They raced from the hall, through the door, and up a staircase at the end of the next corridor. Naya flew in front, flinging all the doors open just in case any of the security feeds had come back online. They wanted Pandora’s location to remain a secret for as long as possible, and she was hoping that with everything else going on, it would take her father a while before he realized his card was missing.
The sixth floor was teeming with titans.
Luckily for them, it was also teeming with escapees.
The place was a madhouse. Everywhere they looked, people were fighting. Titan hunters were wrestling convicts back into their cells. Trackers were trying to sniff out the inmates they knew were the worst. Humans used stun guns and rubber bullets, trying to help bring the supernaturals down from a distance. Roars echoed across stone, reverberating and growing louder. Technicians knelt over electric panels, working to get the locks back in place. And though the plan was to sneak through unseen, reality had another thing coming.
Not two steps from the top of the stairs, a hunter launched at Naya.
She ducked, crouching and rolling, then kicked up with her feet at the precise moment to send the titan flying. The girl smacked into a wall, cracking the stone, and charged again.
“Not one of your friends, I hope,” Naya muttered, curling her upper lip and flashing teeth at the approaching titan.
“Do your worst,” Pandora replied, pressing into the wall, attempting to stay out of the way. Naya could handle it, so Pandora scanned while her accomplice continued to rough up her attacker, slashing with sharp fingernails that were starting to resemble claws.
Thirty seconds later, the girl was down, bleeding in a way titans shouldn’t. But Pandora didn’t have time to question the sight, to wonder why the girl wasn’t healing as quickly as she was supposed to.
Instead, she pushed the thought away and whispered, “Where’s our army?”
Naya’s amber irises flashed, slipping back to reveal the whites of her eyes as she mumbled incoherently under her breath. A moment later, they slid back into place. “They’re on their way. They’re close.”
“Then come on.” Pandora grabbed Naya’s hand and tugged her along the wall, slipping through the fights. But as a duo that was only half-invisible, remaining out of sight was impossible. Ten more feet down the hall, they were struck.
“Crap!” Pandora cursed when a rubber bullet pierced the thin veil of her shadows and lodged itself in her shoulder. Another hit her thigh, sending her to her knees even as it bounced off her hard titan muscles, digging in deeper than it should have. “That hurts!”
Beside her, Naya roared, a guttural sound.
Pandora spun just in time to see the metal pins land on her friend’s exposed bicep, shocking her with electric bolts and sending her twitching body to the ground. She ripped the Taser wires off, not concerned about being seen as red marks burst to life on Naya’s skin. Not as bad as titan bolters, but not fun either.
Naya’s mouth moved silently. Her pupils had disappeared again.
And a moment later, their army had arrived.
Vampires lunged at the two humans who’d tried to corner Naya, ripping into their throats and sucking out enough blood to render them useless before tossing the bodies to the ground. Something in Pandora cringed as she watched the scene unfold, her own teeth tingling as she remembered that feeling. But there was no time for regret, for questioning, for memories. Eight other vamps rounded the corner, flying into the scene, and all ten stood stock-still before Naya, waiting for orders.
“Let’s go,” the girl said, gaze still milky white and vacant. Naya had told Pandora to expect this, that she would be looking through eyes that weren’t her own, so Pandora reached out, clutched her friend’s arm, and dragged her down the corridor that would lead them to the next level up.
The vampires were their shield, their fighting arm, the one supernatural creature titans couldn’t beat. Because only a conduit could truly take a vamp down—Pandora had learned that the hard way. Even cured, she remembered the scorching lick of those flames against her undead skin.
But in this prison, with no conduits in sight, vampires were the perfect weapon. Hunters and trackers could do little more than trap or slow a vampire down, and in the lower levels of the prison, Pandora expected they’d be the main obstacle. The other titan fighters could do more large-scale damage, but they usually needed to be outside aboveground—it was one of their greatest weaknesses. Bolters needed to reach up to the sky to craft their storms. Tridents needed access to water in order to manipulate it. Quakers couldn’t shift the earth if it wasn’t right below their feet. Not everyone knew that, but Pandora did. Because before they’d turned their back on her, she’d been one of them. She knew everything about the titans, everything except the one secret that mattered most—what the heck she was.
Soon, she thought as the shadows billowed around her. Soon.
With the vampires creating a protective ring, Pandora and Naya found their way to the next staircase with little delay. Two of the vamps were lost in the fray, but eight climbed with them to the fifth floor.
The laboratories had less security, so they plowed through the fifth and fourth levels quickly, shoving open doors that still remained unlocked from the damage Pandora had wreaked in the control room.
Up another set of steps, they found themselves on the third underground level, only a few flights away from freedom. But this floor was chaos, just as the sixth floor had been. Fights were everywhere. Hunters threw creatures across the room, rubber bullets bounced off the walls, and from the agonized cries echoing down the halls, Pandora suspected that some of the humans had turned to deadlier weapons.
Hunters attempted to close in on Naya, but wherever one turned, a vampire greeted them, knocking them back, keeping them occupied. Slowly, they went from eight guards, to seven, to five. But as long as they were moving forward, as long as they kept progressing, it didn’t matter.
When they reached the second floor, nearly at the top and closer to the barracks, more titan forces were fighting. Alchemists were twisting metal bars and crafting new locks, using their powers to keep recaptured inmates in their cages. Mindbenders were stalking the halls, pressing their hands to various foreheads, rendering prisoners unconscious with every touch. Healers knelt over human soldiers, fixing supernaturally inflicted wounds as quickly as possible so the injured could get back up and fight. Tridents sent buckets of water flying through the air, molding the liquid into bubbles that wrapped around the faces of anyone trying to escape and drowned them slowly, cutting off enough oxygen to knock them unconscious.
Through the pandemonium, Pandora was having trouble telling one titan from the next. But it didn’t matter much anyway. Because she knew another titan weakness, another tidbit of information they tried to keep close—there weren’t that many titans in the world. Three dozen or so enclaves spotted the globe, and that was it. So even though the prison had a massive concentration of titans, with so many inmates on the loose, they were outnumbered just enough for two prisoners to sneak free. At least, she hoped they were.
And at first, it seemed that way.
Until water slammed into Naya’s face, enveloping her skin, cutting off the air. Pandora didn’t even realize what had happened until the hand she was holding, tugging, guiding, grew limp. When she turned, her friend was drowning. Those amber eyes were wide open, no longer controlling any vampires, no longer doing anything as she clawed at her throat. But her fingers slid right through the liquid, not budging anything. That normally serene gaze grew pleading.
Pandora spun, still wrapped in the shadows, searching, searching—
There.
A trident with his hands outstretched, molding and shaping, as he stared straight at Naya, utterly focused, utterly determined.
Without thinking, Pandora fled into the shadows, using her power to sail across the room, beside her friend one moment, beside the trident the next. Invisible to the world, she wrapped her hands around his throat and squeezed tight.
His power dropped immediately.
Across the room, Naya gasped, stumbling on unsteady feet.
The trident reached up and ripped Pandora’s hands from his throat easily—too easily. She’d forgotten she no longer possessed the impossible strength of a vampire. Sure, a human she could easily take down. But another titan fighter? If her childhood lessons had taught her anything, it was that as far as titans went, she was weak. Always beaten. Always broken. Always on the outside. Her strength came in slipping away, not in facing her opponents head-on.
The trident spun, still clutching her fingers in his hand. Deep brown eyes widened in surprise to find he was holding air, holding something he couldn’t see, holding the one prize he knew they needed most. His gaze narrowed, sharp, deadly, completely aware.
“She’s here!” he shouted.
Pandora fled.
Though she hated it, though it went against every instinct screaming fight, fight, fight, she melted into the smoke, returning fully to the darkness. His hand squeezed tighter, desperately grabbing for the woman turning to mist between his fingers. But he couldn’t hold on to someone who wasn’t there.
Pandora reappeared beside Naya, who’d managed to regain control of three vampires and was using them to fight off the mindbender reaching for her head.
“We’ve got to get out of here, now,” Pandora muttered, yanking on Naya’s hand.
“You don’t say,” her partner snapped back, milky eyes focused as she commanded the vampires to block the titans racing their way.
Step by step, Pandora led them through the madness, guiding them down the path she’d memorized, working closer and closer to the top.
One vampire was pulled away by a hunter.
Another dropped to the ground when his brain was wiped clear by a mindbender.
Two more returned, called by Naya’s power from the fights they’d been waging, only to turn around and engage two titans who’d gotten too close for comfort.
They were down to one guard as they rounded the last corner.
But Pandora grinned.
The exit.
It had to be.
On the map, Pandora had thought it was a long central hallway cutting through the middle of the first floor, but now she realized it was a ramp, starting on the second floor and leading all the way up to the door that led outside.
She broke into a sprint.
Naya dropped control of the vampire, amber irises returning to their natural spot, focused on what she knew must be the end of the road.
They raced up.
Thighs burning.
Breath heavy.
Hearts pounding.
Together, they slammed into the door at full force, titan strength and whatever secret power Naya hadn’t yet revealed combining to create a living, breathing battering ram.
The metal didn’t budge.
Didn’t even move.
They bounced back, crying out as their bodies took the brunt of the hit. Pandora flew forward and pounded her fists against the door, searching for any crack, anything to hold on to. But there was no knob, nothing to grab, only smooth metal.
The end of the road.
No, she growled silently. It can’t end like this. It won’t.
But it was.
The keycard didn’t work. There was no control pad they could find, nowhere to scan. They ran the little magnetic strip along the entire length of the door, over the walls, even along the floor, waiting, hoping it would swing free of the lock.
It didn’t.
And they were out of time.
“She’s here, somewhere. I know she is.”
Pandora spun at the sound of a voice. The trident from before had followed them, bringing two hunters, a mindbender, and a tracker with him.
“That’s the one she was protecting, the one she kept me from incapacitating,” he said, signaling to Naya, who froze by her side, face blank. “Notify the director. We have her cornered.”
Oh no you don’t, Pandora retorted silently, tugging the shadows close.
Sure, the odds weren’t great. In fact, they were pretty dismal.
But when had that ever stopped her before?
Maybe if I move fast, I can take them down. Maybe I can jump from spot to spot, staying invisible, never keeping in one place too long. Maybe I can make the jump through the door and open it from the other side. I know Sam told me not to try to teleport to a place I haven’t seen, but how different could this door look on the other side? What’s the worst that could happen?
Well, I could die.
If I reappear in the middle of a wall I didn’t know was there, I could accidently crush my body to smithereens.
No big deal, right?
I have to try.
I have to do something.
But she was stuck. Unsure.
“Use Jackson as your anchor,” a silky, deep voice whispered in her ear.
Pandora jumped in surprise. But for the first time, Sam’s sudden appearance didn’t piss her off. In fact, it did quite the opposite. “You’re here!” she gasped into the shadows, smiling for a moment, before remembering she had about, oh, negative ten seconds to get out alive. “What do you mean?”
“He’s outside helping to track down the few prisoners who managed to escape while the door was unlocked. He’s aboveground.” Sam paused his hurried words, swallowing once, then forced the rest out. “He’s the strongest anchor you have in this world, so use him to make the jump. Use him, and you’ll be free.”
Pandora’s gaze slipped to the side, to Naya, who’d deepened into a fighting crouch, ready and waiting to take on the titans who were slowly advancing. Their arms were linked as they stalked inch-by-inch forward, carefully making sure not to leave enough space for an invisible girl to slip through.
“Can I take her with me?” Pandora asked, eyes finding Sam again.
He frowned, blue eyes darkening, intense and demanding. “Leave her and save yourself. I told you before that this plan was madness.”
Pandora shook her head, putting more force behind her words. “Can I take her with me?”
He sighed, a heavy breath that rippled through the darkness, rumbling through her, and held her gaze for a moment longer. Then the smoke wrapped around him, and he disappeared, leaving her with nothing but disappointed silence.
I’ll take that as a yes, Pandora quipped.
At the same moment, Naya muttered, “That doesn’t look good.”
“What doesn’t…” Pandora trailed off as she finally noticed the wall of water building at the base of the ramp. There was a hole in the concrete floor. A busted pipe poked through, spewing gallon after gallon of liquid. The trident held his hands before his face, molding the water, building it higher and higher, letting the pressure mount, letting the swell grow and grow and grow.
“It’s okay, I have an idea,” Pandora said, yanking on Naya’s hand and pulling her close. “Hold on tight and close your eyes.”
“What are you doing?” Naya asked into Pandora’s shoulder, gripping her fiercely.
“I’m getting us out of here.”
“How are you getting us out of here?”
“Oh, just be quiet,” Pandora snapped, watching the mass of water swell.
Naya pulled back, looking toward the spot she assumed held Pandora’s invisible face before muttering, “Have you ever done this before?”
“No.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“It’s okay—”
Pandora was cut off by the crash of water against stone as the wave broke and shot toward them like a tsunami, defying gravity as it rolled up the ramp, racing closer.
“Impossible odds and near-death experiences are my specialty,” she said, finishing her thought. “Now, don’t you dare let go.”
Pandora closed her eyes, heart pounding as the sound of rushing water thundered in her ears, growing louder, moving closer. The shadows clung to her, winding tighter and tighter, binding Naya’s body to her, carrying them both deeper and deeper into the darkness.
Mist sprinkled her cheeks.
Droplets splashed her arms.
Cold air sent her hair flying.
But the water never struck.
They disappeared.
Jax. Jax. Jax.
Pandora repeated his name over and over, letting every emotion she normally pushed down rise to full force, fusing the feelings to her power, using her love and her hate to carry them forward, to carry them to freedom.