Chapter 228

The reception area was empty.

Not just the visitor seating, which she’d expected given the facility was closed. The reception desk itself stood abandoned. A coffee mug sat on the counter, still half full. A jacket hung over the back of the chair. Whoever had been sitting there had left in a hurry.

Shouting echoed from deeper in the building, muffled by concrete and heavy doors. It came from both sides. Two bright blue reinforced doors flanked the waiting room, one to the left, one to the right, each fitted with the same wire-mesh glass and heavy deadbolts as the front entrance. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Annie looked between them. The noise from one direction wasn’t noticeably worse than the other.

She shrugged and picked left.

The lock took less time than the front door. She stepped through, pulled it shut behind her, and relocked it. The hallway beyond stretched ahead, fluorescent lights humming overhead, half of them flickering. Scuffed linoleum floors. The walls were painted the kind of off-white that had probably been chosen from a catalog titled ‘Institutional Comfort.’

She sauntered down the corridor, glancing into each room as she passed. A holo viewing room with rows of bolted-down chairs facing a blank wall screen. Then a game room with two pool tables and a rack of board games behind a plastic shield. A classroom with desks arranged in clusters, a whiteboard still covered in equations. Another classroom, this one set up for something more hands-on, with workbenches and tools locked behind mesh cabinets.

A kitchen came next, larger than the other rooms, with stainless steel counters and industrial appliances, locked behind another reinforced security door. Identical to the one she’d just passed through.

The lights were on, but so far nobody was home.

A stairwell door was propped open with a rubber wedge. The noise hit her the moment she entered.

Shouting. Angry screaming. Dozens of voices layered over each other, the cacophony punctuated by sharp commands. Answered by creative swearing and a loud banging that rattled through the ceiling.

Annie shook her head and started up the stairs.

The second floor landing opened onto a wide corridor. Three uniformed guards stood shoulder to shoulder across it, heavy plastic riot shields braced in front of them. Beyond the shields, a crowd of teenagers packed the hallway, faces red, voices raw, pressing forward in surges that rocked the guards back on their heels.

“Get back to your rooms! Now!”

“Make us, dickhead!”

Annie stepped out of the stairwell.

The teenagers closest to her noticed first. The shouting faltered, voices dropping away in a wave that spread down the corridor as heads turned. Within a few seconds, the hallway had gone from deafening to something closer to quiet, broken only by the shuffle of feet, heavy breathing from the guards, and the occasional shout from further down the hall.

The three guards glanced at each other, visibly confused by the sudden calm.

Then a teenager near the front of the crowd pointed at her and screamed.

“Holy shit! That’s Annie from Grimnir!”

“Bullshit,” another voice called back. “Why would Grimnir be here? Fucknuts.”

All three guards turned to look over their shoulders. Two of them paled.

Annie waved. “Sup. Just here to pick up my sister.” She stuffed her hands into her pockets. “Know where I can find her?”

“Y-you can’t be here,” said the middle guard. “W-we’re closed.”

The other guards gripped their shields tighter, shifting closer to each other.

Behind them, some kids snickered. One of them immediately started reenacting the stuttering in a high-pitched voice.

Annie ignored them. “Yeah, the guard out front told me. Also said to go easy on you guys.” She smiled. “So, if you just tell me where I can find Sasha Sheridan, I’ll be on my way. She goes by Ash.”

The guards shared a look. Then the middle one shook his head. “We can’t—”

“This is the boys’ block, dumbass! Girls are in B!” a voice from the crowd called.

Then another. “Take us with you though!”

“Yeah!”

The shouting grew louder again, and the guards braced as the kids surged forward again.

Annie glanced at the wall, where a big letter ‘A’ was painted. She clicked her tongue. Wrong side of the building.

She turned back to the stairwell, leaving stunned guards and screaming kids behind her.

The other side of the building carried a very different atmosphere.

The entertainment rooms were occupied. Kids sprawled across chairs in the holo viewing room, watching something loud and animated. The game room had a pool match going, two girls circling the table while a handful of others watched and heckled. Even the kitchen was in use, a group clustered around one of the counters, eating cereal out of mismatched bowls. A female guard stood inside the doorway, arms folded, watching over things with the weary patience of someone who’d made peace with their situation.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Other than the usual level of teenage noise, it was orderly. There were fewer kids on this side, from what she could see.

Barely anyone in the hallway noticed her pass.

Annie found the stairwell and headed up. Halfway to the second floor, a kid sat on the steps with their back against the wall. Couldn’t have been older than fourteen. Arms crossed, chin raised, watching her approach with the studied disinterest of someone who’d been told to sit there and pay attention.

A lookout.

The kid looked her up and down. “Who’re you?”

“Annie. I’m looking for my sister, Ash.”

“Why?”

“Getting her out of here.”

“How?”

Annie sighed. “Who died and made you the inquisition?”

“Ash did.”

“What?”

“Exactly.”

Annie stared at the kid for a long moment. Then she leaned in. “Okay, brat. Here’s the deal. I’m going up these stairs. You get to decide if it’s through you or not.”

The kid’s eyes widened.

Annie took a step. “One.”

The kid stood up.

She took another. “Two.”

The kid turned and sprinted up the stairs. “Ash! Someone’s coming to get you!”

Annie watched them disappear around the landing. She exhaled, shook her head, and followed the tattletale at a walk.

She stepped out of the stairwell and rounded the corner. The kid was already halfway down the corridor, sprinting past doors on both sides before ducking into a room at the far end. Heads poked out of doorways along the hall, watching the kid disappear, then turning back to look at Annie.

She met their stares and kept walking.

The rooms she passed were cells. No other word for it. Small. Concrete walls. A narrow bed bolted to the floor, a metal shelf unit, a toilet and sink behind a half-wall that offered the bare minimum of privacy. She’d seen rooms like these before, from the inside. Just for superhumans instead of juvenile delinquents. A few had thick, heavy-duty tablets propped on the beds or shelves. Others had books, stacked in small piles or scattered across mattresses. Personal touches were sparse. A photo taped to a wall here. A drawing there.

Someone stepped out in front of her. Tall. Arms crossed.

Annie stepped around her without slowing.

A hand clamped down on her shoulder from behind. “You ain’t bothering—”

The voice cut off when Annie kept moving without so much as slowing, almost dragging the tall girl off balance before they let go.

“What the hell?”

Annie ignored it. Her focus was entirely on the doorway ahead. The one the lookout had raced into.

She stopped in the doorway. The room was identical to the others. Except for the girl sitting on the bed, back against the wall, calmly reading a book.

Ash looked different. Older, of course, but also bigger and with an air of sharpness about her. Her beautiful hair, dyed black when Annie had last seen her, was shaved off. A layer of ginger-red stubble was all that remained.

The lookout looked back and forth between them.

Ash closed the book and turned to Annie. “Why are you here?”

Annie almost flinched at the cold in her little sister’s voice. But she’d been prepared for at least that much.

She stepped into the room. “I’m here to pick you up.” She hesitated. The words were hard. Then she offered a small smile. “It’s time to go home.”

“Home…” Ash said slowly. “We haven’t had one of those for years. Since Mom and Dad died.” She scowled. “Then you went and broke out of prison, which brought heat down on me and my friends, and then we were sent here.”

Annie glanced down. “I’m sorry, Sash.” She winced, her sister’s face already developing storm clouds. “Ash. I really am. There was a lot going on, and a lot of it was really, really bad. And then I didn’t know where you were, so we had to hire these shady intel brokers. But then these interdimensional invasions began, and after that we rescued a bunch of aliens from a torture facility, and I had to fight a dinosaur, but then we went into space and had to fight even more things.”

Annie ran out of air and started gulping down more.

She spoke faster. “Then when we got back, we had to go to Dubai to rescue a guy who can see the future and fight a whole bunch of asshole kidnappers, except we got caught by the authorities. But then Alexander made a deal with them to tell everyone the truth about AEGIS and the government and then we got attacked by the vampire supervillain, you know, the one from years ago in Panama?” She took another gulp of air. “And then Alexander made some friends of ours teleport the city away and we ended up on Mars. Mars! But after that they beat the vampire and saved the world and then he said I had to come and get you now because it was way too dangerous to leave you here anymore, but I was only leaving you here because I thought it would be safer! I’M SORRY!”

Ash and the lookout stared at her in stunned silence while Annie panted, hands on her knees.

She felt like she’d run a marathon. Worse than after any training session.

The silence stretched uncomfortably.

Annie looked at Ash, hoping that she’d said something right, because she couldn’t really remember exactly what she had said.

“You… fought a dinosaur?” Ash asked. “Bullshit.”

Annie shook her head. “It’s true! There’s even a recording of it. I can show you later.”

“Seriously? An actual dinosaur?”

Annie nodded. “And I stole its powers! I can transform into a Spino.”

“You’re such a liar.”

“I’m telling the truth!”

“Prove it.”

Annie stared. “What? Now? Right here?”

“Yes.” Ash crossed her arms. “Otherwise you’re just a big fat liar.”

Annie stamped her foot. “I’m not turning into a dinosaur for your amusement. I came to break you out. You can see it later.”

Ash glared. Annie glared back.

She knew this game. And she wouldn’t back down.

A few moments later, the lookout raised a hand. “Um. Can I go with you?”

“No,” Annie said.

“Yes,” Ash said at the same time. “In fact, I hope you have a lot of spare rooms, big sister. Because I’m not leaving unless my friends come with me.”

Annie smirked. “I already knew that. You can bring them.”

Ash smiled slowly. “Oh, good. Bean, go grab the others.”

Bean saluted, then raced out of the room, yelling at the top of her lungs. “Gather up! We’re getting out of here!”

Annie’s smile slowly faded. She glanced at the door, then back at her sister. “Uh… how many friends exactly?”

Ash slid off the bed and stood up. She was tall. Taller than Annie now. She held out her arms and embraced Annie. Patted her on the back a few times. “Oh, maybe just thirty or forty of the girls. And a few of the boys.”

Annie gulped.

Alexander was going to kill her.