Page 42 of Aria's Ascension

Lowering his gun, he tipped his head back and let his eyes fall closed. After a couple seconds, he opened them again and shook his head.

“No one close. I can feel… I believe five other prisoners down here. Their light is on the edge of my reach. I am not close enough to pick up anything specific.”

Aria kept her gun in hand, but relaxed her guard a bit and continued forward faster now, making a beeline for the doors. She wanted to try all the ones they hadn’t had time to check when they were there last. The chances of escape being as easy as turning a knob were slim to none, but she had to make sure.

Closer now, the smell of the dead guards was enough to wrinkle her nose, but she’d been in enough crime scenes that she was used to it. Kix, on the other hand, was obviously struggling.

She wanted to hurry, for both her mens’ sakes, but they couldn’t afford to miss anything, so she moved methodically, checking each door. When none opened, she tried to kick them down with no success. Tirox tried next, but they withstood even his brute force.

Sighing, she glanced down at her last remaining throwing star. If she had anyway of knowing what was behind them, she might be tempted to use it to blow one open. As it was, they only knew which doors led to elevators. Unless Kix had a damn near miraculous stroke of luck and managed to connect to Zhrovni’s mind to get the current code, an elevator wouldn’t do them any good.

“I’m sure it’s entirely too much to hope that they have something as low-tech as a fucking emergency staircase down here,” she grumbled, kicking a door out of frustration.

Sighing, she rubbed the hilt of one of her throwing knives and turned in a slow circle, searching for… hell, anything at that point.

She was facing the main cavern when her gaze passed over a shadowed corner. Cocking her head, she frowned and squinted. Something about that area had a memory tickling the back of her mind. It took a moment of staring before it hit her.

“The octofly… ” she breathed.

She took off, sprinting for that dark corner.

“Aessa! What—”

“I can’t fucking believe I didn’t think of this earlier! The octofly that called the prisoners to us! It came out of a door. I remember hearing the hiss.”

Her men were a step behind her, Kix already glowing brightly, casting the corner in shifting blue light. Slowing to a stop, she scrutinized every inch of the wall, but didn’t see a door anywhere, not even a small one like a doggie door.

Unwilling to give up, she veered right and began running her hands over the wall, squatting down to start at the floor then going up on tippy toes to feel as high up as she could reach.

“Kix, stay there. Red, you start on that side. We’ll meet in the middle.”

No more than two minutes later, Tirox called out, “Here.”

Chapter 25

Rushing to Tirox, Aria looked for the door, but the wall appeared perfectly smooth. She stepped closer and ran her hand over the section he was touching. There, roughly four feet off the floor, she felt a seam.

“I feel it!” Grinning, she turned to Tirox and kissed him hard. “Damn good job, babe. Kix, come closer, please.”

With Kix standing so close, she could just barely make out the faintest of lines in the metal. Tracing it with her finger, she found it made a square roughly two feet wide and tall.

“I think I can wedge a blade in there.”

Unsheathing one of her throwing knives, she tried to work it into the top and each side before she finally got it wedged in the bottom seam. She hammered on the hilt with her fist and got about an inch of the tip to go in, but no matter how hard she pressed down, the door wouldn’t lever upward.

“Allow me,” Tirox prodded, gently scooting her out of the way and taking her place.

Grunting with effort, he strained to push the hilt down, putting all his body weight into it to try and get enough leverage to force the door open. Just as she was beginning to worry the blade would snap, the door gave way with a hiss and rose about an inch.

“Hold it there!” she demanded.

She snatched the ax out of the sheath on his back and quickly wedged it into the gap. Tirox and Kix both grabbed the handle. Together, they pried the door the rest of the way open.

“It wants to close again,” Kix grunted, before she could do more than open her mouth to ask exactly that.

“Fuck! Okay. Hold it for just a second. I need to see where it leads.”

Aria crouched and cautiously leaned her head and shoulders inside, careful not to cut herself on the ax blade, only to growl angrily. Of course, it was pitch fucking black in there. She couldn’t see anything.

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