They were in cells, both of them, but not together. He knew they had to be in the basement and that they must’ve fallen through some sort of opening in the floor. Without taking another step, he requested the rest of the team turn on their IACs. “Proceed with extreme caution! There are openings in the floor, and cells beneath them!”
“I can’t find Patsy!” Jeb shouted. “She’s gone!”
“Glenn is gone, too,” Lynn said. “He was right here.”
“Paul, drop back now. Start your exit.”
The sound of Aaron’s voice in his head was startling, and Paul pulled himself to his feet but didn’t know whether or not to follow the order he was just given or find his teammates. “We’ve got people missing.”
“I know that, but you’re not going to be able to get them out under the present circumstances, and there are probably more cells down there waiting to be filled.”
“He’ll torture them!”
Before Aaron could respond, a wall in Becky’s narrow cell slid opened. She pulled her Glock around and began to fire, but what appeared to be half a dozen Vampires swarmed in. The brunette was backed against the wall, and even though she managed to shoot down three of her attackers, they just kept coming. “Paul!” she screamed as a large brute knocked her gun away from her. She reached for her knife, but a woman with tangled black hair grabbed her arm and pinned it against the wall while another disarmed her. Literally. Becky screamed in anguish.
“Becky!” Paul’s eyes searched the floor for the opening where she’d disappeared but he saw nothing. He needed to find the stairs to the basement. Ignoring his orders, he took off running blindly.
But it was too late. He watched in horror as Becky, his second in command, and one of the best friends he’d ever had, was ripped to pieces. The Vampires that attacked her were savages, ripping, clawing, biting, until there was nothing recognizable about his teammate. Her screams echoed in his head even after she slipped down the wall and her IAC went black.
“Becky!”
“Paul, you need to get the rest of your team out of there.” Aaron’s voice was as calm as ever, but Paul couldn’t listen. He was still running, looking frantically for stairs going down.
“Does anyone know where the stairs to the basement are!” he shouted into his IAC.
“Stanley is gone!” Jess screamed. “I checked his IAC. He’s in a cell somewhere!”
Chaos was breaking out around him, and yet Paul continued to search. He came to a dead end, spun around and was heading the other direction when suddenly the floor beneath his feet was gone. “NO!” he shouted, grasping at air. Flailing, he managed to get the tip of one finger on the floor above his head. He pushed down as hard as he could as he swung his other arm around and found a grip, but there seemed to be some sort of suction coming from beneath him, pulling him down.
Visions of what he’d gone through before, the flesh being dug out of him, the drill, the blades and needles, kept him fighting. He managed to work his palm up onto the floor and slowly dragged himself up to his elbows and then managed to work his upper torso out of the shaft. It took every ounce of strength he had left, but he succeeded in pulling himself out of the floor.
Paul crawled a few feet away from the spot where the ground had disappeared and wrapped his arms around his shins, taking deep breaths. Part of him had wanted to fall so that maybe he could find his teammates, but he could tell by the IACs that the Guardians who had been captured were all in individual cells, and there was nothing he could do to help them right now since he had no idea where the stairs to the basement were, and the floor could drop out from under him at any moment.
With tears in his eyes, Paul said, “We need to drop back. Cautiously. Test each step before you put your full weight down, and make your steps wide so that at least one foot is on solid ground before you step. The floor can open up at any moment.”
“What about the others?” Jeb asked.
“We’ll have to come back for them,” Paul replied, though he had no idea how he would do that exactly. A lot of maybes were floating around in his head, but for now, he knew he needed to get the remaining team members out before anyone else disappeared.
Paul checked to see that the Guardians who had been captured were all testing the walls in their cells, trying to escape, but none of them were being tormented or tortured, not yet. And Becky had been the only Hunter to slip beneath the floor. It choked him up to think that he was the one who was meant to keep her safe, and he had failed miserably.
Rather than fight back through the obstacles in front of the asylum, they went out the back way. There was still the moat to contend with, but there were no hedges here, only a high fence they were all able to climb. Once he had his team assembled on the other side, Paul confirmed he had left five Guardians behind. Tanner, Patsy, Glenn, Stanley, and Bobby were all trapped somewhere beneath the floor of Larundel. No one had seen how to access the basement.
“We’re out,” Paul confirmed over his IAC to Aaron. “But I don’t know how I can leave without the rest of my team.”
“Then don’t leave,” Aaron said back, much to Paul’s surprise. “Until we can figure out how to access where she’s holding them, I’m not sure what we can do, though.”
“How are we going to figure that out short of busting the whole place to pieces?” Paul shot back.
“I will have Cassidy check to see if she can find a way. In the meantime, Holland and Hines are not in Melbourne. I think the rest of your team will be okay without Hines there. I suggest you go back to headquarters and get some rest. You’ve got some injuries to take care of. But if you insist on staying there… I’m not going to order you to leave.”
Paul turned and surveyed the team. None of them could hear the conversation he was having with his boss. They stood waiting for him to give directions, and his heart was aching. An image of Becky flashed before his eyes, and they filled with tears. “We need to regroup, see if Cassidy can figure anything out, and come back for them,” he began.
“Do we have to leave?” Jeb asked. He was good friends with Tanner and Patsy and likely felt the same way as Paul about going back to headquarters without them.
“We don’t have to,” Paul replied. There was a thick line of trees between where they were standing and the rest of the neighborhood behind Larundel. Theoretically, they could stay there inevitably without anyone even noticing, though he was sure the Vampires knew they were still nearby.
“Good,” Jeb said, dropping down and sitting on the grass, his back against a tree. “I’m not leaving without the rest of our team.”
Paul nodded, and one by one, the rest of the Guardians sunk down to the ground, even those who were bleeding or soaking wet, like him, and he took a spot, too, determined to find a way to get to his trapped friends before it was too late.
