Daegelus | Volume One: Subject 0333

Chapter Forty-Four | Haru

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Everything was exactly the same as the place he'd grown up in. The walls were blindingly white, the windows were black, one-way glass, and although he couldn't see what was on the other side, Elijah knew that it was labs and offices. The floor was as white as the walls, not a single scuff mark or spec of dirt in sight, and that smell...that mixture of blood, bleach, and sulphur...it was enough to make Elijah feel sick to his stomach.

He held it together, though, walking beside Zoe as they navigated the halls in search of the elevator. When a pair of security guards turned onto their path up ahead, he saw Zoe tense up, but they both passed without a word or batting an eye, and the girl relaxed. He trusted her more than Jake not to fuck things up, but he was still anxious, and if they were caught, he wasn't sure what he could do other than kill and hope they'd still have time to make it out with Haru.

They turned left into another corridor, and at the end where it split left, right, and straight ahead, a sign hung from the ceiling, telling them where each path led. Left was to the medicine labs, straight was to the security mess hall, and right was to the elevators. So, they turned right, and at the end of the corridor was a rectangular room with three different pairs of silver elevator doors and a door to a stairwell.

As Elijah approached, he quickly assessed each elevator's label. The one in the middle headed to floors minus five through minus eight; he pressed the button, his hand trembling, and his heart racing so hard in his chest that it felt like it might burst out of his body. He was getting closer, so close that he could almost feel Haru's warm embrace. And when the elevator doors opened, he hastily stepped inside.

Elijah pressed the button to floor -7, and the doors slid shut.

Zoe glanced around—presumably for cameras—and when she noticed that there weren't any, she looked up at Elijah. "What's the plan once we get down there? There's bound to be cameras, right? Won't they see us taking Haru and Jake?"

"Your cover as a doctor should hold up long enough," he answered, impatiently tapping his claws against his thigh. "Doctors come and take subjects randomly during this time of the day; us grabbing Jake and Haru would look like any other doctor taking a pair to fight. But I'm going to disable the cameras anyway; it'll give us more time."

She nodded. "Okay. And once we have them, we're heading straight for the surface, right?"

"No. I need to find the server room. I want my file."

"Wouldn't it be easier to go there first?"

"I need Jake," he muttered. "He found his way into Lyca Corp.'s computer systems before, so I'm sure that he can do it again."

"I hope so," she said. "You deserve answers."

He stared at the screen that told them which floor they were on; he watched it slowly count down, and his angst consumed him, getting stronger with every passing second. But then a cold chill ran down his spine and tensed up even more. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stick up, and he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him; since there weren't any cameras, though, and after what happened between them, he suspected that it was Maverick.

Elijah scowled as desperation and dismay constricted him. Could Maverick see where he was? Could he see what he was doing? Was he going to stop him from reaching Haru? His scowl thickened, and his racing heart was beginning to ache. He was too close to get caught now; he couldn't let anything stop him, and if he had to head into The Darkness and tear Maverick's other arm off, he would.