Chapter 30 The Rescue Mission
ARIA'S POV
The explosion shook the entire building.
I pressed myself against the wall as chunks of concrete rained down around us. My ears rang. Smoke filled my lungs. Somewhere in the chaos, Marcus was yelling orders, but I couldn't hear him over the alarm screaming through the facility.
"Move!" Luna grabbed my arm, yanking me forward. "Enhanced subjects are coming!"
We ran through the smoke-filled hallway. Dr. Park led the way, his hands shaking as he checked the stolen schematics on his tablet. Behind us, footsteps thundered. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.
"Left here!" Dr. Park shouted. "The medical wing is three floors down!"
My heart hammered against my ribs. Kael was somewhere in this nightmare building. So was Asher. Both barely alive, according to Dr. Park's intel. Both being used as test subjects for Sienna's twisted experiments.
I'd already lost Asher once. I refused to lose him—or Kael—again.
We burst through a stairwell door. Marcus went first, his enhanced senses scanning for danger. Luna followed, her laptop bag bouncing against her hip. Dr. Park stayed close to me, breathing hard.
"Three floors," I muttered. "We can make it."
Something crashed above us. Voices echoed down the stairwell—cold, emotionless voices that made my blood freeze.
"Subjects detected. Level Seven. Initiate capture protocol."
"They found us!" Luna's voice cracked with fear.
"Keep moving!" Marcus pushed us forward. "I'll hold them off!"
"Marcus, no—"
"GO!" He shoved me toward the next landing. "Find them and get out! I'll catch up!"
I wanted to argue. Wanted to stay and fight. But Marcus was already charging back up the stairs, and Luna was pulling me down, down, down toward the medical wing.
Behind us, the sounds of fighting erupted. Marcus's roar. Bodies hitting walls. The sickening crunch of bones breaking.
"He'll be okay," Luna said, but her voice shook. "Marcus is tough. He'll be okay."
I hoped she was right.
We reached the fourth floor. Dr. Park fumbled with his tablet, checking the map. "Medical wing is through those double doors. Room 247 and Room 248. That's where they're keeping them."
My stomach twisted. "Split up?"
"We have to." Luna pulled out a small device from her bag—some kind of EMP gadget she'd built. "I'll take 248. You take 247. Dr. Park, watch our backs."
"But if we separate—"
"Aria." Luna gripped my shoulders, her pink hair falling across her determined face. "We don't have time to be careful. Every second we waste, they're dying. So we split up, we grab them, and we run like hell. Got it?"
I nodded, even though terror clawed at my throat.
The double doors crashed open. We scattered.
I sprinted down the hallway, counting room numbers. 235. 239. 243. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. The suppressants I'd taken earlier made everything feel fuzzy and wrong, but I pushed through.
The door was locked. No keypad, just an old-fashioned deadbolt. I grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and slammed it against the lock. Once. Twice. Three times.
The lock broke.
I threw the door open and my heart stopped.
Kael was strapped to a metal table in the center of the room. His shirt was gone, his chest covered in electrodes and IV tubes. His silver eyes were closed. Blood dripped from his nose. Machines beeped around him, monitoring vitals that looked way too weak.
"Kael!" I rushed to his side, my hands shaking as I checked for a pulse.
There. Faint but steady.
"Please wake up," I whispered, yanking the electrodes off his chest. "Please, please, please."
His eyes fluttered open. Unfocused. Confused.
"Aria?" His voice was barely a rasp.
"I'm here." I fumbled with the straps holding him down. They were thick leather, reinforced with metal buckles. "I'm getting you out."
"You... shouldn't have come." Kael's head lolled to the side. "Trap. It's a trap."
"I don't care." I finally got one strap loose. Started on the next. "I'm not leaving without you."
"Sienna... knew you'd come." Kael grabbed my wrist weakly. "She's waiting. Enhanced subjects... everywhere."
The door behind me clicked shut.
I spun around.
Sienna Zhao stood in the doorway, smiling like a cat who'd caught a mouse. Behind her, six enhanced subjects blocked the exit. Their eyes were blank. Their bodies tensed for attack.
"Hello, Aria." Sienna's voice was honey-sweet and poisonous. "Thanks for making this so easy."
My blood turned to ice.
"Let him go," I said, trying to sound brave even though my whole body trembled. "This is between you and me."
"Oh, sweetie." Sienna laughed. "This stopped being about you ages ago. You're just a loose end. But Kael?" She walked closer, heels clicking on the tile floor. "Kael is valuable. His bloodline, his genetics, his submission—all very useful for my experiments."
"Touch him again and I'll kill you."
"With what? You're an Omega on failing suppressants. I'm an Alpha with six enhanced soldiers. Do the math."
She was right. I had no weapons. No backup. No plan.
But I had something she didn't understand.
I had everything to lose.
I grabbed a scalpel from a nearby tray and pressed it against my own throat. "Call them off or I bleed out right here. And you lose your leverage."
Sienna's smile faltered. "You wouldn't."
"Try me." I pressed harder. A thin line of blood trickled down my neck. "I came here to save the people I love. If I can't do that, I'd rather die trying."
For a long moment, nobody moved.
Then Sienna's smile returned. Colder than before.
"Fine. We'll do this the hard way." She nodded to her subjects. "Take her. Alive. I want her conscious for what comes next."
They moved as one.
But before they reached me, the wall exploded inward.
Asher stood in the smoking hole, his eyes blazing with fury. Behind him, Marcus limped forward, bloodied but alive. Luna appeared from the hallway, her EMP device crackling with electricity.
"Get away from my sister," Asher growled.
Sienna's face twisted with rage. "Kill them all!"
Everything erupted into chaos.
Enhanced subjects attacked from all sides. Asher met them head-on, moving with impossible speed. Marcus grabbed two and slammed their heads together. Luna's EMP device sent electricity arcing through the room, shorting out machines and dropping three subjects instantly.
I used the distraction to finish freeing Kael. He could barely stand, but he gripped my shoulder for support.
"Can you run?" I asked.
"For you? Always."
We stumbled toward the hole in the wall. Almost made it.
Then Sienna grabbed me from behind. Her hand clamped around my throat, cutting off my air.
"Nobody leaves!" she screamed.
Kael roared and lunged at her, but an enhanced subject tackled him. They went down hard. Kael's head cracked against the floor.
He didn't get up.
"KAEL!" I tried to break free, but Sienna's grip tightened.
Black spots danced across my vision. My lungs screamed for air.
Asher fought his way toward me, taking down subject after subject. But more kept coming. Too many. We were drowning in enemies.
Luna's EMP device sparked and died. No more electricity.
Marcus took a hit that sent him crashing through a window.
We were losing.
"It's over," Sienna hissed in my ear. "You lose. He loses. Everyone you love loses."
My vision tunneled. I was seconds from passing out.
Then Dr. Park appeared behind Sienna. In his shaking hands, he held a syringe filled with black liquid.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
He plunged the needle into Sienna's neck.
She screamed and released me. I collapsed, gasping for air.
Sienna staggered backward, clawing at her neck. "What did you do?"
"The same serum you've been using on others." Dr. Park's voice broke. "My daughter deserved better than what you turned her into. And so do all these children."
Sienna's eyes rolled back. She collapsed.
For three seconds, there was perfect silence.
Then every enhanced subject in the room stopped moving. Their blank expressions flickered. Confusion replaced emptiness.
"What... what happened?" one of them asked, their voice human again.
"You're free," Dr. Park said quietly. "You're all free."
I crawled to Kael. Pressed my ear against his chest. His heartbeat was there. Weak but steady.
"Stay with me," I whispered. "Please stay with me."
His eyes opened slightly. "Always."
Asher helped me lift Kael. Marcus climbed back through the broken window, bleeding but alive. Luna supported Dr. Park, who looked like he'd aged ten years in ten minutes.
We limped toward the exit together.
Behind us, Sienna began to seize violently.
"We need to go," Asher urged. "Now. Before—"
The lights went out.
Emergency generators kicked in, bathing everything in red.
And through the darkness, a new voice crackled over the intercom. Cold. Mechanical. Wrong.
"Backup Protocol activated. Eliminate all intruders. No survivors."
The enhanced subjects' eyes went blank again. But this time, something was different. Their pupils dilated until no white remained. Their skin turned gray. Their movements became jerky and wrong.
They weren't human anymore.
They were something worse.
And they were between us and the only exit.