Shadow's Chosen (Dark World Mates Book 3) Page 7

  The vehicles roared to life, and the lights along the floor flickered. Elise was jostled slightly as the tank-car jerked forward and began to roll its way toward the tunnel. Elise gazed above, past the buildings to the misty sky above, until the mouth of the tunnel came into view, swallowing them.

  Dimmed lights bathed the tunnel from every side, washing them in a sickly orange glow. The car slowed as it made its descent. Elise noticed several open doorways along the tunnelway, what she gathered to be stairways or passages in and out of the tunnel by foot. The tunnel began to open up the farther down they went until they came to a midpoint where a heavy metal door stood ahead of them and a stationway sat to the left side. The vehicle stopped, and Elise looked out to see several cars ahead, one of the drogin officers getting out to talk to the guards. There seemed to be an argument taking place, but of course, Elise couldn't hear it.

  "Looks like they forgot we were coming," Jerico said then laughed. Amy cursed under her breath as the others watched with interest. Another pair of drogin came out from one of the vehicles, as did another guard. The team waited, watching and fidgeting in their seats.

  "What's taking them so long?" Reese said, craning his neck around.

  "Must just be a miscommunication," Adrien said. "Just give it a minute. Settle down. Bruce, sit down."

  As soon as Bruce sat back, the metal door ahead began to open, and their vehicle moved. The first car ahead started forward, passing through the door. As it drove on to the other side, it simultaneously lit up in a flash of red, bursting into flames and sending a torrent of smoke billowing down the tunnelway.

  The car shook, as did the tunnel, and the roar hit Elise with a deafening blast. Elise covered her face from the heat and blinding light and heard through the ringing in her ears the screams and shouts of those around her. Drogin scrambled out of their cars, and Elise heard the pops and zaps and saw the bright bursts of gunfire. One drogin dropped to his knees before he could even raise his weapon, blood gushing from his head onto the pavement.

  It happened so quickly, but Elise didn't hesitate. She leapt up, trying to steady herself. Adrien shouted at them, and Elise saw the others moving. She shook her head clear, unholstered her gun, and went to follow them out of the car. Reese and Bruce jumped out first, but as Tom went to drop down, the car suddenly jerked forward, sending him tumbling out to hit his face on the concrete. Adrien jumped after him followed by Helen and Amy. Elise jumped then rolled, landing on her knees. Something whooshed past her ear, and she immediately pushed herself up and ran for the others. They dragged Tom to his feet and hurried behind one of the now unmoving vehicles as bullets pelleted the metal and rang against the tunnel walls, bursting in sparks of light.

  "Where are they coming from?" Reese shouted.

  Jerico went around the back of the car as Helen placed Tom against the tire to better examine his face. Elise followed Jerico to the back, and there, they crouched down and saw by the stationway a narrow passage where masked men spilled out. Back along the tunnelway where they had come from, flames licked the walls and shots of lightning struck cars and people.

  "They are trapping us in," Elise said. The smoke was beginning to grow worse, making it hard to see, hard to make out who was friend or foe.

  "Let's just light this place up!" Bruce shouted.

  Adrien peeked around then pointed to the stationway. "There!"

  They took aim and fired toward the station where several masked assailants in heavy black gear shot at them. Bullets flew. Some caught, others didn't. Their armor took a few of the hits, but Elise knew they wouldn't last with such heavy and relentless firepower.

  The masked men backed off when a flash of silvery-black armor dropped down over them and started taking each of them out one by one, their barks of pain echoing, their guns firing chaotically all around. Elise couldn't identify which of the hunters it was, but they distracted the men long enough for her to look around for an exit. Unfortunately, all the passageways she could make out were blocked by the masked men or encased in flames. She coughed then crouched over Adrien, who huddled by the front tire.

  "We need to get out of this. The fire..."

  Adrien nodded, looking around for any way out. A few of the drogin had joined them behind the car, one badly wounded with a missing ear. "Hey! Can one of you drive this?" He pointed up at the car.

  One of the drogin looked at him and then the car. "I can, but I don't know if we can get past the door."

  "It's worth a try. Team ready up, let's move." Adrien shot up and started firing, flames licking at the station walls. Bruce started firing with him. Elise and the others, while keeping low, used their cover to dart to the next set of cars. Elise saw drogin everywhere—some still shooting, others sitting slumped over in their own blood. There were bodies everywhere, but Elise didn't stop to look at them. One of the hunters, the golden woman, leapt off one of the vehicles as a group of masked men started on a pair of defenseless drogin. The woman's face was cut up, but she didn't let that stop her. With an angry yowl, she disappeared just as quickly as she came, back into the fray of gunfire. Elise looked for the others but couldn't identify who was who. Everywhere and everything was chaos and confusion.

  They made it to the nearest car from the door—which, surprisingly, hadn't yet been fully engulfed in flames—and jumped inside. The drogin, covering himself, leapt into the driver seat. As he shut the doors, air blew quickly out of the vents, evaporating the smoke, allowing them to breath. The vehicle rocked as the tunnel shook once more. Bullets pelleted the glass of their cage but didn't penetrate. Through the small openings, they fired their guns to try to stifle their attackers as their driver started the car and stepped on the gas.

  The car sped through the door and hit the flaming mass that had been another vehicle, shoving it to the side of the tunnel. Metal ground on metal as the car pushed its way past. The fire licked at the glass, making the heat unbearable for a mere second before the tank finally freed itself. They drove on, bullets still hitting the glass as they neared the end of the tunnel. Elise could see the exit. Though it was very dark, she could make out the sliver of a street beyond.

  The car sped for the opening. Elise looked to the others, who seemed fine save for Tom's cut up face and the ash staining their skin and armor. She glanced at Adrien and reached out, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  "It's all right," he said, placing his hand on her upper arm, bringing her close so that their foreheads almost touched. "We’re good. Everything is—"

  Another flash of red blinded them, and the car jumped.

  Elise went flying. She hit the side of one wall, neck bending back, face scraping the glass. Something hit her other side and knocked her shoulder. She went tumbling with the others as the car's back hit the ceiling of the tunnel in a blast of fire then dropped to the ground where Elise hit her head on the landing, and everything went black.

  ***

  "Emergency...vehicle compromised...please exit the vehicle."

  A red light blinked slowly off and on. Elise came to as the light stung her eyes and the robotic voice pierced her skull, making her head throb. She groaned and tried to sit up only to fall right back down. Her vision swam, but she didn't let that stop her from trying to sit back up. Shards of glass and debris fell from her suit, and she rolled slowly to her side then stomach. She blinked several times but couldn't seem to see. She dragged herself along and fell out from what she assumed was the car's back side. She moaned as every part of her felt pain. Her fingers tingled as she scraped and grabbed at the ground. She heard a scuffling sound nearby and another groan. She blinked and squeezed her eyes shut until her vision finally began to clear. Jerico dropped from the car onto his back beside her than slowly rolled onto his knees. He turned to her and grasped her arm with a shaking hand.

  "Stirling. You okay?"

  She nodded, but it seemed too slow. She seemed too slow, like she was waking from a long sleep.

  "The others?" she slurred.

/>   Jerico shook his head. "I'm not sure. I'm going to go investigate." Slowly, he lifted himself up, and the ground shook once more. Bits of dust and rock fell from the roof.

  The tunnel. Oh, god, the tunnel is...

  Elise pulled herself around. "Jerico," she called out in a weak voice. "Jercio...the tunnel."

  He didn't seem to hear her. The end of the tunnel was close—she could feel the breeze. If they just got up and walked a few paces more...

  Elise tried once more to force herself up but was only able to make it to her knees. She crawled as the ground continued to shake. Shouts and sirens could be heard farther back in the tunnel, but the gunfire had all but ceased.

  Get up, you idiot. Get up, they need you.

  With all her strength, Elise pushed herself up and stood on shaking legs. She turned to the car and saw Jerico pulling a member out but couldn't yet see who it was with his back blocking her view. She took a step to help him, and a terrible tremor forced her back down. She went to her knees again and was about to push herself back up when something jabbed the back of her head.

  "Don't move."

  Elise knew from her training what a gun felt like to the back of the head. She went still as the gun moved across her skull, and the owner stepped into her line of sight.

  It was one of the masked men, his face fully covered with a ventilator where his mouth was and silver goggles where his eyes would be. His head was covered by a hood and across his chest was a large red X. He looked down at her and made a gesture with his hand. Several more men came into view, each wearing the same uniform as the one standing before her, with guns raised. From the corner of her eye, she could see one of them forcing Jerico and whoever he was helping, out of the vehicle.

  "Make sure to get the others," said the man without looking away from her.

  Elise wanted to scream, to fight, anything, but with several guns on her and her suit tarnished and body feeling like it had just hit a steel wall, she had no chance of beating them. Even if she could get to her gun, which miraculously had somehow been thrown out of the vehicle and now lay a few yards away, she'd be dead before she could fire.

  The masked man released the gun from her head and gestured at her with it. "Get up."

  Elise took a few deep breaths before trying to stand once more. As she slowly stood and raised her hands, thinking this was it, that she would rather die than be taken by them and so decided she was going to try for her gun after all, something hit the back of the man's head and he went crashing down in front of her. Dead.

  Confused, Elise backed up as the other men shouted, aiming their guns at her.

  "I didn't do—" she began to say when something flashed past her, and another man went down.

  They started firing. Elise dropped back down as bullets flew, covering her head. She looked around and saw only feet scattering around her. Then her gaze found her gun once more, and she dropped her hands. Quickly, she crawled forward. As she reached for it and snatched it up, she rolled onto her back to take aim.

  The last man dropped. The only one standing was death himself. Or what she thought was death until she took in his silvery-black armor and realized it was the lead hunter standing above her.

  They locked eyes, and she opened her mouth to say something when a car sped its way down the tunnel. The hunter jumped out of the way as it approached, and Elise rolled to the tunnel wall. The car slammed right into the side of the tunnel and from there, the doors opened, and more masked men jumped out. Elise fired at them as they fired at the hunter who lunged at the men without pause. Their car hitting the tunnel was the last straw, and large chunks began to rain down. Elise stumbled to her feet and started for the car where her team still lay injured and where Jerico now sat against the back with Adrien unconscious beside him. As she crouched down and holstered her gun, Elise saw the blood on his legs where he'd been hit.

  "Don't think I can walk," he said. "Adrien is still out. I don't know about the others."

  "I'm here. Someone will come to help," she said quickly, her head finally beginning to clear, her senses once again becoming more alert. "We'll get everyone out. We'll get—"

  More rocks fell, and the tunnel around them began to collapse. A cloud of dust swept in with the smoke, coming at them like a wave.

  Elise shouted, covering her and Jerico from the rubble. She could no longer see, but she felt herself being shoved away as more of the tunnel roof fell. She heard shouts and saw flashes of light but nothing else as the dust grew thick.

  "Go!" she heard someone yell.

  Jerico.

  She called for him when something grabbed her hard and pulled her around. A rock hit the side of her head, and everything clouded in her mind again. A cloud of black swam over her vision, and she felt herself falling. But instead of feeling the ground beneath her, all she could feel was her body being swept up against something solid and the wind rushing around her as she heard the sounds of the tunnel breaking.

  Seven

  The first feeling that came back to her was the sense that she was breathing. All else seemed to be darkness for a time and the odd feeling of being everywhere and nowhere at once, as if she were racing through endless moments or visions—some blurred, others vivid but seemingly infinite—and always there was a sense of danger, that she needed to wake, needed to focus, but every time she came to that edge of clarity, she was pulled back, like a wave ripping her from the earth, forcing her back into the dark.

  Many times in that darkness she saw her sister, other times her team, and sometimes death dressed in black armor with eyes like fire.

  When a light passed over her once then again several moments later, she held onto it until it brought her back fully to the edge, to where she could feel more than just her breath, where the radius of her senses grew. She heard distant noises like a roaring, heard water falling, smelled the sting of copper, felt the cold. She moaned as she awakened, or perhaps she had always been awake but could now fully clear her head, could really see. Her eyes were heavy, but she forced them open and blinked several times. It was dark still, but she knew now it was not from inside her mind but instead from the actual place where she found herself, wherever that was. The only light seemed to come from overhead, passing by every couple of minutes, a bright beam from above.

  Elise turned her head and felt something soft underneath her cheek, covering whatever hard, sharp surface lay underneath. She tried to see more around her, but all that came into focus whenever the light passed were the rows of metal and broken piles of rubble and concrete. She blinked some more and saw that the metal rows were pillars holding up a building. A broken building with several holes in its high ceiling where the light shined through.

  Elise moaned again as her head throbbed. Her shoulder ached something awful when she flung her arm out to plant her hand on the dust-filled floor. Slowly, she pushed herself up and let out a low hissing cry as the pain seared down her back. Her suit creaked as she rose into a sitting position, and when she looked down at her shoulder, she saw the large crack in the armor. Cursing, she touched at it with her good arm then looked around her. She couldn't identify what sort of building she was in, only that it was abandoned and in disrepair. As she carefully looked across and behind her, she noticed a large pit in the center where the skeletal remains of a ship had been left behind. She could gather from the damage above and below that it had fallen. Glass and metal parts had been flung across the whole surface, and scorch marks seared the side of the metal rows. Elise stared at it all in a moment of confusion that quickly began to clear as her memory fixed itself back together.

  She attempted to rise when a noise close by made her stop and glance over.

  "I wouldn't try that yet if I were you..."

  Elise froze for perhaps a half a second before pulling her gun from her hip and aiming it at the shadows of a broken pillar ahead of her. There was a moment of silence before the alien laughed low. The light above swept over the rows of metal, and Elise got
a better look at him as he sat watching her.

  His eyes lit up as the beam hit him, just like a cat’s or a wolf's, with the shine making Elise shiver.

  "What are you doing here?" she said in a hoarse murmur. Her throat and mouth were awfully dry as she tried to swallow.