Page 76 of Finding Her (Lore of the Fields #1)

Nausea had been rolling through me since lunch.

My clammy hands trembled as they fidgeted with the hem of the blue hospital gown, the fabric creased where I had been messing with it all day.

If this plan failed, I wasn’t sure we’d get another chance.

We were relying on several uncertain factors.

The guard needs to be unarmed. The guard needs to try to handle the situation without reinforcements.

Dia needs to be strong enough to take down the guard.

And if all of that went in our favor, we had to actually escape the facility.

Dia had taken many mental notes while being transported, dragging her back here awake was a major oversight on her captor’s part.

She told me the facility exit was a decent distance away, making a standard hallway route a non-option; there would be too many opportunities to block our path and recapture us.

Our best shot would be traveling through the vents.

She remembered seeing their grates lining the upper walls along the corridors.

The height would require one of us to provide a lift, and the other to pull them up.

We had debated our roles, ultimately landing on me providing the initial boost. Having two healthy hands would prove beneficial towards that effort.

She expected that once inside the vents, we just had to follow the turns of the large hallway, passing through the pod room, and exiting as close to the entrance as possible. From there— run .

Bile crept up my throat at the first creak of the metal door lifting.

Dinner time . I tried to look at Dia for comfort, but found only cool focus in her eyes.

My gaze flicked to her flexing fingers, and I swallowed my sickness down.

I wasn’t going to be able to watch this.

I wasn’t a pacifist by any means, but I couldn’t risk reacting the way I had in that alley.

I needed to be calm. Dia was tough and knew what she was doing.

This had been her plan all along; I just built on it.

At least, that’s what I told myself as guilt of having the more painless role set in.

One of the two guards who had been assigned to us walked in.

Each took two shifts a day, but that didn’t matter.

They might as well have been the same person.

Their identically large bodies wore the same tight white tops and hefty dark trousers with pockets lining the outsides.

Hopefully, those pockets didn’t conceal anything detrimental to our plans.

“Sorry, they don’t take requests for final meals,” the man snorted, making his way to Dia’s enclosure first.

She took the tray immediately, and I worried her eagerness would be a tell.

She never grabbed the tray until they left, not allowing her enemies to see her hungry.

This evening, the tray was the closest thing to a weapon she'd get, and it would need to be easy to grab once events rapidly set into motion.

The guard walked to the acrylic wall of my cage, painfully human eyes smiling at my suffering.

“It’ll be like you never left the pod.” I had the distinct feeling my previous escape had been a thorn in the staff's side for some time, rivaled only by their hatred of Dia for causing the trouble in the first place.

Crack .

The guard didn’t seem to realize what was happening behind him, eyes still trained on me. Asshole. I spat on the glass to appease his need for spite, happy to supply a final “ fuck you ”, but unable to force any words out. I knew what was happening to my sister just out of arms reach.

Crack .

She didn’t let out a single cringe of pain.

The guard turned calmly, his shoulders visibly tensing in response to the third snap of bone as he connected the sound to her behavior.

“What the fuck?!”

And he started heading for the gate .

My eyes desperately locked with Dia’s, icy fear shooting down my back. He was going to get reinforcements, drugs, weapons… it was over.

“ Aggghhhh !” my warrior sister screamed, turning to the glass and bashing her head into it with a bone-chilling smash .

She did it again.

And again.

Blood splattered from her split scalp onto the clear acrylic, and the guard finally looked over his shoulder and flinched in horror.

“Stop!” he yelled, his wide shoulders turning to face us once again.

Dia was going to kill herself if she didn’t follow that order. Her neck bent unnaturally as she repeatedly flung her skull into the wall, feral and unconcerned for her own life. She was certainly already concussed, with more significant brain damage only moments away.

And it worked. The same realization I had—she was at death’s door—dawned on our guard.

He rushed to the door of her cage, digging in his pocket for the clanking key ring.

She didn’t slow down for a moment, creating a situation so dire for herself— for their “ product” — that seconds counted.

The man fumbled with the bulky golden bolting mechanism, finally slipping the key into place and twisting with the sound of several distinct clicks.

He entered her cell—her territory—and she was on him.

I wasn’t sure how I had expected her to take down an eight-foot giant, but it was surprisingly simple.

She launched herself onto his upper body, wrapping both arms around his thick neck and squeezing tight at the elbow.

His breaths choked once, then fell silent as he began grabbing at her with all four hands, trying to pry her off.

Dia’s legs locked over the shoulders of his mid back, gripping tight as he tugged against her hold.

When his efforts to force her release were failing, he resorted to bashing her back into the glass.

I closed my eyes and grimaced, unsure her central nervous system could take many more blows without spinal fluid leaking from her ears.

The bangs of her body being slammed into walls were harrowing, but they gradually became weaker.

Finally, a large “ thump” signaled the end of the struggle.

I peeked hesitantly to find my sister standing over the unconscious body of our guard, her tray in her healthy hand.

She raised it above her head, cracking down on his skull repeatedly.

She was trying to kill him. Blood and tears dripped down the sides of her face.

She bared her teeth at her defeated opponent, grunting with each swing.

“Dia,” I whispered.

She struck again, choking out a furious sob in the process.

“Dia!”

She froze, looking up at me.

“We have to get moving.” I didn’t want to stop her quest for revenge. She deserved it. Every woman trapped in this facility deserved justice, but not at the expense of our own lives. If we were caught, they would win.

The tray clanged to the ground. Her first step was slow, but she quickly picked up purpose as she left her cell, grabbing the key still hanging from the lock to assist me with my escape.

“How bad is it?” I asked. It was a pointless question.

“I’m fine,” she replied, running towards the open gateway as soon as she had freed me.

I followed quickly. The hallway outside was short, forcing a turn to the right or left. To the left was a door, to the right, the hallway continued. Per our plan, we turned right, locating a vent just around the bend.

I crouched against the wall, locking my fingers together for her foot.

She stepped into my hands, and I summoned all my strength to lift her the needed distance to open the hatch.

Its hinge connected at the top rim, conveniently propping the grate out of our way.

She hooked an arm over the ledge and pulled herself up; I tried my best to help since she was so incredibly injured.

The echo of distant voices growing nearer made the hair on the back of my neck rise.

Dia held down her healthy hand, linking wrists with me and pulling me up with impressive ease.

Her power was inhuman. Well, we weren’t exactly pure-bred mortals, but I certainly didn’t possess her strength.

She scooted back to make room for my incoming body, and although cramped, I was able to turn and silently close the metal hatch behind us.

Footsteps thumped by, a crowd of several guards—some armed—filled the space I could see through the thin cracks of the metal. We didn’t dare move a muscle, afraid to give away our escape route. Even my heavy breaths and pounding heart felt too loud.

The guards rounded the corner, clearly seeing the mess we had left behind.

“Get a doctor. He’s hurt,” a gruff voice instructed.

“Where’d they go?”

“Check the power grid room. I want at least ten manning that station until they’re found.”

Thankfully we hadn’t staked our plan on replicating the damage Dia had done previously to their power grid.

They weren’t going to risk losing that much product in one mishap again.

Hopefully, more guards stationed in there would mean less to face at the front of the facility—although I suspected that this operation achieved a level of funding that would provide more than enough employed muscle.

There could be hundreds to send after us.

Footsteps dispersed with little more communication than agreeable grunts.

I wasn’t sure we could wait until everybody had left the area, it wouldn’t take long for the vents to be considered an option worth investigating.

Dia seemed to think the same thing, turning slowly onto her forearms and knees and dragging herself forward.

Once there was room to follow, I lowered myself into the same position, slithering my body as silently as possible against the cold metal. It was slow, awkward, and claustrophobic—but we were moving. The vent pathway forced a left.