Chapter 113 113
Annabeth's POV:
I took the stairs down. The stairwell was narrow and dark, and the emergency lights were casting everything in this ugly red color. I could hear screaming somewhere above me, alarms still wailing, and the distant sound of something big crashing through walls. Marcus, my dad. He was still fighting up there, buying me time.
Through the bond I felt Kaelen getting closer, his determination burning hot in my chest. He was looking for me, but I couldn't wait. Not yet.
Kalessi: that was all I could think about.
I hit the double doors at the bottom, the same ones they'd dragged me through this morning, and shoved them open. Down the ramp to containment level. The air changed immediately, that chemical smell I remembered, the yellow lights, the gray concrete walls instead of the white tiles from extraction.
Two guards were right there, guns raised, and they barely had time to register my face before I threw fire at them. Not a lot. Just enough to make them scream and drop their weapons. I didn't stop to see if they got up.
I turned right, counting steps without thinking about it. Twenty-two to the corner, then left, fifteen more. The route was burned into my memory.
I passed the first row of cell doors with little windows at eye level and I could see faces behind them. Dragons. Prisoners. Some of them were banging on the doors, yelling things I couldn't make out, and others just stared with dead eyes.
Fuck it. I wasn't leaving them here. They had their fire back, but they were still weak because of the drug and the constant blood draining.
I stopped at the first door and pressed my palm to the keypad. Pushed fire into it until the metal melted and the lock clicked open. The woman inside, thin and pale with matted black hair, just stared at me.
"Here." I pulled a vial and syringe from my container, shoved them into her hands. "This is the antidote to the drug they've been giving you. Inject it, wait thirty seconds, and then get the hell out. There's a dragon at the main entrance clearing a path. Fight for your freedom."
She didn't need to be told twice. Her hands were shaking as she filled the syringe and jabbed it into her arm.
I moved to the next door. And the next.
"Antidote," I kept saying, handing out vials as fast as I could. "Inject it and get out. Fight. FIGHT."
Some of them were crying. Some of them just grabbed the vials and ran the second their doors opened. One guy, older, with a beard that had gone completely gray, looked at me with tears streaming down his face and said "thank you" like I was saving his life.
I was. I guess I was.
Cell 47. My cell. I passed it without stopping, the door still hanging open from when the guards had dragged me out. The cell next to it, that was Kalessi's. I'd talked to her through that wall for hours, our voices carrying through the vents in the concrete.
"Kalessi!" I banged on the door. "Stand back, I'm coming in!"
"Annabeth?" Her voice, muffled but clear. "Is that—"
"STAND BACK."
I burned through the lock and kicked the door open.
She was pressed against the far wall, thinner than I'd imagined, with blond hair streaked with gray and eyes that were the same gold as Kaelen's. The same shapeless gray clothes they'd put me in, and her arms were covered in needle marks, old and new, years of extractions mapped on her skin.
"Oh my god," she breathed. "You actually..."
"No time." I crossed the cell and grabbed her arm. "Can you walk?"
"I... yes. I think so."
"Good." I pulled out the container, found a syringe, filled it with blue liquid. "This is the antidote. It's gonna hurt but it'll help."
She didn't flinch when I jabbed it into her thigh. Just watched me with those golden eyes, and for a second I saw Kaelen so clearly in her face that my throat went tight.
"Erik," she said. "We have to find him, we have—"
"I know. We're going." I pulled her toward the door. "Stay behind me."
The hallway was filling with smoke now and I could hear more explosions from above. We moved fast, or as fast as we could with her still shaky on her feet. I kept one hand on her arm and the other ready to throw fire.
"Left here," Kalessi said, her voice already stronger. The antidote was kicking in. "Then through the double doors at the end."
Two guards came around a corner and I didn't hesitate, just sent flames at their faces and kept walking while they screamed behind us. I should've felt something about that, right? Guilt, maybe. But I didn't. These people had tortured her for five years. Had drained her blood, kept her from her children, treated her like cattle. They could burn.
The double doors were locked. I melted the handles and kicked them open.
The corridor on the other side was wider, the east wing of containment, and that's where they were waiting for us.
Ten of them. Maybe twelve, I couldn't count that fast. All in tactical gear, guns raised, blocking the path to Erik's section.
Shit.
"Step away from the prisoner," the one in front said. He was bigger than the others, with a scar running down his cheek. "Hands where I can see them."
"Annabeth," Kalessi whispered. "There's too many—"
"Shut up." The leader's gun swung toward her. "Both of you, on your knees. Now."
I didn't move. My fire was building in my palms, hot and ready, but there were too many of them. If I attacked, some would shoot. Kalessi was right behind me, still weak, an easy target.