Rage and Ruin | 2

7 | 2

K A N E

Riley, Delphinium and I walked into the fortress, the massive entrance swallowing us whole like a gaping mouth. Jake and the tech specialist accompanying him were already ahead of us, having disappeared into the crowd of real Imperium soldiers. Both Riley and Delphinium wore grim looks, mirroring those of the soldiers here. More than that, Delphinium also wore a shoulder-length black wig under her helmet because her natural white hair would be recognized here instantly. It made her look almost like a different person, almost as if she really was an Imperium soldier.

I let my eyes wander around the enormous place. The open world was far behind us now as we travelled deeper inside the fortress. No one spared us a second glance, me pushing the trolley with fake fuel containers and the two girls walking beside me like guards. They both held guns in typical Imperium fashion. If anything went wrong, at least we had that to fall back on. And if anyone tried to lay a hand on any one of us, I'd bash their faces in. Something about this place seemed to awake those violent thoughts.

In fact, this entire fortress radiated evil and malfeasance. The feeling I was getting inside of here...it made me want to shrink back into myself and hope that my death would be fast. It felt as if they already knew we were coming and were simply toying with us.

But I squared my shoulders and deepened my frown. The army was coming. Soon, with any luck, this fortress would be wiped off the earth.

     The place was slightly darker now that the natural light from the sunset outside was so far away. I didn't turn to look back.

     Thoughts of my brother kept resurfacing. Before he'd turned into another version of Orion, before they'd destroyed his former self, he was in a place just like this one. Dark, hopeless and surrounded by nefarious people. Ever since I'd learned about his fate, I'd wondered how they'd changed him so completely. Had they simply beat him into submission, or was there some other reason he wasn't the same person? Now, I had my answer. They'd put him through the same process that Delphinium had gone through.

      And Delphinium had been able to break free of their grasp eventually. But I'd seen my brother at his worst. I wasn't sure if there was any coming back from what he'd done. Even if he could snap out of it, I wasn't sure what would be left of him to save. I didn't think I wanted to know. Perhaps it was better for him to suffer without knowing like this than live with the weight of the sins he'd committed for a villainous master for the last five years.

"Turn here," Riley muttered, not wanting anyone to catch her speaking a language other than Russian or Romanian. She was following the same path that she'd taken a few days ago.

After taking a few more turns, we reached an elevator. Riley froze as she took in the keypad. "We got here faster than last time."

Only a few people walked through this hallway and none of them spared us a second glance. "We need to give Jake as much time as possible."

So I tilted the trolley, purposely making the fuel tanks fall to the ground and roll away. "Oops." Heads turned to find the source of the noise, so I made a show of picking all of the heavy tanks and placing them back up on the trolley. Delphinium went on a fake rant in Russian and from the angry tone of her voice, she was berating me for my unfortunate 'mistake'.

It took about ten minutes to slowly place all of the canisters back onto the trolley and tie them down. Ten precious minutes that Jake could have used to place Riley's information into their system.

"Do it," Delphinium told Riley in a hushed tone. "People are beginning to stare."

At the assassin's command, Riley placed her hand on the pad and it scanned her fingerprints. I had a horrible vision of it flashing red and sounding an alarm, causing all the real soldiers to swarm us. But green lights flashed and the elevator doors slid open.