Mist was crouched by the front door as we exited the yard. A security camera hovered over the frame, winking at us ominously, but I trusted that Wes had either temporarily blacked it out or put it on a playback loop. The Basilisk gave me a grim look as I joined her.
“Door is electronically locked. Let’s hope you grabbed the right key.”
Without answering, I pulled the key card I’d taken from the tower guard and slid it through the slot, which beeped and turned green a second later. After yanking open the door, we slipped through the frame and closed it behind us.
I wasn’t quite sure what I’d expected when I was finally inside the facility. Perhaps rows of prison cells or individual locked rooms. Certainly not what looked to be a comfortable lobby, with sofas surrounding coffee tables, a Ping-Pong table in the corner and a television on the wall. I was expecting the lone security guard inside the entrance, who blinked at us in shock for a half second too long; obviously he was not expecting a group of armed strangers to come waltzing through the front door. I lunged forward and silenced him, then dragged him behind one of the sofas.
“Now what?” Mist asked as I straightened.
I glanced at Martin. “Secure the perimeter,” I told him. “Make sure there aren’t more guards wandering around, and if there are, take them out quietly. Mist and I are going to find the breeders. I’ll let you know when we’ve located them.” I narrowed my eyes. “It goes without saying, but don’t let any of them see you until I’ve explained the situation. I don’t want a bunch of armed soldiers of St. George surprising them in their sleep. Then this will be less a rescue mission and more a ‘get out before everything burns to the ground’ mission.”
Martin nodded briskly. “I’ll await your signal,” he said, and gestured for the soldiers to move out. They filed out of the lobby, into the dark corridors beyond, and disappeared.
“Riley.” Wes’s voice echoed over the com again. I crouched behind the sofa with the unconscious guard, Mist kneeling beside me, and tied his hands behind his back. “I’ve got a camera feed on the second floor of the place. Looks like there’s a bunch of individual dorm rooms up top. I’d say that’s where they’re keeping the breeders, mate—the not-pregnant ones, anyway.”
“Got it.” I gagged the unconscious human, then carried him to a nearby closet and stuffed him inside. “On our way now.”
“So, how are we going to do this exactly?” Mist wanted to know as we crept up the stairs. “Go to each individual room, one by one, and explain what we’re doing to every dragon on the floor? That will take forever, even if we knew how many dragons are in this place, which we don’t. We don’t have that much time.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And what happens if some of them don’t want to leave? What if they mistake what we’re doing here and sound the alarm?”
“Mist,” I growled as we reached the top of the stairs. “You’re not really helping with the devil’s advocate stuff.”
“Just want to be sure that there is an actual plan in place,” she countered as we continued down a short hall and rounded a corner. A dimly lit hall stretched away before us, with numbered doors lining the walls like apartments. “And this whole daring rescue in the middle of one of Talon’s biggest operations isn’t relying solely on luck and your gut intuition.”
“I have a plan—”
The soft click of a door interrupted us. Instantly, we melted back around the corner, pressing our backs to the wall, as one of the doors opened and something shuffled into the hallway.
Peeking around the corner, I set my jaw. It was a dragon, all right. A hatchling, probably in her late teens, her dark hair cropped short. She wore an oversize T-shirt that hung to her knees, and from where I stood, I could see the glint of a metal anklet above her left foot. Most likely a tracking device. My blood boiled at the thought of these dragons being held prisoner, living their whole lives on this island, simply because they didn’t meet Talon’s expectations. Worse, being forced to produce offspring so that Talon and the Elder Wyrm could expand their reach and become even more powerful, all under the pretense of “saving our race from extinction.”
I clenched a fist. No more. That ended tonight. I might not be dealing a crushing blow to the organization anymore; now that they had their monstrous vessel army, they could simply clone mindless slaves, instead of brainwashing them from the beginning. But the dragons here, at least, would not spend another day in Talon’s crushing grip. We didn’t know what was coming; hell, maybe we would all die soon. But, for me, anyway, better to die free than live as a slave. I hoped these dragons felt the same.
The girl stepped forward, bare feet making almost no sound on the carpet. I waited until she was almost to the corner before I lunged out, clamping a hand around her mouth and pushing her back into the wall.
She stiffened, eyes going wide, as I put a finger to my lips. “I’m not here to hurt you,” I whispered, hoping the kid wouldn’t freak out. I suspected the non-pregnant breeders were regularly dosed with Dractylpromazine to prevent Shifting, but I didn’t want to deal with a hysterical teenager, either. “My name is Cobalt, and I’ve come to get you out.”
If possible, the girl’s eyes got even bigger. I took that as a good sign and hurried on. “We’re leaving,” I told her. “All of us. I have a boat waiting outside that will take you and everyone else off this island. You’ll never have to work for Talon again. I’m getting all of you out tonight, but we have to be quick and quiet about it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The girl nodded against my hand.
“And if I let you go, you won’t scream and alert every guard in the place?”
She shook her head.
Okay. Holding my breath, I released her.
“Omigod,” the girl blurted as soon as she was free. “You’re Cobalt!”
I winced. “You wanna scream my name a little louder? I don’t think the guards outside heard you.”
“Oh, sorry,” the hatchling said, pitching her voice to a much softer level. “It’s just…you’re really here.” Her eyes watered, years of hope and disappointment welling to the surface. “They tell stories about you,” she went on. “Some of the older dragons. They say there’s a dragon on the outside who can get you out of Talon, if you’re lucky enough to meet him.” The sheen in her eyes grew brighter, and her lip trembled. “Director Vance told us that you don’t exist, that no one has ever discovered the location of the facilities and that we’re here for our own safety. But some of us still held out hope. That you were really out there, and that maybe this was the year you’d find us.”
A tear slid down her face, making the guilt churning inside about a million times stronger. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I came as soon as I could.”
“Cobalt.” Mist appeared beside me, looking stern. “There is no time for this. We need to wake the rest of the breeders and let them know what is going on, without alarming them and alerting the guards.”
“I know.” I turned back to the hatchling. “Where is everyone else?” I asked urgently. “Are they here, in this building?”
“Most of them.” The girl glanced at Mist, saw she was a dragon and relaxed. “The pregnant ones are next door, in the medical facilities.”
“How many?”
“Five, I think.”
“Shit.” I raked my hands through my hair. Five pregnant dragons that couldn’t Shift to human form would make sneaking out of here even more difficult. We had prepared for this scenario, so it wasn’t unexpected, but having a confirmed number made the stakes more real.
I looked back at the hatchling. “What’s your name?”
“Sera.”
“All right, Sera, can you wake the rest of the dragons here and let them know what’s going on? Get them up and ready to move out when I give the word?”
The girl paled, but nodded. “I think so.”
“Good enough. Mist.” I looked at the other Basilisk. “Stay with her and help. You know the plan. Don’t forget to warn them about the soldiers. We don’t want anyone freaking out before it’s time.”