Another short chapter, hopefully it's okay! I've had it sitting for a few days but I couldn't get onto , I think it's my connection, so apologies for that! Thank you again for the support that I've received, it means the world to me. Have a great day and please enjoy!
"You're sure about this?" Tallie asked me for the final time.
Across the courtyard, Jake and Jade were jogging over, both clad in all black. They looked like tv show burglars in their face masks but I didn't complain. They were helping me out here, they didn't need to look any specific way.
Fixing Tallie with a firm look, I nodded. "I need this, Tals." I told her simply, watching it sink into her.
As the other two arrived, she nodded. She understood. I couldn't move on, not until Zero-Zero-Eight was dead and unable to humiliate me ever again.
It had been a few days since the initial incident. Tate, the moron who'd pushed me, had been promptly expelled from school and escorted off campus before lunch time that day. His idiotic friends had been suspended and told that they could find their own ways to try to make it up to me, not that I ever wanted to see their faces again.
Everyone had seen, so class had honestly been a nightmare. However, once Queen Lissa left, taking my parents with her, I'd felt some need to prove myself. My peers had seen my crying, they'd seen my parents begging a strigoi for my life, so I had to show them that I was still as fearful as always. I refused to let any of them go easy on me, even as the aches left by the strigoi's iron grip and ruthless bashing of me made me wish I could just crawl into a hole and die.
"You got it, right?" I asked Jade as she and Jake closed in on us.
Standing in one of the few blind spots of the campus's cameras, we were officially invisible.
Jade nodded, pulling a folded piece of paper from her jacket pocket and handing it to me. "Apparently they're keeping it down where the old cells are? Rhea says they used to use them to-"
"We don't need a history lesson, nerd." Jake grumbled, rolling his eyes at his sister.
Rhea, the guardian who had given Jade the information, was new. She only graduated a couple of years ago and had been adamant that she wanted to teach. Having aced all of her classes, the school had been more than happy to welcome her back. It also just so happened that she had been tight with Jade when she'd been a student, so she hadn't thought much of it when the younger of them had started asking about where our new guest was being kept. Or, if she had, she hadn't cared for the thing's safety enough to say anything, though I doubted that she'd have knowingly set us up to face the beast alone, so I was leaning toward her truly not realising Jade's motivations.
I made a mental note not to mention her if we somehow fucked this up and got caught.
Unfolding the paper, the plan unfolded along side it. "It's really going to be as easy as maintenance corridors and ventilation?" I asked unsurely.
Now hey, I didn't doubt the plans that Jade had handed me would lead to where Rhea said the strigoi was being held, nor did I doubt that Rhea knew where the creature was. It was just, well, it all seemed a little on the cartoonish side?
We didn't stand and chat for long though. We had a job to do.
Together, the four of us followed the arrows on the plans that Jade had provided. They first took us directly to a set of what looked like old storm doors for some kind of cellar. In spite of only, in theory, leading down to the room that housed the water heaters for the staff quarters, the doors were guarded. That was okay though, we'd known about that. After all, most doors were guarded.
In the cover that a deep alcove in the school wall provided us, we waited. We stood as casually as we could, acting as though we were just hanging out, waiting for the guards to wander off and do some checks.
See what I mean about it sounding like some cartoon shit, right?
The second that the guards were out of sight, we were on the move. Jake lead the way, closely followed by me, leaving Jade behind us and Tallie pulling up the rear. Our reasoning? We'd need Tallie for emergency compulsion if we ran into anyone, but we didn't want her to be the first one to be seen if we ran head first into anyone.
Great old storm doors stood between us and the water heaters. They were locked, as all doors were around here, but we already knew that.
A multi tool produced by Jake made quick work of the heavy lock. With that out of the way, we slipped quickly inside.
"Holy shit. We're in." Jade laughed abruptly, seemingly startled that we'd made it through the first obstacle.
I wasn't so easily impressed. "Come on, we can't stop." I urged them on, not willing to stop and celebrate every freaking step we took. As much as I appreciated their help, I'd do this alone if I had to. It was personal for me in a way that they couldn't ever fully understand.
While I didn't miss the glance that they all shared, I didn't find it in myself to care.
The room was huge and we had to be quick, so we got to work. The water heaters and all of their connected pipes were massive and loud, so we didn't really have to worry about being too quiet or about staying hidden. If nothing else, we could all dive behind a water tank if it came to it.
Though the air was muggy and stale down there, we set about finding the next area on the map.
Traipsing around, we found the next door with ease. The difficulty? Well, it lead to an access corridor. While that sounded ideal, it sure as shit wasn't. The corridor in question was heavily patrolled as it was the main route for guardians to get to get to one of the control rooms from their living quarters. I refused to let anything to me from getting to the creature that had caused me such pain though. I wouldn't let anyone stand in my way.
Behind the doors to the access corridor, we waited. It seemed to be a common theme already, waiting. While I was eager to get the job done, I understood the necessity of taking our time when we had to. It wasn't as though the strigoi was going anywhere.
My need to see this through drove me. For every second that we waited, I saw Zero-Zero-Eight's eyes behind my own each time I blinked.
Once the noise had died down, we slipped through the doors easily with the help of... you guessed it, Jake's multi tool. You know, it kind of made me realize just how outdated some of the security was at school, but that was an issue for when I wasn't the one sneaking past the defenses. Hell, maybe I'd tell them all how we'd done it once the deed was done. Until then though? Until then, all that mattered was getting down there.
While there were cameras in all of the halls, we were beyond lucky that us simply being seen in the halls wouldn't be too suspicious. If the guardians knew about a potential path to the strigoi, they would have literally cemented it closed if they'd had to, so us being in here wouldn't ever be linked to what we needed to do down there. They'd look at their own guards before it occurred to them that a student had been involved. They would, of course, want to talk to me first but I was still deciding how I wanted to play it.
My options were that I'd either lie my ass off and claim I had no idea, or that I'd tell the truth and get my first tattoo. Lying came with the risk of being found out, but the truth came with the risk of whatever punishment they deemed necessary.
Our walk in the halls was short and silent, just taking us from one door to the next. We had no use for Jake's multi tool on this door though. Instead, we simply walked through it and acted as though we belonged. It was empty in there, but we had to be ready.
"Where now?" I asked lowly, pulling the map from my pocket and unfolding it quickly.
I looked around the room, following the crudely drawn arrows before glancing to Jade. She nodded her confirmation. A fucking air duct. Real cartoon shit. "That one." She then said, as if it needed saying as we stood around it.
Wasting no time, Jake yanked the hatch open and quite literally leapt in. It wasn't tall enough for us to stand or even crouch in, so he pulled himself deeper with his arms.
Quickly, not letting myself get caught up on all the dust, I followed. Tallie wouldn't like this. She wasn't quite as willing to get dirty as the twins and I were, but I didn't look back. I couldn't. I couldn't risk seeing that damn look on her face. Thankfully, the sounds of the two of them following behind me was enough to put my mind at ease.
"How far do we go in here?" Jake asked as we shuffled along as quietly as we could.
It was, frankly, gross in there. The walls and floors were absolutely caked with dust, there were a million and one spiders and their webs, there was even trash somehow stuffed up in there. Still, we pushed on. We had to. I had to.
Huffing, I carried on behind him, ignoring my muscles as they began to whine about aching. I quieted my mind as my shoulder and wrist begged for relief. "There should be a drop down in about a hundred feet or so, then we're into a fire escape hatch, down a few floors, back into another air duct for the last stretch. It should spit us out between two of the cells." I kept my voice as level as I could when I spoke, but the nerves were bubbling inside me.
For every second that passed, the reality of what we were doing set deeper into me. I wasn't so concerned about our mission of sneaking around, that was what high school kids did, but the actual task of killing the strigoi? I would go through with it no matter what, but it didn't mean I wasn't nervous.
The drop down to the fire escape ladder was easier than expected. With ladder rungs inside the shaft, presumably for an engineer or someone to use, it was relative cake.
By the time we were descending the few floors to the final duct, we were all breathing pretty harshly.
When we all had out feet on solid ground and were looking at the duct in question, I stilled. "Look, if any of you guys want to turn around, I'll understand." I told them, eyeing each of them one by one. We all knew that I was talking mostly to Tallie. The other three of us were raised to do stuff like this, but she was a royal. She wasn't meant to be sneaking around air ducts or killing things.
Shocking me, she simply huffed and chuckled. "We're going to kill that undead bitch with you." She stated firmly, grinning at me wide enough to flash her fangs. I reminded myself of what a good friend she had been my entire life. Of course she wouldn't let me do this without her.
With her assurances, we pressed on.
The last twenty feet or so was a killer. We were all exhausted and aching, all wondering how the hell we were going to climb all the way back once the task was done.
"You want to go in first?" Jake asked me between harsh breaths.
It hadn't occurred to me before now, but I did. I wanted to be the first face it saw. I wanted it to know who was coming for it and why. "Yes." I answered quickly.
Passing Jake in such tight quarters was awkward but I managed. With nothing but a grate between me and the old cells, I took a moment to glance through the slats.
Inside was entirely white. It was an enormous room with a balcony wrapping around the outside. The balcony, it seemed, lead to the old cells, right where we were being spit out. Though they were all clean and locked with no one in them, I couldn't help but feel cold at the sight of them. So deep below ground that no one could hear their inhabitants. I didn't ever want to find myself trapped down here.
My eyes were drawn to the middle quickly though.
There it was.
Seriously, it was right in the middle of the room.
The glass cage from before was nowhere to be seen, having been replaced with a new, far sturdier looking one. You know that show about that guy who, like, stalks women and traps them in a cell or whatever? It reminded me of that more than anything. There were air holes, a two-way hatch for things to be passed back and forth, even a metal exoskeleton framing it. It was still only about ten feet by ten feet, but I angrily thought that to be too much space for such a creature.
Inside the new cage, it looked disgustingly comfortable. Not high enough quality for, say, moroi, but it looked nearly just like a plain version of the staff quarters.
There was a single cot with a thin mattress, a pillow and a thin sheet. There was a slim but tall shelving unit that housed extra clothing and even freaking books. Seriously, was this thing on vacation?
I'd have expected the guardians to have been cruel to it in light of what it did to me. I half expected to find some sick fucks shocking it for fun. Hell, if I'm being honest, I expected for them to have even taken the beast's clothes just to really hammer home that it wasn't welcome here. Only, as I looked down and spied it sitting on the edge of the bed, book in hand, I realised just how wrong I was. Not only was it clearly welcome here, but they were keeping it entertained! It even had what looked like a stack of paper and a pen, maybe a pencil.
Finally done with just looking, I swung the grate open before me as soon as Jake tapped my leg, silently letting me know that the cameras were down. I didn't care about the technical stuff, but he'd assured us all beforehand that his multi tool really was the multi tool for the job. Apparently that included some kind of scrambler or whatever the hell else was needed.
As the hinges creaked loudly, signifying my arrival, I was angered when Zero-Zero-Eight didn't so much as turn.
There was no graceful way to slide face first out of an air duct, so I didn't try to be any kind of gentile. I slide out like an angry fucking worm, barely managing to plant my feet beneath me before I could smack into the cool floor.
As much as it would have been polite of me to wait for the others, to even help them out, I didn't.
Time and time again, I'd said it. I had a fucking job to do.
With no care for anything but getting the job done, I stalked immediately toward a stairwell. I was vaguely aware of the others scurrying out of the vent behind me, taking the time to help one another. One of them whispered to me to stay out of sight of the main doors but I didn't care. In that moment, I truly didn't care if anyone caught us.
"Hey!" I snapped as I began to descend the staircase.
Inside the cage, Zero-Zero-Eight made no movement to even show that she'd heard me. There was no flinch, no glance. She didn't even throw herself at the walls like the feral beast we all knew she was. Instead, she simply carried on reading whatever shitty book they'd left her with.
My blood boiled hotter with each step toward her that I took. Each second that she ignored me, my shoulder and wrist throbbed a little deeper. "Look at me!" I barked, eyeing the tape line as I began to approach it.
Set on angering me further, she didn't.
Worse than her ignorance though? The fact that, as I glared at her, I could see for a brief moment a flash of the person that she could have once been. I hated her. As my mind brought forth images of her admittedly handsome features, showing me smiles without fangs and winks from eyes that held no hint of red, I hated her.
By the time my toes were at the tape line, sweat lightly sticking my clothes to me, my friends were most of the way down the stairs.
I could feel their worry on the air. They didn't know what I planned to do, not now that the box was so different. Honestly, the original plan had been to find a dose of whatever tranquilizing agent they had on hand and to stick her with it, but this new cage had no open hatch to stick her through. Sure, the air holes, but angling would be an issue. Of course, that also meant no risk of getting grabbed again, so I briefly counted my blessings.
The feeling of her hand on my wrist was back again in an instant. A sudden burst of a deep, sharp pain as I glared in at her. I absently brought my wrist up and rubbed at it softly with my other hand. "You know who I am?" I asked her stonily. "Why I'm here?" I then added.
Expecting any kind of reaction was stupid, I could see that now, but the fury in me grew all the same as she remained entirely unbothered by me. I was as fearful as always, I just needed to show her that before I fucking killed her.
"Get up." I growled out as my friends came and stood just a foot or so behind me. "Now."
My plan of never again being humiliated by this strigoi? Well, it was going terribly.
"They changed its cage..." Jade muttered uselessly.
A grunt from Jake. "How the hell do we get to it now?" He asked no one in particular.
From behind me, Tallie placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. "We have to rethink this." She told me. She got no agreement from the others, but they didn't argue either.
Rethink? What the hell did that mean? I scoffed and shrugged off her hand, never taking my eyes from the beast before us all. They didn't understand, not how I'd thought they had. Sure, I knew they couldn't ever truly understand how I felt, but it hurt to see Tallie of all people so quickly turning herself from this. I'd been so close to death, at the mercy of the very thing that I was born to kill, yet she wanted to turn back?
"You guys start heading back." I told them as firmly as I could muster. "I knew about the cage. I've got a plan." I lied through my fucking teeth, made angrier again when Zero-Zero-Eight's head made the slightest of tilts.
Was she amused, having heard the tell of my lie? My heart, I assumed, had given me away.
The movement from her, though miniscule, was so oddly canine in nature. Yeah, she'd definitely heard my freaking heartbeat. She'd heard my lie and had found herself... what, intrigued?
"We're not leaving you." Jake was the first to dismiss me. He laughed as he spoke, as though what I'd said was truly insane. Maybe it was. "Lex-"
"Leave." I snapped, cutting him off. "Leave, or I'll scream and tell them that you guys dragged me down here."
Finally, I turned from Zero-Zero-Eight to look at my friends.
Filthy, covered in dust and cobwebs, their faces each showed betrayal. Alas, they could see it in my face. Truth. I would do exactly as I told them. I would scream and bring guardians in here. I would blame them. I would sell them out and ruin everything. I fucking needed this.
"Lex..." Jade started, glancing between her brother and Tallie uncertainly. They were both looking at me though. "You have a plan?" She then asked me, looking to solidify her reason for leaving me.
I nodded as convincingly as I could. "My mom told me about it before she left. They put it in here after it grabbed me. This design is safer for us all on the outside."
"Your mom told you?" Tallie asked, disbelief evident.
My patience was growing thin. "Yes." I tried not to be too pushy, tried not to show how badly I wanted them out of my hair.
A silence hung between us as they each contemplated my words. I didn't know if they knew that I was lying or not, but after a long moment, they left. Jake assured me that they'd only be far enough into the vent to give me a moment of privacy, but that they'd be back at any sign of distress.
Finally, they were gone. Zero-Zero-Eight and I were alone.
I knew I couldn't stay too long. The guardians would come in and check the cameras before long even if they didn't specifically have to check the strigoi on their rounds. Still, with my friends gone, still being ignored by Zero-Zero-Eight, I found myself simply standing and watching her for what felt like a lifetime.
The book in her hands was old and well worn, though I couldn't see the cover. What kind of thing, I wondered, did a strigoi want to read?
Even seeing it with my own two eyes as she turned page after page, the idea seemed absurd. I ruled out romance as far as genres went. I couldn't imagine that strigoi were particularly politically minded either, not to mention how dull I imagined the more supernaturally inclined books would be to an actual bloodthirsty monster. I hated how badly I suddenly wanted to know what captured her attention, especially when I seemed incapable of gaining it.
"I'm here to kill you." I told her, finally not expecting a reaction.
She knew that she was safe in her stupid cage. I couldn't lie, she would know.
At my words though, shocking me, came movement.
It was tiny, so ridiculously small that I almost missed it. The corner of her lip curled up in some kind of smile for just a second.
It was cruel and teasing, gone as quickly as I wondered if it had even been there. "You think that's funny?" I growled, almost finding myself charging over the tape line.
The stake strapped to my hip felt useless now. Where the hell was a gun when I needed one? Better yet, a flamethrower or a freaking grenade.
As if to anger me further, Zero-Zero-Eight softly closed her book and began to move. I froze, waiting for her to turn and glare at me through those ungodly eyes. Only, as I readied myself, she simply picked up and single piece of paper and the lone pencil on the floor.
Fuck!
For every moment that I seemed to be getting anywhere with her, nothing.
"I'm here to kill you." I growled in at her once more, feeling my mother's temper rising in me with each second that I went ignored.
Her hand moved, either drawing or writing, but I couldn't see anything further than that.
In a moment of pure insanity, I charged over the line and slammed my fist hard against the glass surface. My knuckles burst with pain immediately, but I ignored it.
Zero-Zero-Eight was fast, faster than I'd realised. What a fucking fool I was. Had I not learned the last time she'd shown me her speed?
She was bolt upright and standing with only the pane of glass between us faster than I could even comprehend. Her movements were a little more than a blur, but I found myself jumping out of my skin and stumbling backwards.
My tailbone took a good brunt of the hit as I landed flat on my ass. My cheeks flushed, embarrassed by her yet again.
There, before me, held against the glass, was the sheet of paper. Her words, written in scratchy writing, were clear.
"kill me then"
Nothing more, nothing less, just three words staring back at me as she looked down with those same eyes that had looked at me through the wall of the last cage. She looked disgusted again. Was that why she was being so calm? All excitement from the last time was gone. I was, what, a disappointment to even her?
A stone of dread and other such negativity sank in my gut.
While I was still inside the taped off area, I realised quickly that there was no immediate threat to me. There was no way for us to reach one another, so I stayed within the lines as I stood.
The only things in the room, save for the contents of Zero-Zero-Eight's cage, was a fire extinguisher and a fire escape axe. Neither of those things would help me to kill this bitch.
She didn't move again, not as I found myself squaring up to her through the glass. She was taller than me by a few inches, broader than me by a few more and her lean frame was far more packed with muscle than my own was. Even without her supernatural advantage, she looked like she could have taken me head on and won. I'd fought so hard for her attention, but now that I found myself under her scrutinous gaze, I had no idea what to do.
Feeling something between brave and stupid, I tried the handle on the freaking door. I yanked it once, twice, three times before giving in. It didn't so much as rattle.
She watched me the entire time, unmoving.
"My name's Alexia Belikova." I told her as she continued to hold her sheet against the glass with one hand. She was braced against it was both hands, seemingly caging me in to some kind of invisible box. I briefly considered that it was an intimidation tactic, so I held myself tall as I spoke. "I want you to know that. I want you to know who I am. When I kill you, I want you to know who the fuck I am. My name is my legacy. Alexia Belikova."
Unafraid, she simply moved the sheet of paper slightly, drawing my attention back to it with no emotions on her face.
Fuck. How had I fucked this up so damn badly?
"Lex!" A harsh hiss from the vent drew my attention briefly.
I stepped backward, out of the taped off zone, meeting the concerned eyes of none other than Tallie as her head poked out of the vent. She'd seen, I knew, but she was warning me of something.
Huffing, I looked back at Zero-Zero-Eight and gritted my teeth. I'd have to come back and try again. "Don't forget my name. Don't forget who's coming for you." I snarled as lowly as I could, turning and speeding off and back up the steps without so much as a glance back.
Hopping back into the vent and swinging it shut behind me, I didn't look at the others as I urged them forward.
With each foot that I got further from Zero-Zero-Eight, the shame and despair sank deeper in my gut.
The four of us didn't speak again, not until we were all the way back the way we'd come and were safely back outside the water heater cellar.
In the safety of the courtyard, as we raced back toward the safety of the school's main body, Tallie asked me what had happened.
What the hell had happened?
I know this was a bit of a "nothing" chapter but I want to really give Lex the chance to drive herself made over Zero-Zero-Eight for a little while, sorry! Thank you for sticking with me and giving this a shot, I really appreciate it. Feel free to leave me with thoughts and feelings, I enjoy knowing what's thought about the crap that I write.
Further than all that, have a great day!