Page 25 of Rescuing Air

“No, no he hasn’t. He’s one of the Dark Lord’s men and has been working behind the scenes to help make all this happen. Who else could know everything and everyone all the time? Jay’s mom wasn’t kidnapped by chance. Makoto probably gave her up!” I blurted, trying to tell them enough to get them to trust what I was saying.

As I finished talking, I could see them putting it all together, but it was too late. The soldiers could tell something was wrong and advanced. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, your call.”

Whirling on my heel, I brought my weapons to hand, ready to fight. “Sorry, but I never plan on making things easy for the Dark Lord.”

This got a grin from the man who’d been speaking. “Seems like you finally caught on to the reality of the situation, but it’s too late, Synergy. You’re surrounded and we have the other three of your men. If you want to see them alive, then I suggest you come with us.”

“The Dark Lord wants us dead so why should I trust anything you say?” I growled.

“Oh, he doesn’t want you dead just yet. No, he plans to make you watch him destroy everything and everyone you love. The worst torment for you is to know you failed to save them all,” the soldier announced with a bitter laugh. “If it were up to me, I’d kill you right here, right now, for all you’ve put us through.”

“Let me guess, those cops weren’t really cops but your men and I left them out in the ocean,” I shot back, hoping that as I distracted them Brayden or Hudson would get us out of this mess.

A body crashed into me, knocking me to the ground. As I tried to fight off the person, I discovered it was Hudson with a tranquilizer dark sticking out of the back of his neck.

“If you plan to ever get out of this alive, you’re going to need to think faster on your feet. Us demons are masters at playing dirty. There’s no way a person as pure as you could ever pull one over on us,” the soldier in charge shared as he squatted next to me. “Those darts will make it so they can’t use their powers for a while, but Makoto wanted us to leave you intact. Seems he wants to see what you’re made of.”

Struggling to shove Hudson off me so I could fight, my anger clouding my judgment, but that all ended with the clicking sound of a taser. Pain flooded my body as it went rigid until finally my brain decided it would be safer if we just checked out for a while until this was all over. The Dark Lord won this round, but I refused to believe this was the end of things. I would find my opening and next time I wouldn’t second-guess myself before acting.

fifteen

Lailah

In the past year, I’ve been through a lot and waking up after being tased was not an experience I ever wanted to do again. Of course, it could be that I was lying on a concrete floor in a cell, but the bone-deep body ache I knew had to come from being electrocuted. Rolling onto my back, I stared up at the ceiling with bright florescent lights shining down on me, illuminating the jail cell that I was in, not that there was much to look at. The bed that was bolted to the ground didn’t even have a cot on it, leaving the springs exposed. Clearly, they didn’t give a shit about my comfort and didn’t expect me to stay in here for that long.

“Ah, you’re awake,” a voice I recognized called out, breaking the silence of the space. “If you had just simply gone with my men, we could have avoided all this. But you had to make it difficult.”

Slowly sitting up, I found Makoto standing in front of my cell in his typical yukata with his hands folded behind his back. The last time I’d seen him was at Christmas and the past five months hadn’t done him any favors. His hair was now silver and there were a few more wrinkles that hadn’t been there before. Everything about him looked tired, as if the life had been sapped out of him—which could totally be a thing if demons were involved.

“I vowed never to make things easy for the Dark Lord,” I answered, giving him the same response I did the soldier.

Makoto grunted in response before pacing in front of my cell. “The Dark Lord doesn’t like to make things easy for those who resist him either. Something you should keep in mind. I’ve been tasked with keeping you out of his way while the final pieces are set in motion. During this time, I fully plan to see what the great promised weapon of Synergy is capable of. Everything has pointed to the fact that you should be able to defeat the Dark Lord, but I don’t see it. You are nothing but a scared little girl who doesn’t know when to quit.”

It’d been no secret that Makoto didn’t like me and thought very little of me. In fact, he felt that way about all the Elementi Knights and tried to do his best to keep Jay away from us, until Jay put his foot down and told his father how things were going to be. Now I was at Makoto’s mercy and I had no idea what to expect, other than he didn’t want to kill me.

“Where are the others?” I demanded. No sense in being nice when he clearly wasn’t going to think well of me.

“They’re sleeping off the drugs they were given. It was infused with demon venom to make sure they couldn’t use their powers and bring this whole building down around our heads like they did at Pride,” he answered.

Did Makoto truly think I would believe that the bombing was their fault?

“Why would you do this to Jay? I know you’ve had your issues with the Elementi but why force your son to go through this?”

Makoto paused in his movements and met my gaze. “My son could have been so much more but you and the other knights held him back. The Dark Lord promised that if I could get him to turn his back on the Elementi and his role, then Jalen would have a place at my side when the demons rule. What I didn’t count on was the strong connection that you and my son would have.”

“You know we’re bonded, right? That if anything happens to me or him, it could kill us both?”

“Yes, the Dark Lord informed me of this information,” Makoto spat, his face twisted into a sneer. “Know that you sealed my son’s fate to your own and that I hold you responsible for killing him.”

The venom in his words hit me as if I’d been slapped across the face. “You’re just going to let him die when the Dark Lord kills me?”

“My son chose you over me so there is nothing left to be done. I shouldn’t be surprised, his mother chose him over me as well, but Jalen believes it was all my fault because of the lies she said about me.”

This conversation was taking a left turn, and I didn’t know how to get it back. There was still information that I needed. “Is that why you didn’t even bother to look for her when she was taken?”

“Why would I look for her when I know right where she is?” Makoto challenged.

That simple statement confirmed everything I’d hoped wasn’t true. Jay’s father sold his own wife out to manipulate his son. “What do you plan on doing now that it didn’t work?”