Page 15 of The Hollowed
The woman’s smile was thin and predatory. “We thought you might say that.” She tapped a folder on the table, letting the silence stretch before continuing. “We have intelligence on the location of Noah Castillo.”
Luci’s head snapped up so fast Alex thought she might get whiplash.
“If you complete this mission,” the woman continued, “we will dispatch a retrieval team. We can bring him back here safely.Alive.”
Alex’s gut twisted. This was all too neat, too convenient. Prometheus never gave without taking more in return. It reeked of bait, and he knew it. “And if this so-called intelligence is wrong?” he challenged. “What if you’re sending her out there on the promise of a ghost?”
The woman’s gaze didn’t waver. “That’s a risk Dr. Castillo will have to decide to take for herself.”
“I’ll do it,” Luci said, the words tumbling out before Alex could stop her.
Alex turned to her, disbelief flashing across his face. “Lucilla — ”
She didn’t look at him, her eyes locked on the council woman. “Tell me what I need to know.”
“Sergent Ramírez still needs to agree,” the woman responded, turning everyone’s gaze to him
Alex’s pulse hammered in his ears and the meeting room blurred at the edges of his sight. He’d seen Prometheus play this game before. They dangled hope like a glimmer of light in a dark cell, just enough to make you walk willingly into your own cage. And they’d found Luci’s weak spot.
He wanted to grab her by the shoulders, to shake some sense into her and make her see the trap for what it was, but the determination in her eyes told him she was already gone to that place in her mind where nothing mattered except being reunited with Noah.
“Fine,” Alex responded, the words tasting bitter in his mouth. “But, we’ll need plasma reserves to get us there. And I get to call the shots once we’re outside your walls.”
The council woman shook her head at the first request. “No. You will find an alternative method of travel. Every ounce of plasma we have has been rationed,” she explained, staringAlex down as if she happily welcomed resistance. “Your second request can be granted, however. You will be in control the moment Dr. Castillo is beyond our walls.”
The woman made it sound so simple, and he knew why. Prometheus didn’t care what happened to them, so long as the vaccine reached AZ-7.
Alex sat back in his chair and forced himself to breathe evenly. Every instinct told him this mission was a death sentence, and now, thanks to them, Luci would be walking into it with him. No matter what promises they made about Noah, Alex couldn’t shake the certainty curling in his gut.
If they failed, the only body they’d bring back would be hers.
Chapter 5
Lucilla
On paper, the mission was simple.
The journey from Sanctum Medical to the AZ-7 facility in Arizona would have been a straight twenty-four hour drive before the outbreak. But now, with an apocalypse raging outside the hospital’s steel walls, Luci knew better than to expect a smooth trip. There would be blocked highways, detours through hostile territory filled with wreckage, and the constant threat of being caught by ravenous hordes of infected waiting for their next meal.
At least, that’s what she’d gathered from Alex and his friends who left the hospital on a regular basis.
Still, if they were lucky enough to locate a vehicle large enough for their team, that was still running on gasoline instead of plasma, they might reach Arizona in under a week. That is, if they weren’t torn apart or gunned down by whatever roamed the ruins outside.
Luci only had Alex’s stories and whispered rumors of what lay beyond the quarantine to shape her picture of the outside world. By all accounts, the city had collapsed with terrifying speed. She’d glimpsed the chaos only once when she’d watched the man who’d been viciously attacked during the initial breach from her apartment window. But since then, the fortified steel wallshad kept her safe, locked in a quarantine that blocked both the infected and the truth from her view.
Maybe that was for the best because it was easier to lie to herself about what waited beyond those walls when she’d never seen it firsthand.
And if Alex had managed to encounter survivors out there on occasion — ones he desperately wanted to help but couldn’t due to Prometheus’s rules — surely she could manage for a few days. Besides, most people on the outside didn’t have an armed escort of trained killers at their side and she would.
In the end, none of the danger mattered because the moment they had dangled the possibility of finding Noah, her decision had been made. Even if it meant walking into hell, she would go whether Alex liked it or not.
“I suppose that concludes the meeting,” Doc said from his seat across the table.
Chairs scraped against the floor as everyone rose. Luci’s eyes followed Alex, but he didn’t so much as glance her way before he slipped out the door. She wanted to chase after him, to close the gap between them before it widened any further but before she could move, Doc’s voice stopped her.
“Lucilla,” he said, pulling her aside. “Do you remember the first piece of advice I gave you when we met?”
Luci heard his question but her mind was only half way present. Alex was upset, she knew that much and the last thing she wanted was for them to leave on this mission at odds. Still, she forced herself to pause, to try and remember.