Tremble (Denazen #3)(77)

I didn’t think for a minute they’d stashed the vial in here, but I didn’t correct him. He was finally taking part in the action, and I knew from experience it felt good to do something productive and helpful. One last nod and I was out the door and racing down the hall.

The entire building had erupted in chaos, and I needed to find Kale. Bursting through the door at the end of the hallway, I twisted to go left but froze when I saw an agent flying full speed in my direction.

I pivoted to the right and found Kale. He was on the other end of the hall, crouched low to the ground. His hand pressed flat against the linoleum as a swirl of black gathered, going from wall to wall.

When he looked up and saw me coming, it was too late.





32


“Dez, no!” he screamed, jumping to his feet. His expression contorted—pure panic. Something rare on Kale’s face. He pointed to the ceiling. “Up!”

With the inky black mass barreling toward the agent—toward me—I froze and looked up. Above my head was a thin pipe that ran the length of the room. Kicking off the ground with all my strength, I grabbed the pipe and drew my legs up just as the churning mass zoomed past. I counted to ten—to be safe—then dropped to the floor and turned to watch the darkness continue on its path. Either the agent didn’t understand, or he was so oblivious that he didn’t see, but he hadn’t made any attempt to move. He was still coming fast.

And then he wasn’t.

Kale’s darkness hit him. The agent never even slowed. One minute he was only a few feet away, zooming toward us and solid, the next he was a million tiny particles of dust scattered in my face. I cringed, waving a hand back and forth to not breathe him in.

“Are you okay?” Kale said, coming up behind me. “I almost—”

“I’m fine. Promise. Cavalry has arrived. I just came from Vince, and he said Mom and Dax are in the building searching for captives.”

“They’re in the building?” Kale’s eyes went wide. “How did they get inside?”

“According to Vince, some of the Residents Denazen thought were wrapped around its fat little finger aren’t so compliant anymore. Seems Brandt and Devin organized one hell of a coup.”

He smiled. “Trojan horse. Like what Kiernan did at the hotel.”

My mouth fell open, and for a second all I could do was stand there and stare. Just for a second, though. The next, I threw my arms around him, squeezing as tight as I possibly could.

He returned the embrace then pulled away. “It’s confusing. I can only see fragments. And sometimes the things I see don’t make any sense. What I just said, I don’t understand. I can’t see the memory clearly. But I have a good idea what’s real and what’s fake now.”

“This means it’s fading, Kale. We’re going to be okay.”

He kissed me quickly on the forehead and took my hand. “Hurry. This is our last chance to find the vial.”

“We have the case of Domination. Forget the vial—I’ll take my chances. There’s no way we’re going to find it now. This place is huge and we have no idea where it’s being kept.” At this point, we were only pushing our luck. I was free, I’d found Kale, and we had the serum. Brandt used to tell me I didn’t know when to walk away. I’d done some growing up since then, though, and that wasn’t the case anymore.

“There’s one last place to look,” Kale insisted. He tugged me forward and I let him. “Come on.”

We sprinted to the other side of the building—floor sub-level seven—and climbed staircase after staircase. The higher we got the more activity we saw. The smoke grew thicker. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t real, like Vince said, but it smelled real. It felt real, too. The temperature in the building seemed to have jumped a good thirty degrees.

Kale pulled me into an unmarked room at the end of the hall and closed the door behind us. We entered a wide landing that overlooked a room full of scientific equipment. Microscopes, rows of beakers and tubes, and a huge glass tank full of water. It was the one thing that looked ridiculously out of place. It reminded me of something you’d see at an aquarium. A shark tank—or maybe a mermaid.

Crap.

If there were mermaid Sixes out there, I was turning in my membership card.

Kale took my hand and pulled me down to the second landing, pointing to a row of metal cabinets. “Marshal brought in a scientific team. This is where they did the research on the blood with the formula that was stolen from Wentz. They might be keeping it here.”

“They might be,” someone said from the doorway above us. “But wouldn’t that just be too easy?”

We looked up to find Kiernan standing in the open doorway.

“Isn’t this a nipple twist.” She looked from me to Kale, eyes settling on our joined hands. There was red-hot fury in her eyes, as well as a spark of hurt. “Mind explaining, lover boy?”

“I told you,” Kale said slowly. His fingers tightened around mine. “Nothing could make me forget the girl I love.”

She blinked, staring like she’d heard him wrong. “So it was all nothing? Everything we shared? You didn’t love me at all?”

While I’d never been driven to the same level of desperation Kiernan had, I understood the way she felt. Sort of, anyway. Dad had ignored me most of my life. I did anything and everything possible to get his attention. To feel some kind of connection. I’d wanted the same thing she did. A family. The difference was, I found friends. There were people out there who genuinely cared about me, and with them in my life, Dad’s lack of interest didn’t matter quite so much. My sister hadn’t had that. I’d seen the way Dad—Cross—treated her. She had to have seen it, too. She might not be willing to admit it just yet, but I was betting Kiernan had finally realized the love she craved wasn’t going to come from Marshal Cross, so she’d foolishly pinned her hopes on Kale.