All the King's Men Page 25

  “You stupid, stupid girl. You just don’t get it, do you?” He ran at her and she quickly sidestepped him, readying for a fight, but he merely slammed his hands against the door. This time, the red in his eyes was a little more prominent, easily seen as they were held open wide in front of her. Charlie let out a low chuckle, rumbling deep from his chest. It echoed through the brig, filling the empty walls with a cacophony of his madness. “You gonna just stand there? Try and twist the knife, like you got anything on me? Go ahead. Maybe your dear old uncle will let you be a part of the firing squad when you’re done with me. That is, if he wakes up, right?”

  It was Danika’s turn to slam her hand against the door, and even without the Gale, it rattled.

  Charlie jumped back at the hit, staggering as he started yelling at the top of his lungs.

  “No. You don’t get to threaten me, do you fucking hear me?” Danika’s unrelenting ire sharpened her words as she tried not to let the heartbreaking scene get to her: this madman whispering and muttering nonsense to himself as he wandered to the far corner of the cell. For a moment, she watched him, almost unblinking for a few moments, not wanting to succumb to remorse and apologize to him for his struggle. “You do not threaten me or my family ever again.”

  His voice, his face, and even the air around him fell back into a sea of despair as he rounded in for another turn. Charlie reached up, grasping the side of his head. He whimpered, at war with something she couldn’t see. “P-please. Danika. Please s-stop talking.”

  It was a dangerous move, to continue rattling the cage of the hostile beast, but Danika persisted: “If I knew you’d turn your back on us… I wouldn’t have helped you at all that first night. Was that your plan all along? To infiltrate us, and betray us?”

  Charlie took another pass again and darted over from where he stood at the back of the cell. He moved incredibly fast, his movement almost unseen by her eyes as he rammed his shoulder against the door, causing a large dent with his impact. “I SAID SHUT UP! Just GO!”

  Danika stopped, alarmed at his tone, but she yelled back with just as much fury. “You put us in danger the second I carried you into this bunker! Now what the hell is going on? Who got to you, Charles?”

  His behavior now was not acceptable, and they’d have to keep him detained anyway until the effects wore off—however, the more important question lay with his ambush, an answer he’d been avoiding since she came in.

  “I’ve been trying to fucking tell you!” Charlie acted like an animal in a cage. He grabbed the bars of his cell and shook them. “I said just leave! Go! Or you’re going to get everyone killed!” Charlie turned, screaming as he did, with spit and tears coming out as he held his head in pain.

  The dread chilled her shoulders like a blanket of ice. She went pale at his pitiful display of misery and conflict within himself.

  “By the way….” He stood up once more and faced her but didn’t come to the door. He stood by the stool he’d knocked over, grinning at her. The shadows cast over his face made him look far more menacing than the demon lurking within him. “You want to know what the best part of this is?”

  Danika didn’t answer; she didn’t know what to say.

  “You are so fucking sloppy.”

  At first, it looked as if Charlie reached at the flat surface of the wall, but it was a quick move to stop Olivia who materialized from the wall as she lunged at him with a syringe. Her body hit the wall with a loud thud, and the cascade of her brilliant red hair splayed over the wall as Charlie tightly held her by the neck. Olivia choked and thrashed in his grasp, trying to kick her feet at him but he was pressing her so hard at her airway, her limbs fell weak.

  “FROST!” Danika screamed with urgency as she pounded on the button to unlock the door. It buzzed but didn’t budge, as it’d become jammed from the last run Charlie had made at the exit. “Frost, the door!”

  Frost was just as panicked as he typed away at the keys to override the lock. “I’m working on it Dan…Shit-shit-shit! The system just rebooted!”

  The plan had backfired. Danika opened his cell earlier and let her walk right in without taking his senses into account. They had planned on Olivia injecting him with the syringe, supplied and fashioned by Aldo and Walter respectfully. It was loaded with a tranquilizer that would most certainly bring him down, with or without Sloane’s abilities in his system. Due to acting on pure emotion and stress, their clumsiness caused them to forget one of the most vital details about their comrade: his ability to detect heartbeats, so even with Olivia’s chameleonesque expertise, he must have known she was in there the whole time. In essence, Danika let Olivia in to die.

  Frost growled in frustration. “I don’t know what the fuck just happened—the system is still locked up! I-I’m working on it—”

  “Work faster, please?” Danika urged, flustered on her own, as she kept trying to break in to save her colleague.

  “Fucking idiots. Think I couldn’t hear her saunter in here? That I couldn’t pick up on your plans?” Charlie shook his head in disappointment. “Plus, comm is up a little loud, isn’t it?”

  Danika shuddered, goosebumps running along her arms, as she found an eerie comparison between Charlie and his alleged brother now. Maybe there was truth to that after all. “Frost, come on!” Danika called out again, still fighting with the door. “Charlie. Put her down, now!”

  Olivia gasped for air in her struggle.

  “Or what?” He grinned, pleased by this seizure of power.

  Danika breathed in to reply but she was cut off by the earsplitting screech of feedback in the speakers above. The sound brought her out of the zone, out of concentration as the microphone picked up the rattling of buttons and the annoying sound of cloth brushing over it. “What the hell…”

  “Ahh, so this is where Morgan keeps his little toys.” A man coughed on the other end, clearing his throat for the speech to follow. “Dear inhabitants of the Powered Alliance Headquarters…that is a silly name, isn’t it? The valiant ones who’ve become the neighborhood heroes. Heroes of what, I might ask?”

  “Frost—I thought we were secure—what’s going on?! Frost, are you there?” Danika peeked up at the wiring between the speakers that trailed along the ceiling of the hallway. It was older than the technology built into the cells—archaic, extremely out of date. “Who the hell is this? Show yourself, prick!”

  “Now now, Ms. Carlisle… Don’t get too carried away. You already cost us one of our men.” It sounded so familiar, but it wasn’t King this time around and Franco was dead. Dmitri…

  But then her next question was: How?

  Dmitri carried on: “You see, Mr. Matthews and I had a little chat before he left the compound and he agreed that he would infiltrate your facility since you had already made yourselves comfortable in ours. Right?”

  “What the hell does he mean?” Danika muttered to herself, still struggling with the door.

  Charlie didn’t respond. He stood very still during this broadcast, as if he’d been anticipating it, or maybe even waiting for a command. That had to be it… He wasn’t only dealing with Hyde now. Just as she’d suspected, Charlie was under the hold of Christophe Dmitri.

  “We’ve retrieved something important that you stole from us. Documents that were classified, and now you have something else we want back. A very important asset.”

  There it was again, that word. Asset. Danika was getting sick of feeling like a piece in the game between Morgan and King.

  “Frost, come on!” Danika felt the heat throbbing in her hands, her already weakened state fighting to gain enough power to strike. Unfortunately, the door was reinforced against most powers, though if the Gale was strong enough she could break through it. Danika knew that she didn’t have the necessary energy. If she expelled what little she had left, it would just dent it further. “Charlie—Charlie listen to me! You can stop this! You hurt those people. You’re hurting her! What is wrong with you—what did they do to you?!”

 
; “No…No! Ahhh! What is wrong with me?” Charlie screamed, still unsure of what he should do, and he didn’t let go of Olivia.

  “Charlie, stop this now!” Danika urged.

  Charlie dropped his guard. “I-I can’t! I can’t d-do it, Danika—please h-help me…”

  “Liv hang in there, okay?” Danika shouted to her, as she struggled to break out of Charlie’s grasp.

  “Fuck off, Danika.” Charlie glared.

  The shifts were becoming more frequent and rolling out of control, making it harder to sort out how much time they had between the man and the monster.

  “Oh, and Charles? Go ahead and break open the door, get yourself the hell out of there. We will see you soon.” Dmitri chuckled, observing as if he were in the room with them. “Please send my regards to Major Carlisle.”

  There it was, the given command.

  Another wave of static took over the overhead PA. The sound ripped through the facility, a shredding, ear-piercing noise that nearly debilitated everyone except for Charlie, his eyes flared with a brighter crimson as he turned his auditory sense off to block it out.

  Charlie dropped Olivia at once and hurled his body toward the door. She coughed and sucked in as much air as she could to get oxygen back into her body as she fell to the ground. After two forceful throws of his shoulder, he wound back, and a thundering explosion shook the building. The door to the cell blew outward, tearing it from its hinges.

  An opening.

  Danika screamed as she immediately lunged at Charlie. As she opened her arms, she braced the top of her right shoulder for the impact of a tackle takedown. Charlie ran up the wall and back flipped over her. She threw her hands up to brace herself as she stopped against the flat of the wall. The air swiftly picked up around her as she ran in his direction again, taking their skirmish into the broad hallway between the cells. To her surprise, he wasn’t looking to fight her, he was just trying to block the inbound punches and kicks she was expertly aiming for his open areas.

  Another opening was spotted. Danika bent to her knees as she spun around and extended her back leg to sweep him to the floor. He fell onto his back and she immediately crawled on top of him, pinning him at the hip with her legs. Without another thought, Danika let loose her punches, but Charlie didn’t hold up his arms to block this time. She landed the first punch to his face, cracking over his jaw. The second one fell on his left cheekbone with just as much force. Each punch was accompanied by a blood-curdling scream, laced with vengeance and anguish that tore straight through her hands as she threw them.

  “Danika!”

  Her vision narrowed into a tunnel, focusing only on her target.

  Charlie took each hit without moving to block them. He peeked up when his face was turned upward. He saw Olivia at her side now, trying to pull her off. Danika immediately stood up and stepped to the side to prop her foot on his chest to keep him down. What he didn’t anticipate was that Olivia’s special issue weapon was out of its holster, in Danika’s hands. The hammer pulled back with a threatening click.

  “Dani! STOP!” Frost shouted.

  Danika’s brown eyes stared down the sights, her breath visible now. Icicles dangled from the ceiling and the sub-zero temperatures were a shock to her insides. She could hardly shiver in this ice prison as it hurt to move, but everyone had been locked in place. While she knew the first rule of handling a gun was to keep her finger away from the trigger, there it was, tightening and ready to pull. The ice that blanketed over the entire scene fixed everything in place, even her intended target, who was now safe for a moment. “Let me go, Frost.”

  Frost entered the room. He was the only one untouched by his winter scenery as he strolled in on the ice with ease, though still careful with his steps. He released Olivia first, touching the ice block over her. It melted instantly, and he reached down to assist her off the ground. The bruising around her throat was eased by the cool temperatures, but the fact that it’d become visible at all made Danika’s rage flare again. Once Olivia was securely out of the cell, he reluctantly touched the block of ice around Danika. It shattered, the shards dissipating into mist. Danika wanted to throw a swing out of pure anger, but this was her best friend and he’d done something here to prevent some regrettable actions.

  “Step away from Mr. Matthews and hand over the gun.” Frost reverted to his serious self.

  Danika shook with frustration. She thought to even fire a warning shot into the ground beside him to set off an unforgiving ring in his aural sense, if the demon didn’t still have it protected. The sick side of her thought to aim for his shoulder, but she decided to listen to Frost. After she set the safety on and relaxed, she turned the pistol up and surrendered it to her colleague.

  “Good.” Frost nodded with a relieved look of thanks as he pulled the weapon out of his friend’s hand. “He’s not himself, Dani. You know he isn’t. So please, just give him that level of mercy.”

  “Mercy?” she spat. The amount of disgust on her face must have been something fierce, by the way Frost reacted. Danika had a talk with Franco on the roof earlier that day about mercy, and even the sharpshooter knew that there was little to no mercy to be handed off.

  “You should have just let her shoot me, Jeremy.” Charlie grunted underneath his icy restraints, as he wriggled to break free.

  Frost’s striking blue eyes were drawn to Charlie. He paused a beat, before folding his arms. “As much as I wanted to let her kill you? Not today. Liv, have Callista prep the underground cellar. He won’t be able to break out of there.”

  Charlie let out a titter before fully bursting into fit of laughter.

  “Nothing to laugh about here, asshole. Now get your ass up.” Danika shattered the ice prison with one swift kick, that landed right in his stomach. If there was anything she hated hearing today, it was the spiteful laughter of King’s bastard sons.

  Charlie lurched upward as she struck him, and a spatter of blood sprayed onto the floor beside him, but he was still laughing.

  Danika please be careful. I think he’s still under Dmitri’s control… Callie’s voice whispered in her mind. This time, she didn’t blink, and she tried not to give away the communication at all, as not to tip him off.

  “I just hope you know that I’m sorry about this, Dani,” Charlie uttered, as his laughter faded away.

  “Sorry for what—” Danika turned, but it was too late.

  Charlie raised her off the ground before throwing her flat on the concrete floor, knocking the breath clear out of her. “Goodbye, Danika.” Using the new ability he’d just acquired from Olivia, Charlie’s form became transparent, and only the faint glimmer of him could be seen as he made his getaway.

  She gasped, nearly choking on her breath. It left her helpless, and she rolled to a prone position to try to stand, but the impact on her already brittle body left her with the alarming sensation that she couldn’t feel her arms. Danika could only watch as he incapacitated both Olivia and Frost despite their efforts to detain and fight the invisible man.

  Danika stumbled to her feet and she tried to chase him down, but he was too fast. His steps were fleeing, running away from them, just before he launched himself through the window.

  “NO!” The alert overhead made Danika skid to a stop at the end of the hallway.

  “Bomb! Get down!” Frost crawled over to Olivia and with his remaining strength, created a barricade using an overturned bench with a thick wall of ice around that. They ducked just before the entire building quaked, and fire roared through the cell block.

  The exhaustion couldn’t keep Danika down as the adrenaline filled her. She felt her hands throbbing in pain, her veins blackened once more as she summoned the Gale into them and she ran back to assist. The ice beside Frost’s barricade nearly made her trip, but she stabilized just in time to push the winds outward, suppressing the fire from swallowing them all alive. The heat in the winds, mixed with the mist of Frost’s ice wall filled the cells with a dense fog. It swirled together
with the smoke and soot of the fire’s aftermath and slowly crept out through the broken window but was still difficult to see.

  “Come on, we gotta move!” Danika frantically gestured as she called to them, unable to hear her own voice, and keeping low to the ground.

  A whoosh went unheard over the ringing in their ears, and the cell block exploded one more time; the entry way completely barricaded by fallen cinder.

  Are you with us?

  Danika woke with a start. Her abdomen was sore as she sat up in bed. She’d had that dream again. No, not a dream, as much as she wished it to be. The vivid recollection of the day Charlie single-handedly dismantled the Alliance with his betrayal filled her mind again. Her hand tightened at her side, grabbing a handful of the sheet beside her.

  She took a deep breath and tried to raise her other hand to brush the hair from her face, but her left arm was restrained, bound by a sling, with a brace around her wrist. She could feel her bones rubbing together, as she rolled her shoulder back.

  Ow. Shit.

  Holding back the strength of the fire rushing at them, plus the shockwave from kaboom itself had done a number on her, and she had the aches to prove it. Danika slid out of the sling and set it aside, holding her forearm and wrist close to her body as she sat up, knowing Aldo would be annoyed with her if he were there. She was fully clothed: black t-shirt, gray sweat pants, and slip on shoes—the recognizable patient garb for inhabitants of the infirmary. Except, she wasn’t in the infirmary when she woke up. Her bedroom stash of Jack Daniels sat on the nightstand was facing her. The duvet was warm over her body, and the pillows had the right amount of firmness. She could smell the freshly lit paradise candle that was wafting into the open area through the door to her restroom. The sun had peeked out, presenting itself through the break in the gray clouds.

  Everything in its place. That familiar vintage sign hung over her mirror…