Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Flames melted the metal, turning solid into dripping ore.
Kicking the door, the bars swung wide open.
Rook didn’t say a word as we stepped through and headed down the dungeon-like corridor.
Her anxiety spiked, prickling my heart.
“It will be okay.” Squeezing her hand, our eyes caught. “I’ll never leave you like I did on the mountain. Where you go, I go.”
“Where you go, I go,” she repeated, holding my gaze for an eternity before finally nodding and gathering the long train of her nightgown. “Together.”
“Together.” I wanted to kiss her, hug her, thank her for fighting beside me.
Instead, we stalked through Brimstone and prepared for battle.
Chapter Fifteen
WE ROUNDED THE FIRST CORNER, AND almost slammed into a man in a crisp white lab coat, clutching a clipboard. I vaguely recognised him from his visits to Cinderkeep to harvest me when I was younger.
I hadn’t seen him since I’d agreed to start drawing my own blood, but the last time he’d visited, he’d kept me in that little room for hours...sampling my blood with high-tech equipment, grading each congealing droplet as if it was a rare wine.
“Y-You.” His eyes bulged in shock. “What are you doing out of the holding cell?” He went to shout, but...I summoned the fire with nothing more than a thought. It answered like an eager beast, roaring down my arm in a concentrated blade of white-gold flame.
I hurled the spear of fire through his chest, cauterising a hole where his heart used to be. He died instantly—collapsing to the floor—his eyes still wide and lips parted in silent shock.
“Oh my God,” Rook gasped. “How did you...? What—?”
“Come on.” Grabbing her wrist, I ignored the way ice crawled up my fingertips and added fuel to the fire still crackling over my arm. Her power over me had switched. Touching her before helped calm and cool me, but now...now she fed and strengthened me.
I wanted to kiss her in gratitude. Instead, I jerked her into a faster walk. “Stay close.”
Hazy childhood memories overlaid with the present as we made our way out of the row of cages. The basement level was nothing like the elegant upper floors of Brimstone Industries. The London headquarters pierced the sky with a giant steel and glass skyscraper, lurking on the outskirts of the city—hiding what they did below.
Thick black pipes snaked along the ceiling, recycling fresh air and water. Stone had been carved to create the cells and labs that could withstand accidental mishaps.
I chuckled under my breath as I followed the schematics I’d studied for the past two decades. Marcus had regularly dropped off paperwork, operational updates, and meeting minutes—almost as if he enjoyed rubbing my nose in the fact that he’d stolen my family’s company. Bet he didn’t think all that paperwork would come in handy now as we sneaked through my legacy.
“How do we get out?” Rook asked quietly as we rounded another corridor and found the heavy glass-walled laboratories. Inside, rows of glowing cylindrical tanks held pale, lifeless human body parts.
Rook sucked in a breath. “Please tell me they aren’t remains of other R gene carriers.”
I couldn’t answer so I just said, “Don’t look.” More footsteps and heartbeats sounded up ahead. The fire spread up my arm, eager and hot.
We passed another lab. Steel tables waited beside trolleys full of surgical tools. On the walls, huge diagrams of human bodies hung, complete with copious notes scribbled across the veins and bones as if they’d been trying to recreate another like Rook and me.
Turned out, Marcus had been telling the truth back in the Eastern Crucible. Those trapped in the mountain were just rejects—the ones with barely any power and tossed aside on the off chance they might produce something worthwhile.
But here...here was where the true work was done.
My fingers flexed to destroy it all.
How many others were like us? How many men and women, girls and boys, had suffered here, been tortured here?
Never again.
I would burn this place to the fucking ground and take out the rest of the monsters who did this.
A flare of ice coated the floor as if Rook came to the same conclusion. Catching her gaze, we shared a fierce nod before breaking into a jog and—
Slammed to a halt as two guards dragged an unconscious man between them, his legs dragging behind him. Two men in white coats trailed behind, discussing their notes and pointing at the poor test subject they currently carried to be brutalised.
The guards noticed us first.
They dropped the unconscious man like discarded rubbish, reaching for their guns—
Flicking my wrist, two whips of flame cracked forward. Gold-white fire wrapped around the guards’ throats like living nooses, lifting them clean off the floor. Their screams lasted less than a second before the fire consumed them from the inside out. Their skin blackened and blistered as they hit the ground.