Page 69 of Remnants
“Where do you want me?” Reid questions, standing to join us.
Aiden tugs the sleeves of his dress shirt beneath his jacket down. “Here. No one should make it here, but if they do, then teleport somewhere else and come back. This shouldn’t take long.”
We don’t have a lot of time before the power returns and systemscome back online, so the rest of us are already running from the room and down the hallway to the main hall of the Guild. Jack, Rae, and Kellan split off in another direction, and I snap my teeth together to keep from joining them. This is the plan.
I catch Jackson taking Rae’s hand in his and force myself to breathe through my nose. She’ll be safe. Even if Charles or Royce do show up, she has Jack and Kellan with her.
Aiden appears next to me before we drop to the first table and flip it on its side for cover. Agents are already loose in the main hall, but the unexpected emptiness has slowed their steps, uneasiness clear in their expressions.
Other Guild members are spread throughout the room, hidden in their designated spots until it’s time to use their gifts.
I don’t see Vera when I sneak a glance around the table, but I know she’s here somewhere. She triggered the virus that shut the Tower down, so by now, she’s hacking the system to do what she’d originally planned.
Since I didn’t have my laptop nearby when the power went out, I won’t be able to complete my part to counter whatever cyberattack she’s working on. We’re stuck with plan B, which requires me tostay putfor most of this.
I hate plan B.
“Remember…” Aiden begins, and I pull the gun from the back of my waistband and flick the safety off.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll stick to you like glue.” My finger settles on the trigger, rubbing along it with the itching desire to end this all quickly. Patience isn’t my strong suit.
Aiden slides his unamused gaze to me, but the first agents are getting close to the perimeter, to us, and he’s forced to return his attention to them. “Get ready.”
He places his hand on the floor, and I risk another peek at the portal. There are more agents coming through, but enough of them have filled the main open area for Aiden’s plan to start. Aiden nods behind us to the bar, where another Guild member is crouched and waiting.
The hardwood floors split and crack in unison in a sound that snaps and echoes through the room. The agents all freeze, looking around to figure out what’s happening, but it’s already too late.
Metal spikes strike from the narrow openings in the floor, growing to needlepoints as tall as the agents and impaling anyone in their range. They fly up together in an instant until the main area of the hall is a maze of angled metal thorns as thick as a fist and bloody, screaming bodies.
“Fuck, that’s brutal,” I breathe, watching the metal retreat, sinking to the single thick sheet Aiden had added beneath the floorboards last week. Bodies thud to the floor one after another once the metal is no longer holding them up.
You’d think that would have gotten all of them, but Aiden only had a single area he could use that attack on without risking anyone from the Guild being injured. Some of the agents had already made it outside of the attack zone and are hurrying further away.
More agents rush out of the portal and skirt the center of the room, smartly running around the perimeter of bodies to avoid another attack. Aiden might be able to pick off another couple thatstray too close, but he won’t be able to use it to catch so many again.
Not that I’m fucking complaining. He took out at least two dozen at once, and the confidence the GE agents had when they first stormed in is gone. Shifting instead to wariness and anger for the ones who see their fellow agents on the ground.
Once the next wave of goons is through, the rest of the members trigger their own traps in their assigned areas of the room. Shouts of surprise and battle break out as everything descends into chaos. Agents are pushed back to the center of the room where there’s more space, but Guild members are there as well, which officially ends Aiden’s trump card. He grips his whip sword in his hand instead, checking over his shoulder that I haven’t moved.
“Still here,” I growl, aiming my gun at an agent who dodges another member’s attack and lands a couple yards from me. He’s down with a single headshot, and then I’m seeking out the next target. I try to find Raegan and the others in the chaos, but there’s too much happening at once in a room full of people.
A table the size of a pontoon boat smashes down on a group of agents, flattening them in a single blow.
Vines dangling from the beams across the high ceiling are snatching agents up left and right, swinging and crashing them together or waiting for flying knives to catch them before they’re dropped.
It’s amazing the difference from a few months ago when we were the ones at a disadvantage against GE. And now?
Aiden’s sword extends, the lethal diamonds splitting into a whip that he slashes at the three agents in his reach before his wrist snaps the metal back to him. “Dane.”
“What?” I bark when my shot misses.
“Get ready to move.”
I look over at him. Leaving this spot isn’t part of our plan. He’s too terrified of Rae or me being kidnapped again, so he wanted us to stay close to someone just in case. That’s more difficult out in the middle of the fighting. I scan the room, searching for what could cause him to abandon his own plan so easily, then pausing when something moves in a blur, knocking Evie off her feet.
Well, fuck.
Tinsley.
