stutter. "The cr-cryogenic! Alex told us to use that to leave!"
That makes sense to me. If we use a warp gate to arrive underground, Seekers will catch us within a heartbeat. I instantaneously run through my father's sanctum without questioning Ryan's authority. He looks around desperately until his eyes rest on the hidden door. He runs ahead, I enter the next room with him, and we don't turn back. The sound of Seekers racing through my house flashes me back to when they abducted me the first time. That's when I glance around, but Ryan slams the door shut behind him.
"Come on!" Ryan says, approaching the warp gate.
The coffin is almost frightening to look at. Like it's my death bed. The paranoia Jace always mentions—that it's possible to get lost and wake up years later without aging a day—always lingers in the back of my head.
"I'll be right behind you! Get in!" Ryan orders. "Hurry! Alex is going to activate them for us."
I'm too impressed with Alex's skills even to question if he can surely do that from where he is. Trusting Ryan, taking a leap of faith, I lift open one of the cryogenics and strap myself in. After closing it, my mind wanders to Alex again, picturing him turning it on and then unavoidably freezing me. Does he even know that we're here right now? Does he have us tracked? Is he capable of hacking multiple cameras at once to view our whereabouts? Because he must be watching us somehow, and he better hurry before the Seekers find us down here. Time is ticking.
With my heart pounding inside my chest, as I frantically look around my claustrophobic space, the cryogenics chamber turn on. Indeed, this is Alex's doing. The frost freezes me instantly; I feel my body burn for a split second, and everything goes black.
When I wake up, Alex opens the coffin for me. I'm gasping for air like I just finished holding my breath underwater for two whole minutes. The bones in my back crack as I sit up and move out of the cryogenic quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the shock from freezing into time is difficult to snap out of. At first, I think I'm back at Seeker Headquarters. However, when I start wandering around, I realize I'm on the Athena spacecraft. The windows show a breathtaking view of a bright interstellar highway with a riot of colors and trillions of stars. Traveling at the speed of light, Jace sits in the pilot's seat with his hands on the wheel. JT is his co-pilot, assisting him with the navigation. But it's more like back seating.
It doesn't take long for Ryan to arrive the same way I did. He, Alex, and I enter the control room where Jace and JT are. That just leaves Chris, the only warrior on the elite team who isn't present. Right when I'm about to ask his location, Ryan abruptly shoves past me and pulls out the pager Isabelle had been using, her melted flesh even now still boiling.
"Alex!" Ryan says to him urgently. "I need you to trace something."
Alex draws the pager from him, staring at it as if covered in drool. "What did you do to it?" he asks, repositioning his glasses with one finger.
"I don't wanna know," Ryan replies.
"Let me see what I can do."
I watch Alex curiously as he leaves the control room. In the next quarter, he grabs a hard drive he must use for hacking. He connects it with the pager, plugging a cable into one of the outlets. Then he works his magic. During the process, I hear him mumble, "Is that all you got?" As if he ran into a disappointing obstacle. Within a second, he figures out the location of the person who had been contacting Isabelle. "Got it!" he announces.
"Who was calling that pager?" Ryan demands.
"I only have an I.P. address," Alex weakly admits. "It's coming from High Crown."
JT snaps his head around from his seat. "In the Nebula Armstrong galaxy?" It sounds like he doesn't believe what he's hearing. "But that's where Maxwell lives. You don't think he knows where Luka is, do you?"
Alex shrugs. "One way to find out. Jace, you need to fly us there, now."
"Are you serious?" Jace asks; I can hear the hilarity in his tone.
"A'Dimsyte is chasing us," Ryan calmly reminds us. "You gotta fly us somewhere. Luka could be over there!"
"They'll launch missiles at us a mile away, won't they?" Jace warns. "I don't think the Athena can travel to different galaxies undetected. The technology is only for the Milky Way."
"Can't you hack their security systems?" I ask, glancing at Alex.
He shakes his head. "I mean, I could...but it'll take days. Luka won't have that long. You guys do realize this is a suicide mission."
"But what about my dad?" I demand. "How long do you think he has?"
The four Nightfire elite warriors present me troubling gazes. I'm not sure what I just said that caused the mood to change, but the dumb look Ryan is giving me is offending. "How stupid can you possibly get?" he asks.
My shoulders lift. "What am I missing?"
"Sag..." Jace tries to explain the situation quickly, but Ryan's mocking overpowers him.
"Noah Devlin is the villain everyone needs to watch out for," Ryan says. "And if you ever listened to anyone, you would know Isabelle was at your house to tie up loose ends. Sag, they're all conspiring together to take over our universe. Don't you get it yet?" His frustration to knock sense into me starts to implode.
"Alex, just tell me how exactly we're going to get there untraced!" The impatience in Jace's sharp tone ends our small argument. "Where am I landing exactly?"
Alex sighs. "I don't know...."
"Screw it!" Jace grunts. "I'm flying in strong. If they missile us, too bad. Everyone get ready to evacuate! I'm going in!"
"Wait! Wait! Wait!" I cry frantically. A marvelous idea arrives in my mind. "We can use the cryogenics to get there! JT knows former Cluster members in High Crown who can help us, right? That's how we got out of there last time!"
JT gives me a sharp look. He doesn't want to be reminded of the past.
"We're not going to the Cluster's Stronghold, Sag. This is High Crown." Jace says patiently, flushing my so-called marvelous idea down the toilet. "JT isn't really fond by anyone here."
"Not true. I do know someone," JT says, and then his eyes come to light. "Actually—" He breaks off, as if an idea, cleverer than mine, inspires him to do even the most dangerous things. "We won't even have to use the cryogenics," he rambles. "You guys remember Sapphire, don't you?"
I obviously don't, but the others know who he's talking about. "Who's Sapphire?" I ask.
"One of JT's old friends," Jace says. "She's a technopath and can control technology with her mind."
"If I can reach her," JT mumbles slowly, "we can arrive there untraced! Jace, hurry! For all we know, they have the Orichalcum by now and are planning some kind of—"
"But Ryan and I found the Orichalcum!" I outburst.
Our constant brainstorming comes to a sudden halt. Even Jace, who turns around from his pilot see, but then quickly whirls back to see where he's navigating. "Y-you and Ryan did what?" he asks disbelievingly.
"Isabelle did have it," Ryan confirms.
"Bull," JT mutters.
"She was trying to frame Frankie," Ryan explains. "But I don't know what big plans she has for Noah. If you ask me—"
"Show it to me," Alex whispers urgently.
When Ryan pulls out the Orichalcum, presenting it to everyone in his palm, it's like we can hear a gentle sound of angels singing Hallelujah.