“We won’t.” I put a hand over her fist. “No matter what it takes, or what we have to go through, we’ll get the breeders off this island and take them home.”
“Together,” Ember added, turning to give me a piercing, almost challenging look. “No dying tonight, Garret. No crazy sacrifices. Whatever happens, we go home together.”
I gave a wordless nod, and she pressed close, igniting the heat within. Crouched together, fingers intertwined, we watched the moon climb higher over the wall and waited for the coming chaos.
RILEY
Another obstacle stood between us and our objective.
This one, while not quite as lethal, was just as imposing—a twenty-foot wall of concrete, with wooden watchtowers on the corners. From where we crouched, my binoculars revealed a single guard manning the closest one. A large spotlight sat at the top of the tower, dark for now, but we certainly couldn’t afford to alert anyone to our presence. If even one guard sounded the alarm, the mission would be screwed.
“Okay,” I muttered, staring up at the tower. “Guess it’s my turn, then. Mist?” I glanced at the white dragon. “You know what to do?”
She gave me a Draconic look of disdain. “Climb the other watchtower and take out a guard without being detected,” she replied. “It’s almost as if I’ve trained for this exact sort of thing.”
I smirked. “Did the sarcasm come with the class?”
“You should know,” she replied, and slipped into the darkness like a wraith.
Staying low to the ground, I ghosted up to the wall. Pressing close to the rough surface, I gazed at the top.
Twenty feet. Not too bad. Years of training with the Basilisk branch made scaling even sheer concrete walls a piece of cake. Digging my fingers into whatever cracks and holes I could find, I started climbing.
A few minutes later, after hauling myself to the lip of the wall, I got my first real look at the facilities.
Son of a bitch. The place looked like a prison camp. To the left were several large buildings, including what was probably a headquarters office and the apartments for the humans living here. I could just make out the flat plate of a helicopter pad behind the biggest square building, confirming why there were virtually no roads to and from the compound. Their supplies were likely flown in. There were a few smaller structures that could be anything from storage to the main power building, but they didn’t really concern me. My attention was on the other half of the compound.
Another fence, this one made of steel and topped with coils of barbed wire, surrounded a pair of large white buildings near the eastern side of the wall. Beyond the fence, the place reminded me of an institution or rehab facility, with meandering walkways traversing a large green lawn, benches and a small pond in the center of the yard. A basketball court and a tennis net stood to one side of the smaller white building, which was still a good three stories high. There were rows of windows on every floor, none of them barred, and the whole place seemed spotlessly clean and well maintained. But the barbed-wire fence, guard towers and spotlights sliding across the yard made it very clear that this was just a fancy prison, and everyone here had received a life sentence.
The larger of the two buildings only confirmed that. It was six stories high, made of solid steel and concrete, with double iron doors tall enough to let an airplane through. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, dispelling both rage and excitement. I could not afford to be careless now. I was here, at the facilities. And they were about as horrible as I had imagined. I would free my fellow dragons tonight, every single one of them, or I would die trying.
Preferably the first option.
I shimmied up to the platform of the first tower and eased into the room with the guard. He sat in a chair with a pair of earphones on, bobbing his head to whatever was playing on his phone. It was easy enough to slip behind him, slide an arm around his neck and send him into unconsciousness. I grabbed what looked like a key card from around his neck, stuffed a gag into his mouth and zip-tied his hands behind the chair as Mist’s voice came to me over the channel.
“Target has been neutralized. Watchtower B is clear.”
“Got it.” I fished a rope out of my pack and tossed it over the wall to let Martin and the rest of them scale the barrier and drop to the other side. As we converged again, Mist slipped out of the shadows in human form, her black Viper suit making her blend perfectly with the night. She gave me a short nod as she rejoined us. Another obstacle cleared. One more to go.
“Wes,” I muttered as we crept toward the prison fence, keeping to the shadows and along the dark sides of the buildings. “We’re over the main wall. Approaching the prison yard now. What’s the security like outside?”
“The spotlights are on a random rotation,” Wes replied. “Electronic locks on the outer door, but I should be able to get you through that, no problem.”
“Don’t worry about the locks,” I told him. “I grabbed a key card from one of the guards. It should get us through the door.”
“Oh, well, bully for you. The challenge will be getting across the yard. Right now, I can program the spotlights to do a patterned sweep for a few seconds, but you’re still going to have to get through without blundering into one of them. Think you can do that?”
I peered around the corner of the apartment buildings. The barbed-wire fence sat about eighty yards away, spotlights gliding lazily across open space. The watchtowers on the corner would be manned, but the night was dark enough to hide a group of soldiers in black slipping over the ground. If we didn’t hit a spotlight. “Do we have another option?”
“Well, it’s not too late to say bugger this, turn around and get off the bloody island of Dr. Moreau. But since that’s about as likely as the Elder Wyrm taking up tap dancing, I’d have to say…no.”
“Yeah, well, if we do this again, try to say ‘no’ more quickly. We’re on a time limit.”
“Keep your bloody pants on. I’m already working on it.”
The spotlight movements changed. Very slightly; if you weren’t watching them, you wouldn’t notice. But before, where you couldn’t predict where the circle of lights were going, now both spotlights fell into a pattern. I studied the lights for a minute, memorizing the rotation, before turning to Mist.
“You got it?”
“The pattern?” The other Basilisk looked past me to the circling lights. “Yes.”
“Think you can get up there and cut a big enough hole in the fence for the rest of us before the lights come around again?”
A faint smile tugged at her lips. “I think I can manage that.”
“Lieutenant.” I looked at Martin. “Once Mist creates a hole, we have to get across the yard while avoiding the spotlights. So that means your men have to follow close and do exactly what I do. Screw this up, and the whole compound will be on us in a heartbeat.”
Martin nodded. “I understand.”
“All right, Mist.” I handed a pair of bolt cutters to the girl. “It’s all you.”
She took the tool and, without hesitation, slipped across the open space to the fence. I held my breath as the spotlights swept closer, until the girl darted back again, just avoiding the edge of the light, and beckoned to us with a hand.
“Wes? Security cameras?”
“One above the front door and a few in the halls. Taking care of them now.”
“All right. I’m going in. Riley out.”
I crept forward, getting as close as I could without venturing into spotlight territory, then waiting until they swept around once more. As soon as they glided past, I moved, scurrying up to the fence, sliding through the hole Mist had made and hurrying across the yard while trying to stay as low and quiet as I could. The soldiers followed at my heels, moving in perfect unison, and we swept across the open ground in total darkness.