Last Fae

Chapter 9 ~ Negotiation

Jasper was still working on unchaining Darren when Kat arrived with three other scientists in lab coats on her heels. They came to a jarring halt when they reached our cell. Eyes wide as they took in the scene before them. Talani shackled to the wall where I should have been. Jasper turning the key in the last lock, releasing Darren, while the rest of us stood in the open doorway daring her to come closer. Her eyes finally settled on me, hurt and confusion clouding their depths. 

"What's going on, Del? What are you doing?" She asked, fingers tugging at her ponytail as she did anytime she was nervous or unsure.

"Just let us go, Kat. Please," I begged, lifting my hands and holding them palms open as I stepped forward. "But, we found you're cure. I have it right here." She held up the small vial allowing the liquid inside to catch the stark fluorescent light, "Why are you doing this when you could be one of us in just a few minutes?"

"I'm not even sure I want to be human anymore. Not if you are an accurate representation of humankind." I murmur, unsure whether going with the truth was the right choice. Maybe I should have lied, said something that would make her think I was still on her side. It was too late now. 

"You'd rather be one of them?" She gasped, "After everything I did for you? I took you in. I worked on your cure for years. And now, when I finally found it for you, what? You don't want it?" 

"No, I don't." The pain in my chest refutes the statement, I wasn't sure what I wanted. Days ago I thought I would have given anything for that vial. But now, having seen a tiny sliver of the destruction and pain it had caused, the thought of using it churned my stomach, "You need to let us go. All of us."

"I can't let you do that. I need these test subjects. We're still working on the other research. Without them we'll have nothing. You can't take them." She stepped forward with steel in her gaze. 

"Let us go." I growled and stepped forward to meet her. She took a mirroring step backwards, an automatic instinct. The six of us moved further out of the cell as one and the four humans scrambled out of our way. 

"No, Delilah, please! I need them," Her back was pressed up against the pristine white wall, I could hear her heart trying to beat its way out of her chest. "Where did you take Freya?"

"Who?"

"Freya. The girl you demonstrated the cure on." I explained further in clipped tones. 

"Don't take them." She begged, "You can have the cure. Here," She shoved the vial in my face waving it around like somehow that might make it more enticing, "I've worked so hard to get here. You'll ruin everything if you take them now. We're so close. I swear. Once we crack it, I'll let them go. Every one of them. But not yet. Please." I snatched the vial from her hand.

"What about the ones you kill along the way? Will you set them free too?" I scoffed. She drops her gaze to the speckled linoleum floor.

"Every victory requires sacrifice." She muttered, avoiding my gaze. The growl that ripped from my throat was wholly animal. I could feel the wolf clawing at my control desperate to rip her throat out.

"We have to move," Jasper interceded, allowing me time to breathe and force the anger back down. 

"Where is Freya?" I snapped at her one last time. She sank to the ground shaking her head. 

"Don't take them. Don't take them. Please, don't take them," She repeated the words over and over mumbling them under her breath as if somehow her words alone would stop us from releasing her Mythic prisoners. I slammed my hand against the wall. Jasper pulled the gate wide and motioned the humans inside. They went easily aside from Kat who remained crouched on the floor head down and hands clutching tight to her hair. I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the cell slamming the gate behind her. 

Jasper pulled out the keys and locked them in without hesitation. We ran down the hallway pausing at each cell door we came across and releasing the prisoners inside. Each time I searched for Freya amongst the shackled Mythics. The hallway stretched on. There were almost thirty of us crowding the hall by the time we reached the door to the lab. And still no Freya. 

I was starting to think being human hadn't saved her. I pushed open the door. The smell of chemicals was even stronger in here. I lifted a hand to my nose as my eyes landed on the trolley in the middle of the room. Freya's slight frame still lay limp on its surface. I raced towards her. Grabbed her wrist and felt for a pulse, staring intently at her chest all the while. It rose and fell. Her pulse was almost none-existent but it was there. 

The others helped me unstrap her and I picked her up in my arms. Cradling her to my chest as weaved our way through the lab and to an elevator. We stepped inside and I knew where we were. I'd been in this elevator a hundred times before. Never on the basement level, but I'd been here. It was the same building as the lab Kat worked in. The one I'd visited regularly for the cure. 

I should have guessed this was where we were when I saw her I realised, where else would we be? But it hadn't seemed obvious until we stepped into the elevator. I took in the familiar polished metal of the back wall, the worn paint on the buttons that didn't fully form the numbers. My heart ached for the time before all this. When Kat was just my best friend, and I knew who I was and what I wanted. Now as I stared at my warped image in the polished metal I felt more lost than ever before.