Lightning Bringer: (Lighting Seeker Book 2)

Swallowed Into Darkness

Vale hit the glass-covered ground, ignoring the shards that ripped through her skin and dress as she rolled. Stumbling to her feet, she ignored every instinct to stop at the chandelier and look for Dash in the debris. To divert from the plan and rip the place apart until she found Sky. Her mind had gone chaotic, became unfocused. Too many wants screamed for her attention.

She forced her mind to shut each of them out until only her mission remained. Stop the AI, and get the team and target out. No detours. Everything she had been fighting for over the last six months relied on her focus. Be strong tonight. Be broken tomorrow.

She made a beeline for the last place she had seen Ace, "Ace, where are you?" Vale shouted as people jumped out of her way, diving behind chairs. I must look terrifying, Vale thought as she took in the faces around her. They shook with fear, their eyes wide and pleading.

Ace didn't respond. "Geo? Where's Ace?" Vale shouted as she reached the back corner of the room where Geo and Ace had been minutes before. The table was turned over, the chairs shattered. Gold liquid mixed with broken glasses on the ground. Ace's top hat sat abandoned on the ground. "Geo!" The line was quiet. No one responded in her ear.

"Traveler!" She shouted hoping that Mortem was still on the line. But she was met with silence. Turning, she spotted a man cowering behind a chair close by, watching her.

Moving to stand above him, Vale spoke quickly, her heart pounding. Something was wrong. Her team was missing and she stood in a room of strangers, all watching her in a silence that was deafening. "The man that was sitting over there. Where did he go?" Vale asked, her voice hard and angry.

The man started to sob, too out of sorts to offer any words. Instead, he buried his face into his useless handkerchief. Vale tensed her jaw and grabbed the man's arm. Pulling him to his feet, she dragged him over to the abandoned table. Plucking up Ace's hat with her free hand, she waved it in front of the man's face. "The guy that was wearing this. Where is he?"

The man motioned towards a large painting of a man sitting on a throne made of marble, along the wall. Vale let the man go, surprised when he collapsed to the ground, his legs too unsteady to keep him up. He scurried away before she could decide if she needed to apologize. Dashing towards the painting, she noticed that it was sitting askew.

Pushing it to the side, she noticed a hole in the wall, the dark red wallpaper, burned away, curling back as if repulsed by the sudden blemish that the dark opening beyond made. "Where does this go?" Vale murmured as she inspected the opening. It was a tight squeeze, but not impossible.

She hated the idea of small spaces, but when she heard a commotion on the stairs to the ballroom and saw several more AI's enter the room, eyes gleaming as they searched the hall for her, suddenly the thought of battling her claustrophobia wasn't such a bad idea.

Squeezing inside, she was swallowed into darkness.

Vale's fingers brushed the cold damp walls that made up the hallway. Cement that coldly contrasted the warm ballroom she had just left behind. She itched to move, ready to leave the small space behind, but forced herself to still, hoping to hear a commotion, something to give her a clue as to where Geo and Ace had gone.

But all she heard was a steady drip, drip, drip. The sound, deafening in the silent space. Taking a chance, Vale lit her arm up with a lightning crack and dashed to the left. Light poured over the space for a moment, her boots sending a loud thump with each step. She allowed her arm to dim, and the darkness rushed back. She couldn't afford to use up all the lightning she had left.

She ran as fast as she dared, lighting up the space every ten seconds for a brief moment, so she wouldn't crash into a dead in at full speed.

She finally reached a fork in the hall when she heard Mortem in her ear. "Lighting!"

"Traveler!" Vale gasped with relief.

"When I call, you answer. Now is not the time to go rogue!"

Vale bit back several sass filled retorts. "You all went quiet."

She heard a string of expletives filled her ear canal as Mortem worked out some of his anger. "Must be blockin' our signal. They knew we were comin'."

Vale lit her arm again. "I'm in the hall behind the painting-."

"Take a right and you'll be right on top of us in no time," Mortem said, finishing her thought.

A sudden flash of blond filled the left hallway. Sky? Before she registered moving, she sprinted down the hall to the left, determined to find Sky. Needing to understand why he had looked at her with such hostility. "Lightning." Mortem's voice filled with warning.

"I just have to check something," Vale responded as she moved faster, catching another flash of golden hair sprinting away from her.

"Turn around Lightning." Mortem's voice was biting.

Vale ignored him and pushed herself faster. She was closing in on him. His blond hair, a beacon luring her further away from where she needed to be. "Leave now! That's an order!"

Vale's vision went blurry as she hesitated for half a step, torn. "I need to do this Mortem," her voice cracked, pleading "Then I will go wherever I need to be." Vale ignored Mortem's growls of protest as she took off again. Guilt and determination warred within her. But she refused to stop, not before she found Sky. Not before she found the boy who had grown to mean more to her than she had allowed herself to express.

A sudden commotion behind her sent Vale moving faster, racing away from a low hum that filled the hall. It dashed towards Vale, threatening to consume her as it grew into a roar. Before she could turn to defend herself, something hit her back, sending her hurling to the ground, and snuffed out the lightning across her hand. Her world filled with darkness as something pinned her to the floor.