Chapter 116 116
Kaelen's POV:
The east wing was darker than the rest of containment, the emergency lights flickering like they were about to die. Mom led the way, and I kept Annabeth's hand in mine because I wasn't ready to let go yet. Maybe I'd never be ready.
"Here," Mom said, stopping in front of a row of cells. "Erik is in one of these. They move him sometimes, but it should be..."
She went to the first door and looked through the little window. Shook her head. Moved to the next one.
"Kalessi?" A voice from inside the third cell, rough and broken, and Mom made this sound, half sob and half laugh, and pressed her palm against the door. "Oh, my God, is that really you?"
"I'm here. I'm here, my love, we're getting you out."
I stepped forward and burned through the lock. The door swung open and there he was.
My father.
He looked... god, he looked awful. Thin, way too thin, with a beard that had gone completely gray and sunken eyes that took a second to focus. He was wearing the same shapeless gray clothes as Mom, and his arms had the same needle marks, the same map of years of extractions.
But when he saw Mom, his face changed. Everything changed.
"Kalessi," he breathed, and then she was in his arms and they were holding each other, crying, and I had to look away because it was too much, too private.
Annabeth squeezed my hand.
"Dad," I said, and my voice cracked on the word.
He looked up from Mom's shoulder and his eyes found me, and for a second he just stared, like he couldn't process what he was seeing.
"Kaelen?" He let go of Mom and took a step toward me, then another, and then he was grabbing my face with both hands, turning it side to side, looking at me like he was trying to memorize every detail. "Kaelen. My boy. My son. You're... you're huge. You're a man. When did you become a man?"
"Five years is a long time," I said, and I was crying again, couldn't help it.
"Too long." He pulled me into a hug, tight and desperate, and I hugged him back. He also smelled wrong, but underneath it I could still find him, still find my dad, the man who'd taught me to ride a bike and helped me with my homework and told me I could be anything I wanted when I grew up.
"Marlen and Lucian?" he asked, pulling back.
"They're okay. They were supposed to wait outside, but..." I gestured vaguely at the chaos around us. "You know Marlen."
Dad actually laughed at that, this rough, broken sound that turned into a cough. "She never could stay put when family was in danger."
"We need to move," Annabeth said. "There are more cells. More dragons."
Right. We weren't done yet.
I looked down the corridor. Six, maybe seven more doors with windows.
We moved fast, me and Annabeth burning through locks while Mom and Dad checked the cells. They all were in rough shape, all looking at us with wide eyes when we told them they were free.
"The exit is back through containment, up the stairs, through the main corridor," I told them. "There's a red dragon clearing the path. Follow the fire."
"Red dragon?" one of them asked, an older woman with silver hair. "There are no red dragons left."
"There's one. He's on our side. Just go."
They went. Some of them could barely walk, had to lean on each other, but they went.
That left us: me, Annabeth, Mom, Dad, and two other dragons from the east wing who were too weak to run, a young guy maybe my age and an older man who kept coughing.
"Can you make it?" I asked them.
"We'll make it," the young guy said. "We didn't survive years in here to die on the way out."
Fair point.
We started moving. Back through the double doors, through the destroyed corridor where Annabeth had transformed, stepping over bodies and rubble. The alarms were still wailing but quieter now, like the system was dying. I could smell smoke everywhere, could hear distant roaring that had to be Marcus still fighting somewhere above us.
We were almost to the stairs when they found us.
Not regular guards this time. These were different, bigger, with heavier armor and bigger guns and the kind of formation that said military training, not rent-a-cop bullshit. Ten of them, maybe twelve, blocking the stairwell.
"Shit," Annabeth said.
"Stop right there." The one in front had a voice like gravel. "All of you, on the ground. Now."
I stepped forward, fire building in my hands. "Move, or I'll make you move."
"You can try." He raised his weapon, something that looked way more serious than a regular gun. "But we've got rounds that can pierce dragon scales. You wanna test that?"
I hesitated. Looked at Annabeth, at my parents, at the two weak dragons behind us.
"Kaelen," Dad said quietly. "Don't."
"Listen to your daddy," the guard said. "On the ground. All of you. Last warning."
And that's when the ceiling came down.
Not on us. On THEM. The whole fucking ceiling, tons of concrete and rebar and dust, crashing down right on top of the guards with a sound like the world ending. Half of them disappeared under the rubble instantly, crushed before they could even scream. The others scattered, formation broken, some of them buried up to their waists, others stumbling and falling over debris.
And through the hole where the ceiling used to be came two dragons.
Golden dragons. Smaller than adults, but still massive, still terrifying, scales bright even in the dim emergency lights. They dropped into the corridor with twin roars that shook the walls, and I knew, I KNEW before I even saw their eyes.
They were Marlen and Lucian. They were my siblings.