Page 104 of Rescuing Rebel

The light sways, and sparks fly from the wires. It casts a flickering beam across the wreckage. Long shadows dance over the debris. The buzzing and strobing light feel suited to this nightmare.

Crawling on my knees, I comb over every inch, pulling aside boards and chunks of plaster. My nails split, my muscles scream, and dust chokes my lungs. None of it matters. I only stop when the room starts to spin, gulping down air that can scarcely be called oxygen anymore.

When my head clears enough, I resume my desperate search. The bulb dims dangerously, threatening to plunge me into darkness. So I talk to keep it glowing, babbling to Violet as if she can hear me.

“I’m trying, Vi, I swear I’m still trying.” My raw throat scratches out the words. “I know you’d keep going if you were me. You always were the tough one, Vi.”

I imagine her voice urges me on. Each new discovery brings hope, but it’s always followed by crushing disappointment. The light flickers faster, its death imminent.

“Just a little longer, hang in there,” I plead with the failing bulb, shaking it as if that will keep its electricity flowing. The room plunges into momentary darkness again and again, each time staying dark longer than the last time.

The buzzing takes on an urgent cadence as if warning me it’s about to die. When it clicks off again, I know in my gut this is the last time. “No, no, no!” I cry hoarsely into the sudden void. “Please, not yet.” Deep sobs wrack me.

My hope of finding some trace of Violet is buried beneath my feet. I release the dead bulb and double over with an anguished sob.

It was all for nothing.

Exhausted tears stream down my smoke-stained face. My hands are shredded, and my body is pushed far past its limits. But my spirit hurts most of all. I scream Violet’s name until I have no voice in the lightless room.

Spent, I slump atop the debris pile that entombed my hopes. Above me, the facility groans and trembles as the Guardians’ assault continues. Fiery oblivion creeps closer by the second, but I can’t bring myself to rise, to seek escape or shelter.

What reason do I have left to keep going through this life alone? Everyone who ever mattered is gone—my parents, my sister, my reason for living. The final card I pinned my last hopes on proved worthless.

A heavy darkness swallows Haven, the silence of it seeping into my bones. Maybe it's fitting, a shadowy end in a place that's forgotten the sun. I can already feel the cool embrace, ready to take me to wherever Violet is.

The end feels close, a silent companion in the dark, until a sudden crash, deafening, roars through the silence, vibrating the ground under me. I don't budge, letting the dust cloak me, my breaths as shallow as the grave I'm expecting to join.

Silence again, but not for long. It's broken by a distinct crunching, a steady, purposeful rhythm.

Footsteps.

They're moving through the wreckage with intent, each step an echo in the hollow of Haven's broken heart. The sound grows closer, the cadence of someone not lost in the chaos but master of it.

A flicker of light cuts through the darkness, bobbing with the rhythm of the steps. My heavy eyelids fight against the grit and the sudden invasion of light. Boots, black as the void I'm sinking into, halt in front of me. There's a sudden vice on my jaw, a force pulling my face up to meet the eyes of the intruder. Kaufman’s wild eyes bore into mine. Gone is the composed, cultured businessman—now, only the feral madness remains. The attack has stripped him down to primal savagery.

His fingers dig painfully into my cheeks as he jerks my face close to his. Flecks of spittle fly from his bared teeth. Blood mars his face where Ethan broke his nose.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He yanks my roughly. “The place is coming down, and you’re crawling around a bunch of records?”

When I don’t respond, he shakes me violently. “Answer me!”

Through the ringing in my ears, I rasp the bitter truth that brought me crawling back into this collapsing hellhole. It doesn’t matter what he thinks or what he’ll do to me. I’m already dead inside.

“I was looking for records.”

“Records?” He scowls in incomprehension. “What records could possibly be worth your pathetic life?”

I swallow, throat raw and scraped. “Records of my sister. You sold her years ago. Forced her to carry a child.” My voice rasps with smoke and grief and simmering rage.

Confusion flickers across Kaufman’s face. For a moment, he seems truly perplexed, struggling to place this sister I speak of. So many captive girls have passed through his twisted hands over the years. It’s no surprise their faces and stories blur together for him.

But then a slow, awful grin spreads over his face. The devil remembers an old sin. “Ah, the surrogacy project. Not as profitable as I had hoped. Closed that down years ago. Destroyed all the records. All the product.” His chuckle sends chills down my spine. “I bet she was a pretty young thing. Brilliant genetics always fetch a great price.”

His grin widens as understanding hits him. “You used me, you deceitful little cunt. Embedded in my operation, spying and feeding my enemies intel, all to find your beloved sister?” He throws his head back and cackles with wild abandon when I don’t deny it. The sound echoes through the ruined space.

I stare numbly past him, too hollow to feel anything at his taunting.

“Oh, my savage little Rebel.” He grasps my shoulders almost tenderly. “Did you really think you could use me and walk away?” His fingers dig in cruelly, making me gasp. “I own you, forever and completely. You’ll never be free.”

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