“Find Deacon,” Rebel says as she uses her power to lift Jeremy off Draven’s shoulder. “Then get the hell out.”
“And keep your eye on those blueprints so the guards don’t sneak up on you,” Jeremy warns. “I’ll make another stab at finding your mom too.”
I give him a grateful smile, and he and Rebel disappear through the tiny access door. Dante turns and walks to the glass doors at the front of the room. The second he hits the hallway, a tornado rips down the corridor in front of him. Tiles fly off the walls and doors start flapping open and closed. We want the guards’ attention anywhere but where we’re going.
“That’s a distraction, all right,” Nitro says.
“Let’s go.” Draven turns to me. “Where does geek boy think we’ll find the emergency staircase?”
“At the end of the other hall.” I gesture to the place on Jeremy’s projected blueprints. “The best bet is to cut through the spontaneous external combustion lab. There are doors on both sides.”
“Let’s do it,” Draven says.
Counting on Dante to draw the guards in the other direction and Nitro to safeguard our escape route, we head out the lab’s back doors and slink down the hallway.
It only takes about two minutes to reach the SpEC lab—though it feels like two hours. When we get there, I enter the code, praying Dr. Anthony hasn’t changed it. He hasn’t. It pays to have been every scientist’s backup intern. The door opens smoothly when I push on it.
We walk in, expecting the lab to be empty—the building is usually clear at this time of night except for guards, and Dante’s distraction was supposed to draw them away. But we’ve majorly miscalculated. Standing about thirty-five feet away, backs to us, are two guards I don’t recognize. These guards aren’t on Jeremy’s blueprint. And they’re carrying a body bag toward the incinerator room in the corner. Several other body bags lay on tables around the room.
We’re frozen.
“This is the last batch,” the fat one says.
“Good. I’m ready to shut this place down.” The short one readjusts his grip. “It’s creepy, all empty like this.”
They take a few steps toward the incinerator.
“This kid sure is heavy,” the fat one tells him, struggling with his load. “You wouldn’t know it to look at him.”
“He’s a villain,” the short one answers. “Who knows what his bones are made of. Those tattoos of his glow like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Too bad he died before we could—”
Next to me, Draven makes an inhuman, tormented sound.
The guards drop the body bag and whirl toward us, but before they can so much as yell a warning, they crumple to the ground, hands clutching at their heads. They moan with pain—the kind of agony you see in horror movies and true crime documentaries.
What’s going on? I can’t hear anything. I turn to Draven to see if he has any idea, but he’s staring at them so intently that he doesn’t even notice me.
And that’s when I know. Whatever’s happening to the guards right now, Draven is the one doing it.
Chapter 18
“Draven!” I shout, but he ignores me.
Rebel’s voice echoes in my earpiece. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “There are guards. They said something about tattoos, and he just started—”
Dante cuts me off. “I’ll be right there.”
“Babe?” Rebel asks.
I stare, stunned, as the guards writhe on the ground in agony. One of them lifts a hand from his face. It’s covered in blood. Streams of red trickle from his eyes, nose, and ears.
“Stop!” I scream at Draven. Whatever he’s doing, he’s not in control. His anger has taken over his power.
Unable to just stand by doing nothing, I fling myself at him, knocking him a few feet to the side. I lock my arms around him. He tries to shrug me off.
“Let go,” he snarls, still not looking at me. But I don’t let go. I can’t. Not when whatever is happening here, whatever he’s doing in anger, will end up hurting him in the end. Will end leaving him with nothing but regret.
Nitro races into the room, skidding to a stop at my side.
“Draven, what the—”
“Get her off me,” Draven snaps.
Nitro doesn’t hesitate. He grabs me by the arm and yanks. I wince as a burning pain shoots up my body. It feels like someone pressed a hot poker against my skin. But there’s no time to worry about that, not when— “He’s killing them!” I scream as Dante bursts into the room. “They might have information. They might be able to help!”
“They’re not going to help us,” Draven spits out. For the first time I can see the villain in him. The rule-breaker. The vigilante.
It scares me, not because of who he is and what he’s capable of—there’s a part of me that’s known it all along—but because I don’t care. This side of him, anger and strength, doesn’t make him any less attractive to me. It should, but it doesn’t.
Dante steps into Draven’s line of sight. “Talk to me.”