Howard and Clayton were dead—finally. When they hadn’t been able to lose Aurora and her team, they had decided to try to make a break for the jewelry store, using it as cover until they could make their way into the chamber below the floor. They thought they would at least be able to take out the two Hunters and impede the Guardian’s progress enough so that they could get away; they were wrong.
Shane had done an excellent job of protecting the Hunters from the Vampires’ fire as they advanced on the storefront. He had taken several rounds of fire himself, but Vampire bullets bounced right off of him, and neither of the girls had a scratch on them when Clayton, and then Howard, finally met their demise.
Now, they were desperately searching for the opening to the secret chamber they believed must lay below the floor of the store. Cadence had managed to let them know she could hear them. It had to be there somewhere. They just hoped they could find it before it was too late.
* * *
“Do you see anything down that way?” Christian asked Aaron as they made their way along the darkened, underground corridor.
“Yeah, dark, dark, and more dark,” was the response.
“How much further can this tunnel possibly go on?” Christian asked.
“You said it was pretty far from the Delaware to Jeweler’s Row on foot, right?”
“I guess so,” Christian admitted. “It just seems like we’ve been searching forever.”
They continued to make their way through the narrow passage, both able to see through the infrared on their IACs, though Aaron could certainly see better than Christian. After a few hundred more yards, they came to a split in the passageway where they could go right or left. They both looked at each other and then peered into the darkness trying to determine which way to go.
Even with his X-ray vision, Aaron couldn’t see any differences between the two. “Pick your poison,” he offered.
Christian shrugged. “I’ll go left.”
“I’ll go right. Be careful. See you on the other side.”
* * *
While Gibbon rubbed at his eyes and screamed, more from outrage at being temporarily blinded than from pain, most likely, and Giovani attempted to pull himself together across the room, Cadence half-hopped, half-dragged herself across the cell to the door. She had been watching carefully when Zabrina unlocked the cage every time, but she wasn’t exactly sure which key it was. She knew it was smaller than some of the others, and she was sure it was bronze. There were three keys that matched that description, and she prayed that she picked the right on first.
No such luck. The first key she tried didn’t fit at all. She dropped it, and glancing back over her shoulder, she saw Gibbon regrouping. She hastily grabbed the next key and forced it into the lock. This one turned a little bit, but not enough to move the lock. She heard footsteps behind her now, and as she slipped the third candidate into the keyhole, she felt Gibbon grab her hair with one hand and the back of her shirt with the other. She fought to twist the key, and just as he swung her away from the gate and into the back wall, the door creaked open. When Gibbon brought her back around in an attempt to toss her back against the bars again, she was able to project herself through the open gate, crashing hard against the brick wall on the other side of the room. The room spun around her as she felt herself slowly sliding down the wall, and then there was nothing.
* * *
Aurora was stomping. It was her last resort. She walked a few paces, stopped, stomped her foot, and listened. She did this over and over again until she was almost in the back corner of the small room behind the jeweler’s shop. There, she believed she may have heard something slightly different. “Guys, be quiet for a second!” she yelled to Meagan and Shane. They complied and she stomped again. This time, they heard it, too—an echo. “This is it. It’s right here!” she exclaimed.
They dropped to their knees, attempting to pull up the floorboards. Meagan saw a small sliver around the edges of some of the boards. “Look! It’s hinged,” she said sliding her fingers into the crack and flipping the door open. They were staring at a very steep staircase that led into the blackness.
Shane led the way, and as they neared the bottom of the staircase they saw there was a thick oak door. Pressing his ear against the door, Shane listened intently. “Someone is crying,” he said.
* * *
Giovani wiped his nose on the back of his hand and pulled himself to his feet. Cadence was crumpled on top of the bed nearby, her head bleeding, her eyes closed, and Gibbon was standing in the doorway of the cage. He didn’t know if he should run in fear or barter with his monster. He may have never seen The Hunger Games, but he had read Frankenstein. Giovani slunk back into the corner of the room, his gun in his hand, and waited to see what Gibbon would do.
He looked confused at first, like he wasn’t sure what his options were. His step-mother seemed to be lying dead across the room. The man who had declared himself to be Gibbon’s father—but had also locked him in a cage, chained to the wall--was standing over in the corner with a weapon draw against him.
Gibbon saw the door on his left that he knew led up the stairs to the place where all that noise was coming from. To his right, there was another door. No noise came from that direction, and no light seeped from underneath either. He chose the darkness, and without another glance at the two forms across the room, he stepped out of the cage and sprinted at the door. Though it was solid wood and locked, he easily knocked it down and continued to retreat down into the tunnels underground.
Cadence wasn’t sure if she had completely lost consciousness or not, but she consistently heard Aaron and other teammates calling her name, even when she was swimming in blackness. Gathering all the strength she had left in her, she opened her eyes. She was hanging upside down off the edge of the bed, sideways, and through her own feet she could see Giovani cowering in the corner. She watched as Gibbon knocked the door down and took off into the tunnels. Giovani watched him go, longingly, his revolver still clenched in his hand. Once Gibbon had disappeared, Giovani slowly turned to face her.
Every part of her body hurt. She was certain she had a concussion, her knee was blown out again, her ribs ached. She was unarmed and broken. Yet, here she was facing the same Vampire that had taken Jack from her and kidnapped her sister. She needed to find a way to defeat him once and for all, but she wasn’t sure she had enough left.
“Cadence, we’re almost there. Don’t give up now,” she heard Aaron say.
A banging at the door momentarily drew Giovani’s attention away, and in the split second that he was distracted, she kicked with her good leg, catching the gun and sending it spinning across the room. He hadn’t realized she was conscious, and so the action completely threw him off. As he turned to retrieve it, she threw herself at him, landing on his back.
Though he was no Gibbon, Giovani was quite strong, and he began to attempt to shake her off. Using her thighs like a vice, she let go with her hands and threw them over his head so that the steel cord was wrapped around his neck. Giovani clawed at her arm with both hands, but she dropped to the ground behind him, balanced on one leg, and spun her arms around, tightening the wire. The cord began to cut into his neck, and his eyes began to bulge. With every ounce of strength she had left, Cadence pulled her hands away from each other. The tension on the steel cord increased until it sliced completely through, severing Giovani’s head. It hung in the air for a moment, his body still standing as well, until his head dropped to the floor, his body crumpling onto his knees and then falling forward. Cadence watched as his body turned to ash, and just as she was about to collapse herself, Shane burst down the door, catching her before she fell, and helping her back to the bed.
