I see the prince through the rippled glass. It distorts his face, and he looks so much like Maven. “Mare,” Cal whispers, if only to himself.
But his whispers cannot stop me now. I feel something new inside myself, familiar but strange. A power that comes not from blood but choice. From who I have become, and not what I was born as. I turn from Cal’s warped image. I know I look just as twisted.
I bare my teeth in a snarl.
“Lightning has no mercy.”
Once, I watched my brothers burn ants with a bit of glass. This is similar—and worse.
While the individually sealed cell blocks make it difficult, almost impossible, for prisoners to escape, they also make it that much harder for the guards to communicate with each other. Confusion is as effective as lightning or flame. Guards are loath to leave their posts, especially with rumors of the king around, and we find four buzzing magnetrons arguing in Block G.
“You heard the siren, something’s wrong—”
“Probably a drill, showing off for the little king—”
“I can’t get command on the radio.”
“You heard them before, cameras are malfunctioning, the radios are going too. Might be the queen messing around again, bloody witch.”
I spear a bolt through one of them to get their attention. “Wrong witch.”
Before the metal catwalk can drop beneath me, I grab onto the bars to the left of the door, holding fast. Cal goes to the right, and the bars turn red beneath his flaming touch, melting straight through. Cameron stays in the doorway, a light sheen of sweat across her brow, but she shows no signs of slowing down. One of the magnetrons topples from his retracting perch, clutching his head as he falls three levels to the concrete floor. It knocks him out cold. Two left.
A hailstorm of jagged metal screams at me, each piece a tiny dagger meant to kill. Before they can, I let go, sliding down the bars, until my feet hit the slight ledge of the cell below. “Cal, a little help!” I shout, dodging another blast. I answer it with my own, but the magnetron dips, stepping into what should be midair. Instead, his metal moves with him, allowing him to seemingly run through the open atrium.
To my chagrin, Cal ignores me, and pries away the melted bar of the cell. His back spikes with flame, protecting himself from any weapon the other magnetron can throw at him. I can barely see him through the twists of fire, but I see enough. He’s horribly angry, and it’s no mystery why. He hates me for killing those Silvers—for doing what he can’t. I never thought I’d see the day when Cal, the soldier, the warrior, would fear to act. Now he focuses on opening as many cells as he can, ignoring my pleas for help, forcing me to fight alone.
“Cameron, drop him!” I yell, glancing up at my unlikely ally.
“With pleasure,” she snarls, extending a hand to the magnetron attacking me. He stumbles, but doesn’t fall. She’s weakening.
I scramble along the cells, toes almost slipping, fingers straining with every passing second. I’m a runner, not a climber, and I almost can’t fight this way. Almost. A sharp, diamond-shaped razor grazes my cheek, opening a wound across my face. Another cuts my palm. When I grab the next bar, my grip is weak, slipping through my own blood. I fall the last six or seven feet, landing hard in the bowels of the block. For a second, I can’t breathe, and I open my eyes to see a gigantic spike whistling at my head. I roll, dodging the killing blow. Another and another rain down, and I have to zigzag across the floor to stay alive. “Cal!” I shout again, more angry than afraid.
The next spike melts before it reaches me, but the iron globs splatter too close, burning across my back. A scream escapes me as the fabric of my suit melts into my scars. It’s nearly the worst pain I’ve ever felt, second only to the sounder and the excruciating coma that followed. My knees slam into the ground, sending jolts of agony up my legs.
Pain, it seems, is another one of my triggers.
The skylight high above us shatters, and a bolt of lightning explodes down to me. For a split second, it’s like a purple tree has grown up from the sublevel, branching and veining through the open atrium of Block G. It catches one of the magnetrons, and she doesn’t even have time to scream. The other, the last guard, is all but finished, reduced to cowering on his last sheet of metal, curled up against Cameron’s hammering will.
“Julian!” I shout once the air clears. “Sara!”
Cal jumps down at the other end of the floor, his hands cupped around his mouth. He refuses to look at me, searching the cells instead. “Uncle Julian!” he roars.
“I’ll just wait up here,” Cameron says, watching us from the open doorway at the top level. Her legs dangle. She even has the gall to whistle, eyeing the last magnetron as he moans.
Block G is just as dank as the newblood D, and, thanks to me, half-destroyed. A hole smokes in the center of the floor, the only remnants of my massive bolt. From what I can see, the bottom cells are almost pitch-black, but they’re all full. A few prisoners have stumbled to their bars, coming to look at the commotion. How many faces will I recognize? But they’re too drawn, too gaunt, their skin almost blue with fear, hunger, and cold. I doubt I’d recognize even Cal after a few weeks down here. I expected more for the Silvers, but I guess political prisoners are just as dangerous as secret, mutated ones.
“Here,” a voice croaks.
I nearly trip over a magnetron body, running even though the burns on my back protest with every step. Cal meets me there, his hands on fire, ready to melt the bars, to save his uncle, to make amends for some of his sins.