Page 76 of Beta Lies and Cursed Lives
“What are you doing here?” His voice is so raspy, it reminds me of Aubrey’s when he first started speaking again.
He eyes my bare hands on the glass, his brows drawn, then Colt is beside me, taking one hand in his and holding it tight in front of my gaping father.
“What…? What is…?”
I shake my head at him. “We’ll explain later. Right now—”
I’m cut off when the lights shut off, leaving us in complete darkness. Then there’s a loud boom in the distance, a clicking noise inside the basement, and red lights flash overhead.
“The collars are off!” a male voice roars before some of the glass cells begin to explode, some of the captives leaping from them and running up the stairs.
My father looks down at his body, at the control unit on the ground, and lets out a growl before stomping on it. “Get back,” he seethes as his fingers spread at his sides and the cell walls around him begin to vibrate.
“Go!” I tell my pack and the rebellion soldier, taking off down the pathway with them in tow, just as Dad’s cell explodes.
As he steps out, a familiar voice calls, “Uh, a little help here?”
Zephyr is still in his cell, knocking on the glass wall, when my dad approaches and nods at him. Zephyr walks back against the far wall, and my father puts his hand on the glass, tapping his fingers against it rapidly until it shatters and falls to the ground.
When Zephyr passes through the opening, his fist taps my dad’s shoulder. “Thanks, Isaac. Still don’t trust my curse after last time.”
My father pats the Omega’s back.
“Is everyone out?” Vera Song’s voice comes from the top of the stairs.
After a quick sweep to confirm, we jog back up to the ground floor where we meet her, and Zephyr plants his hands on his hips, staring the doctor down. “Now this I didn’t see coming.”
“We have little time,” she says in a rush. “I’ve flushed the chemicals and bio samples together to destroy them. The database is being purged and will be submerged in under five minutes.”
“Let’s move!” the rebellion soldier shouts, taking the lead with his shield out.
“Oooh, colorful!” Zephyr sings as he runs alongside us as best he can, my dad as well, both likely fueled by adrenaline alone.
“This way!” the soldier points down a hallway.
We move down it, and the glass labs on either side are now bloodbaths, the people in their hazmat suits filled with bullet holes.
We follow the shielding soldier all the way back to where the GBE soldiers had been shot earlier, maneuvering around their bodies to get through the door and back outside, where the two other rebellion soldiers are waiting.
“We cleared out the rest of the GBE,” one of them says. “We’re going to take the Doctor and rendezvous with the infiltration team at the juvenile campus.”
“And I’ll escort this group to the safe house,” the soldier with the shield tells them.
Dr. Song turns to Zephyr. “Do you want to stay with them or come with us? I wouldn’t recommend being on your own right now.”
“Oh, I’ll stay with these fine folks,” he grins at our group.
Dr. Song nods in confirmation just as the ground begins to rumble. “The servers have been submerged. It’s safe to bring this place down.” She turns back to Zephyr. “You should let go.” Those are her final words before she turns and runs off toward the gate with the two rebellion soldiers.
Colt stares at Zephyr a moment and nods to himself before turning to us. “Let’s get to the gate.”
“But we need to—”
“We will,” Colt cuts my dad off. “Hewill.” He gestures to Zephyr.
The shielding guy who stayed with us leads the way to the gate, where we all turn back to the facility. Zephyr stands between us and the building, his dingy white scrubs fluttering in the cold breeze. His arms raise, his hands encased in a purple energy so dark it’s nearly black, save for the lighter edges that lick like flames, ebbing and flowing.
The screech is what makes me jump first, plugging my ears with my fingers with a cry. As the sound grows deafening, there’s a rumbling at our feet, and the building begins to fold in on itself, right into the center. The squeal of bending metal is accompanied by the pops and twinkling of breaking glass, the snap of wood, the sizzle of severed live wires, all until the building is sucked into an enormous sphere of energy, the same color as that around Zephyr’s hands. It spins and spins, growing smaller as the sounds die, and then there is nothing left but a gaping hole in the ground where the facility’s basement once was.
