Origin (Lux #4)(27)
Author: J. Lynn

“Come on,” Archer urged.

Turning back to Micah, my gaze locked with the child’s. “Thank you.”

Micah nodded.

With one last look, I turned and darted around the bodies. The thin soles of my shoes slipped on the wet floors—floors slippery with blood. It was already seeping through the bottom of my shoes. I couldn’t think about that now.

Archer pushed open the stairwell door, and as it swung shut behind us, Daemon spun on me, his hands suddenly gripping my upper arms. He roughly pulled me against him and up on the tips of my toes.

“I almost lost you. Again.” His lips brushed over the hot spot on my forehead, and then he kissed me, a deep and forceful kiss that tasted of residual fear, desperation, and anger. The kiss was dizzying in its intensity, and when he pulled back I felt stripped bare.

“No time for swooning,” he said with a wink.

Then we were tearing up the stairs, hand in hand. Archer caught a soldier on the landing. With a brutal throw, he tossed him over the railing. A series of sickening cracks caused my stomach to lurch violently.

Soldiers spilled out onto the second-floor landing. In their hands weren’t normal pistols but what looked like stun guns.

Using the railing, Daemon let go of my hand and vaulted up a level. A soldier blew past me, landing two levels down on his side. Archer was right behind Daemon. He ripped a stun gun away and tossed it down to me. Switching the pistol to my left hand, I hurried up the rest of the stairs and squeezed on the first soldier I was near.

Like I suspected, it was some kind of Taser. Two wires shot out, smacking the soldier in the neck. The man started twitching like he was having a seizure and went down. The clip disengaged, allowing me to hit the one swinging on Archer.

Once the landing was clear, Daemon dragged two of the unconscious men to the door, stacking them atop each other.

“Come on,” Archer urged as he rounded the landing, shedding the long-sleeve camo top. He reached to his neck, tucking dog tags under his white shirt.

With all the onyx and diamond in the building, I was pretty useless without my gun and Taser. The muscles in my legs were starting to burn, but I ignored them and pushed on.

When we reached ground level, Archer looked over his shoulder at us. He didn’t speak out loud, and the message was directed at both of us. We don’t try to take any vehicles from the hangar. Once outside, we’ll be faster than anything they have. We head south toward Vegas, on Great Basin Highway. If we get separated, we meet at Ash Springs. That’s about eighty miles from here.

Eighty miles?

There’s a hotel called The Springs. It’s used to having weird people show up. While I wondered what kind of weird people, and realized that was a stupid thing to even be thinking about, Archer reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet. He shoved cash in Daemon’s hand. This should be enough.

Daemon nodded curtly, and then Archer looked at me. “Ready?”

“Yes,” I croaked, my fingers tightening around the guns.

With fear so thick I could taste its bitter tang, I took a deep breath and nodded again, mostly for my own benefit.

The door opened, and for the first time in what had to be months, I breathed in fresh air from the outside. Dry but clean air, not manufactured. Hope bubbled up, giving me the strength to power forward. I could see a slice of sky beyond the vehicles, the color of dusk, pale blue and orange-red. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Freedom was right there.

But between us and freedom was a small army of soldiers. Not as many as I’d expected, but I assumed that a lot were still underground, dealing with the origins.

Daemon and Archer wasted no time engaging. Bursts of white light lit up the hangar, ricocheting off tan Humvees, tearing through canvas. Sparks flew. Punches were thrown in close combat. I did my part—Tasing anyone I could get close to.

As I darted around the fallen bodies, I spied an artillery load in the back of a flatbed truck. “Daemon!”

He twisted around and saw what I was pointing at. I took off, narrowly avoiding being tackled. I turned, squeezing off another round. Metal prongs dug into the back of the soldier. Bright white light tinged in red crackled over Daemon’s shoulders, wrapping around his right arm. Energy pulsed, arcing over the space between him and the truck.

Seeing what he was about to do, several soldiers ran, taking cover behind the large Humvees. I did the same, heading for a row of vehicles as Daemon hit the back of the truck, and it went up like the Fourth of July. The explosion rocked through the hangar, a powerful wave that shook my insides and knocked me flat on my butt. Thick gray smoke billowed through the enclosure. In an instant, I lost sight of Daemon and Archer. Over the popping explosions, I thought I heard Sergeant Dasher.

I was stunned into immobility for a second, blinking out the acrid stench of burning metal and gunpowder. A second was all it took.

Out of the heavy smoke, a soldier appeared. I sat up, whipping the stun gun around.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he said, catching my arm in both hands, above my elbow and below, and twisting.

Pain shot up my arm and burst along my shoulders. I held on, rolling my body so that I broke the brutal hold. The soldier was trained, and even with all the work Daedalus had put into training me, I was no match. He caught my arm again, the pain sharper and more intense. I dropped the stun gun, and the soldier landed a stinging blow across my cheek.

I don’t know what happened next. The other gun was in my left hand. My ears were ringing. Smoke burned my eyes. My brain had clicked into survival mode. I fired the gun. Warm liquid sprayed me across the face.

With the gun being in my left hand, my aim was slightly off. I hit him in the left side of his chest. I wasn’t even sure what part of him I was aiming at, but I hit him. There was a gurgling sound that I found so strange, because I could hear it over the yelling, over the screaming, and over the shells still going off. Nausea rolled up my stomach.

A hand landed on my shoulder.

Screaming, I whirled and came within two seconds of offing Daemon. My heart almost stopped. “Dammit. You scared the crap out of me.”

“You were supposed to stay with me, Kitten. That wasn’t staying with me.”

Sending him a look, I edged around the back of a Humvee. The encroaching night sky beckoned us like a siren. Archer was a few Humvees down. He caught sight of us, looked at the opening, and nodded.

“Wait,” Daemon said.

Dasher appeared out one of the doors, surrounded by guards. His usually neat hair was a mess. His uniform was wrinkled. He was scanning the strewn debris, issuing orders I couldn’t make sense of.

Daemon looked up, his gaze tracking the floodlights. A half grin appeared, and he caught my stare, winking. “Follow me.”

We backtracked, creeping along the side of the Humvee. Peering out around the scorched canvas, I saw the coast was clear. Hurrying down the row of vehicles, Daemon stopped in front of a metal pole that rose to the ceiling.

When he placed his hands on the beam, the Source flared from his fingertips. A wave of light rolled up the pole and spread out across the ceiling. Lightbulbs blew, one after another, stretching the length of the hangar, plunging the room into near darkness.

“Nice,” I uttered.

Daemon chuckled and grabbed my hand. We started running again, meeting up with Archer. Panicked voices rose, creating a diversion for the three of us to head toward the lower opening, in the opposite direction from Dasher’s crew. But the moment we stepped out from behind the row of Humvees, the dim glow from outside cast enough light.

Dasher spotted us immediately. “Stop!” he screeched. “This isn’t going to work. You can’t leave!” He pushed past the guards, literally shoving them out of the way. He was absolutely frazzled, probably knowing that Nancy’s golden boy was within steps of freedom. “You won’t get away!”

Daemon whipped around. “You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted to do this.”

Dasher opened his mouth, and Daemon threw his arm out. The unseen push of the Source lifted Dasher off his feet and sent him flying into the air like a rag doll. He cracked into the wall of the hangar and fell forward. Daemon started toward him.

“No!” yelled Archer. “We don’t have time for this.”

He was right. As much as I wanted to see Dasher taken out, one more second and we’d be overrun. Tugging on Daemon, I pulled him toward the darkening opening of the hangar. “Daemon,” I pleaded. “We need to go!”

“That man’s been touched by God, I swear.” Daemon turned, a muscle jumping in his jaw.

The sound of boots pounding on pavement echoed like thunder around us as Archer moved to the front. “Get down.”

Daemon’s arms went around my waist as we bent down, and he curled his body over mine in a near-crushing embrace. Through the thin slit between his arms, I saw Archer place his hands on the back of a Humvee. I didn’t know how he did it, but the six-thousand-pound vehicle lifted into the air and was thrown like a Frisbee.

“Good God,” I said.

The Humvee crashed into the others. Like a hulking domino, it created a rolling chain reaction, destroying nearly the entire fleet and sending soldiers fleeing.

Daemon sprang up, bringing me with him. He tore the silver cuff off his wrist and slid it onto mine. Almost immediately, a jolt of energy went through me. Layers of exhaustion lifted off, my lungs expanded, and my muscles flexed. It was like taking several shots of pure caffeine. The Source roared to life, a warm spring bubbling through my veins.

“Don’t shoot!” screamed Nancy, barreling out from the side hangar. “Don’t shoot to kill! We need them alive!”

Daemon’s hand tightened on mine, and then we were running with Archer. Each step took us closer to the outside. My speed picked up, as did theirs.

And then we were outside, under the deep blue sky. I looked up for a second and saw stars poking through, glimmering like a thousand diamonds, and I wanted to cry, because we were out.

We were out.

Chapter 19

Daemon

We were out.

But we weren’t free yet.

Not all the vehicles were out of order. They were after us, on land and in the sky. We were moving fast, though. Wearing the opal, Kat could almost pick up my kind of speed, but with the chopping of helicopter blades quickly approaching about ten miles out, Archer broke apart from us, heading to the west.

I’ll create a diversion, he said. Remember. Ash Springs.

Then he was off, a blur that disappeared into the horizon. There wasn’t an opportunity to ask what he was doing or to stop him. A few seconds later, there was a pulse of light, and then another spaced out a mile apart. I didn’t look back to see if the spotlights from the helicopter had veered off our course, taking the bait. I didn’t think about what would happen to him if he were caught. I couldn’t afford to think or worry about anything other than getting Kat somewhere safe, even if it was just for the night.

We raced across the desert, our feet stirring up the scent of sage. There was nothing for miles, and then we came across a herd of free-roaming cattle. Then nothing again as we kept close to the highway.

The farther and longer we went, concern piled on top of itself. Even with the opal, I knew Kat couldn’t keep up for much longer, not for eighty miles. Hybrids tired quickly, even with the enhancer. Unlike us, where it actually took more energy to slow down, she was going to crash. Hell, eighty miles would wear me out, but Kat… For her I’d run a million miles. And I knew she’d do the same for me, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t in her DNA.

There was no time to stop and ask her how she was doing, but her heart rate was through the roof, and each ragged breath she took expelled immediately.

The trickle of fear that had been in my veins grew with each step and each rapid beat of my heart. This could kill her, or at the least do some serious damage.

I spared a brief glance at the night sky. Nothing but stars, and no lights in the distance. We still had another thirty or so miles to go, and it would be too much of a risk for me to take my true form and speed up the process. Light streaking across the desert at night would be way too obvious and give all those UFO enthusiasts something to talk about.

Slowing down unexpectedly, I had to slip an arm around Kat’s waist to keep her from falling. She was breathing heavily as she looked up at me, the skin around her mouth pale and pinched.

“Why…why are we stopping?”

“You can’t go on much longer, Kitten.”

She shook her head, but her hair stayed plastered to her cheeks. “I can—I can do this.”

“I know you want to, but this is too much. I’ll take the opal and carry you.”

“No. No way—”

“Kat. Please.” My voice broke on the last word, and her eyes widened. “Please let me do this.”

Her hands shook as she brushed the sweat-soaked hair away from her face. That stubborn little chin raised a notch, but she took off the opal cuff. “I hate…the idea of being carried.”