Chapter 135

Dozens of people were running toward him at a fast pace, and Cadon wasn’t sure if all of them could see him in the dim light of the passageway. He also wasn’t a hundred percent sure that most of them were on his side and not Vampires. As they neared his position, he did the only thing that seemed to make sense and leaped up off of the catwalk, grabbing hold of a pipe sticking out from the ceiling.
There wasn’t a lot of clearance, but he managed to pull himself out of the way as the frantic forms fled. As they ran beneath him, he saw that they were all freed prisoners.
At least thirty people, maybe more, passed beneath him before Cadon let go and dropped back down onto the walkway outside of the cells. He had to imagine that all of the prisoners who had been in this area when Heather popped the locks were on their way to safety, but he had an uneasy feeling in his stomach that could only mean one thing.
Vampires were nearby.
“Roar, how many people did you think were in here?”
“I have no idea.” the redhead answered through her IAC. “It depends on how many they’ve killed in the last few days.”
Cadon didn’t like that answer. He wanted to make sure he got everyone. Leaving someone behind was not the way he wanted his first mission to end.
“Cadon, a ton of Vampires are pouring in from another building to the west,” Brandon said. “We need to get out of here.”
“Are you outside?” Cadon asked him, flipping through IAC feeds to find his uncle’s.
“Yes, and so are they. But they won’t be for long.”
“Is the boat being loaded?” Cadon wasn’t even sure if the boat had arrived yet, but from the sound of Brandon’s voice, he had to assume the Guardian was telling him he thought it was time to go.
“The boat is being loaded as quickly as we can get people out,” he said. “I just hope there’s enough room.”
Having more people rescued than they expected would seem to be a good thing, but not if there wasn’t room on the boat. “Get the former prisoners on the boat first. If we have to, we can swim to San Francisco, but most of them are probably weak and tired.”
“Affirmative,” Brandon said, his tone portraying his disdain for the thought of swimming through cold, shark-infested waters back to land.
Cadon didn’t want to do it either, but at least he knew it wouldn’t kill him. And he knew what they said about things that didn’t kill you. They made you… want to kill yourself.
“Heather, can you do a sweep of the prison and see if there are any more prisoners? Can’t you pick up on their brainwaves or something?”
“Or somethin’,” she said, and he could basically feel her rolling her eyes at him.
The feeling that Vampires were bearing down on him from both sides was unsettling, but Cadon had no choice but to wait there for Heather’s advice, unless he wanted to run on, blindly, further into the prison, just in case there were more prisoners.
It was only a matter of seconds before Heather was talking to him again, though it seemed like an eternity. “Ah, shit, Cadon. We got a damn problem all right.”
“That’s not exactly what I was hoping to hear,” Cadon said, swallowing hard. “What is it?”
“There’s a girl trapped up in the damn air vent.”
“What the hell?” Cadon couldn’t believe what she was saying. “A girl trapped in an air vent?”
“That’s what I said, goddamnit! Clean yer ears out!”
Cadon couldn’t help but wonder what it was about Hybrids that made them such colossal bitches. “Do you know where she is?”
“IN THE AIR VENT!”
“I know that--but where?”
Heather growled. “Further down from where you are, maybe a hundred feet. There’s some newfangled ventilation system the Vamps put in to circulate the air because of the stench or somethin’. She climbed up in there, and now she’s stuck.”
Why the Vampires would do such a thing was beyond him, but he had to wonder if it wasn’t some means of administering gas to all of the inmates at once. He had heard about some sort of gas Vampires had used successfully against Guardians before he was born, but he didn’t know how it worked against Hunters. “All right. I’ll find her.” Cadon headed down the passageway, the growing tension in his stomach telling him he was running toward trouble.
“You’d best hurry the hell up or we’re leavin’ without you. She’s the last one. As it is, Brandon’s fixin’ to blow the shit out of the western side of this motherfucker.”
“Thank God I’m on the eastern side, then,” Cadon said, already running along the path, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
It was difficult to run while looking up on such a narrow walkway. He hoped he didn’t fall on his face or miss her because he was glancing down. Would he even be able to see the air vent in question?
“Hello?” Cadon yelled. “Hey! Girl stuck in an air vent!” he called, wishing he’d asked Heather if she knew her name. There was no way in hell he was going to ask Heather anything now.
As he ran, Cadon was getting updates about what was going on outside. Brandon and Elliott were both armed with bazookas now, and Heather was right when she said they were blowing the shit out of the Vampires infiltrating the main prison from the west. He could feel the ground shaking beneath his feet and heard pieces of plaster falling off of the ceilings and walls.
He hoped the Vampires on this side of the building would run back the way they’d come so as to avoid the destruction going on outside, but the further he ran, the more he felt them. He imagined he’d be seeing them before too much longer.
“Help!”
A small, high-pitched voice echoed above him as if it was being spoken in a metal tube.
Cadon froze and looked up.
He couldn’t see her at first, but then, looking through the holes in a grate, two bright eyes met his.
He’d found his girl.
“Hey!” Cadon shouted. “I’m here to help. Why don’t you pull that grate out of the way and jump on down?”
“I can’t!” she said. “It’s stuck.”
It was odd that she wouldn’t be able to move a grate. He’d never met a Hunter or a Guardian that didn’t have superhuman strength. “Are you sure you can’t get it?”
“Yes,” she said. “Besides, even if I could get it, my shoe is stuck, and I can’t get it off or get it free.”
Something about this girl was peculiar. With Vampires bearing down on them from one direction and explosions blasting away on the other, Cadon didn’t have time to argue with the girl about why she couldn’t get out. Instead, he had to act--and act fast.