"What the fuck was that?" growled Derrial as we stared at the smoldering wreckage of the building behind us that we’d passed. The air was thick with smoke, and the only reason I wasn't on the ground was thanks to Thane grabbing me at the last second and taking the brunt of the aftershocks of the explosion when it went off.
I was trembling with shock. If I hadn't been clumsy and kicked that rock...we would be nothing but cinders right now because we would have been too close to the blast.
Thane let me go and then hunched over, his body slightly shaking. He looked like he was about to be sick. He suddenly straightened up, and I knew by the look on his face that I wasn't going to like whatever else came out of his mouth. "You need to stay here, Ella. There's no way we're bringing you with us," he said firmly.
I didn't want any of us to go, but I knew we needed to get in that laboratory. But there was no way that I was going to let them leave me behind. I had already made a vow that we weren't going to be separated again. Crazy or not, our separation from Corran had about done me in. I had promised these men an eternity. I wasn't going to let them leave me prematurely.
"That's not happening," I told him quietly, but resolutely.
His face fell. He looked to Derrial and Corran for help. They all looked like they wanted to agree with Thane, but knew that it would be a losing endeavor. "You don't understand. They've triggered the traps," Thane said fervently. "If they've changed things from when I designed them, we'll all be dead."
"Traps?" I asked, my voice rising with a bit of hysteria.
"The Battalion Project?" asked Derrial sharply. "That was you? I thought that was just a myth. Fuck."
Thane nodded, ashamed. "I was head of that project." He turned to me. "Pet, if you remember, I was once upon a time head of security for the council and all of Veon. One of my projects was to protect one of the important government buildings located in the center of this city. They told me it was an archive for our world's history. But evidently they were lying. My team and I set traps throughout the city that could be triggered in the case of a Khonsu attack-" His voice broke off. "I never imagined they would be used against me."
We were all quiet for one shocked moment before Derrial took control. "Do you still remember where all the traps are?" he asked.
Thane seemed to respond to the authority in Derrial's voice, and he squared his shoulders, a determined look appearing on his beautiful face. "I do, but if they've changed anything-"
"We'll just have to take that risk," said Derrial, cutting him off. "There's little risk that they did that though. The council has never been one to get their own hands dirty with hard work. I'm sure they didn't think they'd be using it against the person who designed it. We've been good foot soldiers for a long time now."
"I can't put Ella's life in danger like that," said Thane, sounding desperate.
"We're not leaving her," said Corran all of a sudden, sounding exhausted. He looked like he was about to fall over. "I'm not willing to leave her behind and I'm also not willing for the three of us to be separated. I'm going to need help once we get to the lab. It's been..." His voice broke. "It's been a rough few days," he finished quietly.
"Let's get started," I announced, trying to keep my voice level, despite the fact that the baby had chosen that moment to give me a choice kick.
At some point in this pregnancy, I needed to rest. Which reminded me…
"We have less than three months to figure all this shit out. Let's go," I ordered, finally letting them know I'd found out the kind of a big thing they'd neglected to tell me about Vepar pregnancies.
The three of them all looked guilty. "Sweetheart-" Corran began, but I made a slicing motion with my arm.
"We can talk about that little detail you left out later."
They nodded, and then Thane took a deep breath. "The first layer consisted of bombs. We had it triggered that every twelve steps or so, there would be a crack that if stepped on would trigger the explosion. So long as we don't step on any of the cracks..."
This put a whole new meaning on the nursery rhyme "don't step on a crack or you'll break your mother's back."
Derrial grabbed my hand. "Stay close to me," he ordered and we all began walking. We all followed Thane who was counting the steps we took. The walk was tedious, as it quickly became apparent that twelve steps was not a lot in between traps. I'd decided very early on that I wasn't going to step on any cracks...just in case. This only made us slower going. It took us three hours to get through two layers of the city, something that we usually could have walked in less than fifteen minutes.
But as we stepped over the last crack, we were all still alive, so I guess it was three hours well spent. It was eerie to see a city so deserted, but with this laboratory being the epicenter of the infection, it made sense that the city's inhabitants had run. Many of them not making it very far, based on the large amount camped outside the walls still.
I had never seen Thane look so on edge. I wanted to soothe him, but now wasn't the time.
"Fuck, Fuck, Fuck," he said, and then he took few deep breaths as if to calm himself down.
"What's next?" asked Derrial, who only seemed to be getting calmer as Thane fell apart.
"As soon as we step onto the next street, a gas will start to pour out of the buildings. It's a hallucinogenic gas. It creates illusions similar to what the Khonsu can do. The effects will fade as soon as you get past the layer, but it's designed to be a hell of a trip on the way."
"What kind of hallucinations will it be?" I asked in a trembling voice as I thought about the torture I'd gone through with that first Khonsu.
"Bad ones, pet," Thane said apologetically. "Every fear you've ever had, magnified."
We were all somber with that knowledge.
"Will it hurt the baby?" I asked. We had just survived potentially being blown up, but somehow subjecting the baby to potentially poisonous gas seemed like a pretty big deal. I was definitely not following what the pregnancy books said. I wish there was a pregnancy handbook on how to survive your pregnancy in an alien world.
"It's compru gas," Corran explained. "Besides the hallucinations, there aren't any adverse effects. The council's used it on prisoners for years to get information out of them." He shook his head and I knew what he wasn't saying was his role in creating it. I'm sure all of my Vepar were really regretting their early lives right now. "We have to go," said Corran tiredly, and I knew he was thinking about all the people he'd left beyond the city's walls that still needed help.
We all seemed to take a collective breath as we stepped into the next row of buildings.
Thane was correct. As soon as we stepped out from beyond the building we'd been hiding behind, little holes opened up at the bottom of the domed structures and a fluorescent looking green gas started pouring out.
At first, I didn't notice anything besides the fact that the gas seemed to be making me a little bit tired.
But that changed quickly.
I screamed as a horde of Khonsu began running towards me, each of them holding their whips. I crouched down in the street with my hands out in front of me, but when a moment passed and I felt nothing, I opened my eyes to see that the Khonsu were gone. It had just been an illusion.
The rest of the guys were struggling just as much. Derrial was actually sobbing at whatever he saw. Corran disappeared right in front of my eyes, replaced by a corpse of him that was bleeding from large cuts all over his body.
"It's not real. It's not real. It's not real," I chanted as great sobs wracked my body. I couldn't stop myself from leaning forward to try and touch it. As soon as I did so, of course, Corran's dead body disappeared, and I became aware of his live body standing in front of me once again.
By this time, Thane was screaming, shouting my name over and over again as he looked all around me as if he had lost me. I tried to go to him, but I was stopped when my mother appeared in front of me. She was on her knees, begging to be spared.
"Mom," I called out, running towards her.
It continued like that for what felt like an infinite period of time. Every bad thought I'd ever had, every dream I'd woken up from in a cold sweat, every fear that I'd internalized...they were all there. Appearing before me over and over again, until I was sure that the world had ended and there was no happiness to be found anywhere. The air was filled with the screams of my hallucinations and that of my lovers.
I would never be the same after this. Never.
I had just convinced myself that we had somehow died and were now trapped in hell where we were being tortured, when it was like a haze seemed to clear around me and suddenly I found myself and my three husbands standing back in the street, completely alone, and completely hallucination free.
All four of us were ashen, shaking, and soaked in sweat. Corran was the first to move. He grabbed me and hauled me into his chest. "You're here, you're here," he repeated over and over again as he assured himself of my existence. Derrial and Thane didn't try to take me from Corran. Instead, they crowded around until we were all in one big embrace, locked in each other's arms.
We stood there for at least fifteen minutes, just trying to reassure ourselves that we were all alive and together. Derrial tried to shift away at one point, and I made a savage squeaking sound before yanking him back towards me. We only were able to move again if they all stayed close enough for me to touch them.
"What's next?" asked Derrial hoarsely. And I knew we were all wondering whether we could survive whatever was "next" after the nightmare we'd just made it through.
"The next layer is designed to flood and drown any intruders if you step in certain spots. Just follow behind me and we should be fine."
We arranged ourselves in a line, me right behind Thane with Derrial behind me, and Corran at the end. As in the first layer, we walked slowly. I made sure to step exactly where Thane stepped.
We'd made it three-fourths of the way through the rows of buildings that made up this layer when I heard a panicked grunt from behind me. I looked back and saw that Derrial was holding up an exhausted-looking Corran, who must have stumbled.
That was all it took. A roar shook the street as water started to flood in from all directions. The water was immediately up to my shins and it was quickly rising. I couldn't even tell where it was coming from, because it was like the area had transformed into a lake with how much water was coming in from every direction.
"Run," yelled Thane as he grabbed me and hauled me forward. A quick look at Derrial and Corran showed me that Derrial had his arm around Corran's waist and was attempting to drag him forward. Corran looked dead on his feet, like he was going to pass out at any minute.
The water was quickly rising, making it harder and harder to run as we sloshed through the street.
"We need to get to higher ground," Thane yelled back at us as he continued to drag me along. Derrial and Corran were losing steam as Corran was barely helping Derrial at all at this point to move them both along. "The flooding is designed to rise to the level of the roofs and dissipate after a few hours. We figured that most threats wouldn't be able to make it to safety in time."
No kidding. Like right now.
Thane kicked open a door, and water started to flow in after us as we darted inside. Since the city had been shut down, the technology that would regularly have flown us to the next level wasn't working. There was obviously something to be said for old-school things...like actual stairs.
"Stay here," Thane ordered, like I was somehow tempted to go off on my own. He ran to the far wall where a beam led up to the second floor. He started to climb the beam, his muscles flexing with the effort. I hoped he had a plan once he got up there, because there was no way that I was going to be able to climb that. And neither was Corran. Another look at him showed me that his face was even paler than before. I wasn't sure if he was sick or just exhausted. How were we going to get him through the city if the rest of the levels were like this?
Thane somehow leaped from the pole to the balcony of the second floor. He then pulled a rope from the satchel around his waist, tied one end around himself, and then threw the other side down to us.
"Climb up," he hollered. Derrial was by my side in a flash, leaving Corran to sit on a chair that had floated by. The water was still rising, and it was above his waist in the chair.
"Hop on my back, Ella," Derrial ordered, and I hoisted myself upon his back, trying not to choke him as I threw my arms around his neck.
Derrial then began to climb up the rope. I was so happy for the Vepar's superior strength, even if it had been used against humans from the beginning. I didn't think there were very many human men or women that could climb a rope with someone on their back.
Derrial was breathing heavily when we finally made it to the top. Thane had been straining to hold up our weight as we climbed, but there was no time to rest. Corran was still down there, and he'd had to stand up as the water was too high. I could see him rocking back and forth unsteadily as he tried to stay standing as the water pushed against him.
Derrial quickly tied the rope around his waist and held onto it as Thane scrambled down the rope, a bit slower this time as his muscles had to be burning. Corran was a lot larger than me, and it was painful to watch how slow Thane's progression was up the rope with Corran on his back. Corran was trying to help. I knew that if he was at full strength he would have no issue getting up the rope. But that was not the case now.
Looking down, the water was high enough that it would have completely enveloped us if we were still standing on the ground floor.
Thane had to stop several times and I let out a small scream when Corran almost slipped off. Thane managed to stop him just in time, almost at the expense of one of his arms getting ripped out of its socket as he held onto the rope with one hand and held onto Corran with the other.
He groaned as he pulled Corran back up so that he was steady on his back once again.
I think I held my breath until they got to our floor, because I was feeling light-headed as the three of them all collapsed to the ground breathing heavily.
I ran over to them and hovered, needing to be close to them. I glanced down at the floor below and the rapidly rising water. We couldn't afford to try and recover. The water was rising faster and it would soon be to our floor.
How were we going to get to the roof though? There was no way the three of them could handle another rope climb.
Thane staggered to his feet and jogged to the far wall. "There's an escape hatch that leads to the roof on every building, and there should be some kind of emergency ladder here somewhere," he explained as he began to run his hands all over the wall. "Found it," he exclaimed triumphantly, and I watched open-mouthed as a ladder seemed to just appear out of the wall. I'm sure they could explain the technology to me later but a lot of what I saw on this planet appeared to be magic.
"You first, pet," Thane called as he all but pushed me onto the ladder. I realized his hurry when I felt water rush over my foot, it had reached our level.
I hurried clumsily up the ladder, my feet only slipping once. "Now what?" I called down.
"Just push up on the ceiling right above you," called up Thane.
I was expecting it to give me trouble, but as soon as I pushed on the ceiling, it flew open, showering me with fading sunlight.
I pulled myself out onto the roof and gazed down the opening as the guys began to climb up.
Derrial pulled himself up first, and I moved aside to make room for him. The roof was domed but it was such a large building that there was plenty of room for us all to be on a relatively flat part of the roof.
Thane was last up. He'd had to help Corran up again. As soon as Corran fell onto the roof he was out, passed out from sheer exhaustion. He still hadn't told us all that had happened while we'd been separated, and I was scared to find out. The fact that he'd had to experience it all alone...I never wanted that to have to happen again.
Thane and Derrial sat on either side of me as Corran slept behind us. We stared out at the still-rising water. I hoped Thane was right that it was designed to stay below the rooftops. Some of the smaller buildings were almost completely covered, but the building we were on was one of the highest in the city.
"How did I get here?" I whispered as I watched the water rise. The baby chose that moment to give me a sharp kick, and it just reminded me what a dangerous world I was about to bring it into.
"It will all work out, Pet," Thane said softly to me as he put an arm around me. I realized that he had been watching me instead of the water.
I smiled at him sadly. I wasn't sure he could say that.
"So what's next?" Derrial tried to joke. "Fire, earthquakes, rabid dogs?"
Thane sighed. "There's a few more traps. One opens holes in the ground that the intruder falls through if they step on specific spots. Another is a pack of rabins..."
Derrial took a huge inhale when he heard that.
"What is that?" I asked anxiously, scared of Derrial's reaction.
"It's similar to a cat on your planet. Except its bite creates excruciating pain that can lead to heart failure," Derrial explained reluctantly.
"Of course it does," I sighed.
"Let's get some rest. We can talk about everything tomorrow," said Thane. "Corran won't be able to go anywhere for awhile anyway."
I nodded, glad for the rest, even if I was anxious to get to the lab and start actually solving all the problems we were facing.
Despite my fear of the water and what we were going to face tomorrow, I fell into a deep sleep filled with images of the hallucinations I'd suffered from earlier in the day.
It wasn't a peaceful sleep, to say the least.
Corran was already up when Derrial woke me up, and my heart clenched with how much better he looked after a good night's sleep. I was afraid that he'd been sick or worse...was beginning to be infected. But there was no sign of any symptoms today in the bright morning light. Corran evidently had just been extremely tired.
I next looked out to see how the water was looking, and I was shocked that there was no sign of it. The ground and all the domed buildings looked completely dry. I knew Thane had told us it was going to subside, but actually seeing that happen was something else.
After eating some crackers that Thane explained were from the military, evidently packing quite the caloric punch, it was time to set off. We made our way down the ladder to the second floor, and then used the rope to get to the ground floor. Derrial carried me down the rope this time. Thane and Corran both used the same beam that Thane had climbed up first yesterday to get down.
And then we were off to whatever hell waited for us.
I just knew as Corran gave me a kiss and grabbed my hand, that despite everything, I was where I was supposed to be.