"Okay. Does everyone remember the plan?"
Zarah wasn't entirely sure how she'd ended up here: crouched inside the trashed Coffee Club with two revolvers strapped to her waist, just around the corner from the police station.
After Riley fled yesterday, it'd taken Danny and Zarah an hour to get back to his apartment, and another for Cassandra to return. Zarah wasn't sure where Cassandra had disappeared to, or what she'd done, but when she came back all the vulnerability Riley had dredged up was gone, hidden behind that steely calm Zarah was used to seeing.
It hadn't taken Danny long to give Cassandra the rundown on what they'd found out. Outrage had filled Cassandra's expression, ardent enough to rival Danny's.
And then, they'd started planning.
"Zarah?"
Zarah looked up to find Danny and Cassandra watching her, their faces carefully neutral. They were dressed in black, with weapons slung across their chests, around their waists.
They looked deadly, competent, and Zarah flushed.
"Yes," Zarah said, swallowing down the unease. "I remember the plan. We get in and out. We don't stop for anyone except Leah or Jared."
Cassandra and Danny nodded, completely calm, and Zarah felt the abyss that separated her from them as if it had taken physical form.
Cassandra and Danny had done this sort of thing enough times that it was almost second nature to them. When they'd gone to bed last night, they'd slept peacefully. When they ate this morning, they'd enjoyed it.
In comparison, Zarah had spent the night staring out the window, shaky breaths fogging the glass; and her breakfast had been nothing more than a glass of water, metallic on her tongue.
"Remember," Cassandra said, clapping Zarah on the back and giving an encouraging smile. "Whatever you do here isn't permanent. Everyone's already dead. Everyone will come back. You're not going to ruin anyone's lives."
Zarah swallowed and looked down at her gun. She knew Cassandra was right. Death didn't mean the same thing here that it did in the live world, simply because the consequences weren't so irreversible. But she'd always clung to the rules that'd governed her former life, anyway. Most people here did.
"I know," Zarah said.
"Good." Cassandra stood, slinging one of her guns out and cocking it. "You just need to hold up the back. Danny and I will do most of the work."
Zarah nodded and Cassandra climbed out the broken window before Zarah could baulk again.
Danny hovered a moment longer. His eyes were undulating plain of grey-green; heavy with worry.
"You don't need to come, you know," he said. "You can wait here. Cassandra and I will manage."
Zarah looked up at him, at the careful way he watched her, and felt something inside her loosen.
This wasn't what she wanted. Not at all. Ever since her parents disappeared, she'd wanted nothing more than to curl into the foetal position and sleep until this was over. But Danny and Cassandra were perhaps the only chance the world had left, and if they needed her help, there wasn't really a choice.
"It's fine," she said. "I'm coming."
Before Danny could ask again, she stood, stepping past him and over the broken glass. Danny's body brushed hers for a second, his breath ghosting along the shell of her ear, and then she was outside, pressing back against the wall of the shop and following Cassandra's slow progression towards the police station.
They darted around the corner of the building, climbing over the fence to the back alley of the next shop, and then the next. As they closed in, Zarah took brief glimpses of the station. One officer stood outside the gates, another slouched against a column beside the front door. None walked the perimeter, or guarded the roof.
Good, but unexpected. After their run-in with Riley yesterday, Cassandra and Danny had been positive the security would be increased.
Zarah shot Cassandra a look, then Danny, but neither of them said anything, and when they got to the shop across the road from the station, Danny cocked his gun.
Zarah allowed herself one breath, one moment of pure, uninhibited panic. And then Cassandra burst into the street and it began.
Cassandra shot the guard at the gate within seconds, downed the one by the door before he could reach for his radio. And then Danny nudged Zarah forward, moving past and blocking her from any incoming bullets.
They darted across the road and up the steps to the entrance.
Zarah's breathing was heavy in her chest as Cassandra threw the door open, charging inside with Danny on her heels.
Shouts of alarm travelled out, yelps and screams, but Zarah ignored the guilt as she strode into the building.
She'd never been in the police station before, but its layout was simple. Two receptionists gaped at her from the front desk, half out of their swivel chairs, unsure whether to run or hide. A bullpen stood open behind them, and three corridors veered off to the right.
Cassandra and Danny were already in the bullpen, rounding up the five officers that'd been at their desks, and Zarah pointed her gun at the two receptionists, ordering their hands on their heads.
The receptionists complied, backing towards the group of officers Cassandra and Danny pushed towards the far-left corner of the room, relieving them of their guns and radios as they went.
Cassandra ordered them all to face the wall, instructing Zarah to shoot if any of them moved, and then she and Danny peeled off, slinking down the corridors and bringing back another four officers to add to the pack.
Zarah tried not to flinch when Danny came back from the second corridor, escorting a thoroughly pissed-off Arelie towards them.
Arelie's hands were on her head, her gun surrendered, but when her eyes met Zarah's, they were pure fire. It was look Zarah had seen plenty of times before, but never when Arelie had been quite so vulnerable. Somehow, that made it so much worse.
"Zarah Rai," Arelie drawled, allowing Danny to direct her to a blank space on the wall and push her into it. "Who would've thought you had this in you."
Arelie glanced over her shoulder, her mouth curling into vicious smirk.
"Or that you were quite this dumb."
Cassandra stepped towards Arelie, giving her a warning jab of her gun.
"Stay quiet and let us do what we came here for," Cassandra said, her voice quite, calm, but edged with steal. "This doesn't need to get violent."
"Oh, please," Arelie said. "No need to act all mysterious. We already know why you're here. Leah's gone. We pushed her through a portal yesterday."
Zarah blanched, Danny's grip on Arelie tightening as panic flashed across his face, but Cassandra stayed calm, resting her gun gently on Arelie's chest.
"Be. Quiet," she hissed.
The menace in those words was obvious and though Arelie's eyes burned into Zarah's for a moment longer, she eventually turned and faced the wall, her shoulders tense. Zarah could still feel that gaze burning through her skull though as Arelie's words were echoed hollowly through her head, bouncing around like a pinball.
Leah's gone.
Cassandra came to Zarah's side and nodded towards Danny.
"Go with him," she said. "I'll handle this."
Zarah fought down her panic and trailed after Danny as he moved down the corridor closest to the back of the station. It was filled with cells, and they checked each one methodically, calling out Leah's name. She wasn't there. The middle corridor offered little success either, and Zarah could feel the desperation leaking from Danny as they doubled back and entered the corridor closest to the reception area.
This corridor was different. It only held three doors which opened onto three much larger, much more empty spaces. Interrogation rooms.
Unless they'd come right as Leah had been brought into one of these, she wasn't here. Zarah's hope had already faltered before they opened the first door and found the room empty. It spluttered even more when the second room stood empty, too.
"This doesn't make sense," Danny muttered as they moved towards the third door. "Where's Riley? Why did they have so few officers here?"
The light flickering above them, the bulb trying desperately to stay alight.
Zarah frowned up at it just as Danny reached the third door.
The bulb was coated in a sort of vapour beneath its fitting, something that swirled and swam like smoke, only visible when it passed directly over the light.
Zarah stared, and as the bulb flickered once more, she saw something that made her heart freeze.
That vapour, whatever it was, curled along the ceiling, almost invisible against the dark paint. And it was coming from that third room.
"Danny –"
Zarah's voice was filled with warning, panic.
But Danny had already opened the door, and Zarah didn't even have time to shout before the loose tendrils of a portal exploded into the corridor and snaked around Danny's legs.
...
Quick author question: How are you guys liking the increased amount of POVs from Zarah? Do you like her as a POV character?
Next chapter out in two weeks!
- Skylar xx