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I HAD JUST SLIPPED back into my armor by the time that Max burst through the door with some weapons and supplies. He eyed Drax and I suspiciously but I just smirked.
"We should be safe here for a while. With all the water gone it's going to take the others a lot longer to reach us on foot." Max said.
His words were a relief. I was so sick of running, and so tired of looking over my shoulder. I didn't want to have to kill anymore, not unless I absolutely had to. The first time was rough. It was hard and it almost broke me. The second time was a lot easier, and instead of making me feel better that made me feel worse. I didn't want to know what the third time would feel like, or the fourth. Eventually would it stop feeling bad all together?
Was that how the governors conditioned the vampires of the city? If you legalize killing and normalize it enough it stops feeling like a crime and starts to feel more and more like a right.
And it was a right that I didn't want to exercise anymore.
"Did you find anything useful?" I raised a brow.
"Maybe." Max motioned for us to follow him.
We made our way out into the hallway and the electricity slowly flickered on.
"Good, Colt got the generator working. I didn't know if the engines would still fire because it was so old." Max said.
He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. He actually seemed super comfortable in the chaos that surrounded us. It was hard not to be suspicious. A human that wasn't from New York, and hadn't been conditioned to the trauma that we have in the city would have been freaking out, whether they were part of the Human Rights Association or not nothing would prepare them for this. I couldn't help but wonder, who really was Maximus. And why did he show up just when we needed him most?
I hated that the trials made me question things like that, but I didn't know what his motives were and that was what scared me the most. I didn't know who he was, or where he came from, but I wasn't going to put another person in jeopardy until I found out.
"Hey Drax, do you think you could go find Colt and let him know that we have some spare weapons in the infirmary?"
We stopped walking for a minute and Drax looked at me confused. I wanted to tell him that I needed to be alone with Max to dig up dirt, but that was the sort of thing you tried not to say while he was right behind you.
I pulled Drax in for a kiss. Our lips touched and I knew my thoughts transferred to him. Something behind his eyes clicked and when I pulled away he smiled.
"Yeah, I can track him down. You guys be careful." He didn't take his eyes off of mine. He said it, and I knew he meant it.
Drax was a bad boy. He like to party, and drink, and enjoy the moment, but he was fragile too and he knew it. Something told me that he didn't let people in very often, and he wouldn't know what to do if something happened to the one person he finally decided to show the real him to.
I nodded and watched as Drax walked away, disappearing around a corner. I nodded to Max and he kept leading me through the halls.
The old cement walls were cracked, but they still stood sturdily. With just Max and I, I realized how eerie the building really was. It gave off some majorly haunted vibes, but ghosts were the last thing on my mind. Uncovering Max's ghosts was on the top of my list. What kind of skeletons did he have in his closet?
We passed a row of empty cells and a shiver ran down my spine at the site.
"I wonder who they kept here. What kind of criminals were they?" I thought out loud. Questions like that crossed my mind often.
"There weren't any criminals here. Only supernaturals." Max answered. "A long time ago, at the beginning of the takeover when the supernatural creatures had enough of hiding in the dark shadow that humanity casted they came out of the dark, and humans, in natural human fashion, condemned them to places like this. Concentration camps for creatures of the night, essentially. There are even small cells across the building for the children that they deemed too dangerous to be walking the streets. Vampires, werewolves, witches, none were spared."
What? My stomach churned at the thought. "Why didn't I know that?" I muttered.
"Because it's not something that humanity is proud to share. You'll find a lot of those things scattered throughout history."
He had a point, and I was the first person to admit humanities faults, but he said the words like he wasn't part of the humanity that was the problem.
I searched my mind for more questions that would help me reveal more of who he was. I didn't dare call him out until I had enough suspicion. Maybe I was just broken, scarred from Bobby's betrayal.
We turned a dusty corner and walked into an old surveillance room. Old computer screens were in the process of rebooting from the recent surge of power.
"Good, they're starting up." Max sighed. "I think this is our best bet at hijacking their broadcast. It uses the same type of technology that they do to broadcast the trials. Since the opera house is out of commission we need to work with what we've got."
For a minute interrogating Max flew out the window and I remembered what kind of deep shit we were really into. My stomach twisted at the thought of having to go on air, in front of millions of people. What would I even say? What words could come out of my mouth that would possibly be strong enough to influence an entire nation? What could I say that would possibly convince all of the oppressed people of New York to rise up and fight back?
A wave of anxiety swept through me and settled into my bones.
"Hey." Max noticed me spiraling and took a step closer. With him that close I noticed the small specks of gold that were imbedded in his deep brown eyes. It reminded me of chocolate melting in the warm rays of the sun. A liquid pool that I'd love to dive deep into. "Take a deep breath."
"I'm not nervous." I protested.
"You're definitely nervous. But you have no need to be." He smiled softly and took another step closer. His body was so close that I could feel his warmth radiating from it. There was something about him that was electric. Like a static that clung to his own personal atmosphere. He had an aura than oozed mystery and intrigued and I didn't know how much I liked a little a mystery until one stood in front of me in the form of a man.
"Well that's nice of you to say." My voice went soft. "But I don't know how true it is." My voice grew to only a whisper as he slowly leaned in. Our lips were only inches apart and I could feel wisps of his warm breath brush against my lips.
I felt the electricity sparking between both of us, and I was having a hard time telling if it was just metaphorical or not anymore. Something about Maximus drew me in like a magnet. Something about him kept me coming back. It was like our auras fed off of each other's and I wanted to know more. I needed to know more, even if it killed me.
"Who are you?" I asked straight out. Dancing around the subject was getting me nowhere.
"I'm Maximus." He smiled.
The door next to us burst open and the three guys stumbled into the room awkwardly.
"We were definitely not listening at the door." Drax chuckled and rubbed at the back of his neck.
I didn't realize that Max's body was pressed completely against mine until he quickly moved away.
"Do you think this will be enough to hijack their signal?" Max asked Drax.
He examined the equipment closely to make sure everything still ran.
"It could work." He mumbled. "I saw a room set up down the hall that they must have used to let prisoners video chat. We could use that as a carrier for the signal. But we need to do it fast. We don't know when the second phase is going to start, and we need to get this message sent out fast. I'm less concerned about the rest of the country, but we need to make sure that the people of New York are able to see it."
I nodded and followed Drax down the hall. He led me into a small cement room that held a single metal table and a sturdy chair. And old video camera sat strapped to a tripod.
I sat in the chair awkwardly and watched him work. He went to work on the camera pressing buttons and plugging in chords.
"It's a surprise that any of this stuff even works anymore, it's been so long." I mumbled.
"Ten years isn't that long." Drax mumbled.
"Ten years?" I swallowed. "That can't be right, can it? In school they always told us that the outskirts had been abandoned a long time ago, before the wall was built."
"If it was abandoned why would they feel the need to build a wall to separate it from the rest of the city?" Drax looked up from his work and saw the confusion on my face. "I'm sorry, I thought that it was just something everyone knew. It makes sense that they told you that though. The outskirts were the only part of the city where supernaturals and humans vowed to live in harmony. It was a threat to their way of life, so the governors," He paused. "-Our fathers fucked it up, like they do with everything they touch." There was a sour note buried deep within his voice.
Before I could say another word he walked out of the room to connect the signal to the towers outside of the prison, or something super smart like that. It never ceased to amaze me what wonders went on inside his head below the shallow surface of drugs and partying. It made me wonder where he would have ended up if none of this had ever happened. If the governors weren't pure evil piles of shit, and he grew up in a loving home he probably would have worked in IT. Maybe he would have created an app or started a company. With that brain of his anything was possible, it was just hard for him to navigate his trauma to see it.
I heard him, Colt, and Finn outside the door talking about wire connections or something when Max found a way to sneak in. He leaned up against the table and smiled.
"You can do this, okay? The people in this country have been looking for a savior. A silver lining. Something good to come from the horrible things that have happened in New York for decades, that can be you. In today's political climate they're looking for someone who can unite both sides of the spectrum- supernaturals and humans. Even in the rest of the country it's been like you have to choose a side, you can never just choose both. We haven't had a human member of the presidential cabinet since the takeover and the scales are all wrong. They're either tipped one way, or they're tipped the other. It's time that we had someone even them out."
Once again Max opened his mouth and I couldn't get a good read on him. Sometimes he gave off the vibe that he wasn't being totally honest which set off my inner truth meter, and other times he was being so authentic that I didn't know how to handle it.
"Are you ready?" Drax popped his head into the room. "Their firewall was sloppy at best. You can tell they didn't think anyone was smart enough to do this, so they got lazy."
My chest tightened and my breathing got quicker. It was like all my anxiety had found a way to slither up my body and wrap around my heart. All I felt was squeezing.
Max laid his hand on mine. "All they have to do is see you. So far all the exposure that they’ve gotten of you came from tabloids and news articles. You have a good two minutes before the governors’ team takes us off air. You don't have to be perfect, and you don't have to be fearless, you just have to be real."
I nodded and moved a strand of hair from my face. Max closed the door and gave me a thumbs up through the dingy window. I took a deep breath and the small red light above the lens blinked on. We were live streaming.
I thought of my mother, and my father, and Charlie, and every single person who's lost their lives over the years. This wasn't my chance to say what I wanted to say, this was a chance to say what they couldn't.
"Hey world. My name's Scarlett, and I'm from triad three."