Joan Ascends

Chapter 31: Rage and loss

I freeze. Of all the scenarios I imagined taking place, this was never one of them. I've underestimated Addie again. I take a tiny step back to stay out of sight while I regroup, but my movement catches her eye and the color drains from her face when she realizes it's me.

"No..." she whispers.

The man kneeling in front of her takes advantage of the distraction and dives for Addie's waist. They topple to the floor, and the second man straddles her chest.

I race into the room, gripping the shiv tightly in my fist. "Get the fuck off her!"

The men don't spare me a glance—until I stab the one on Addie's chest in the shoulder with all my strength, knocking him off her. He turns and aims a laser pen at my heart, but I manage to swiftly kick it out of his hand. Sharp pain lances through my inner thigh as the pen's beam pierces me as it falls.

The man grunts, annoyed to have missed my heart, and I stab him again, this time in the neck. He clasps the wound, probably to try to contain it, but I struck too deep. Blood runs through the cracks in his fingers and he falls sideways to the ground.

My shiv falls from my shaking hand, and I just barely hold back a scream.

"Focus, Joan! You need to get to safety," Addie commands in a voice I've never heard from her before. I look up and see that she's holding her laser pen against the other man's temple. Unlike the man I killed, this one is a Dean clone type.

"I'm not leaving without you," I whisper, trying to focus on what's next, instead of the gurgles that the man on the floor is making as he bleeds out on Lexi's expensive carpet.

Addie looks down at the man in front of her and he bows his head. "Please... use the stun setting. Right now it's set to kill."

Addie presses a button with her thumb, and he crumples silently to the ground.

"Did you...?"

"He'll live," Addie says, her voice now the comforting tone that I associate with her. She stands in front of the man I killed, blocking my view of his now lifeless body.

"If I had trusted that you knew what you were doing, both of these men would only be stunned, and you would have escaped, like you promised me you could. Instead, I barged in against all warnings, and that man is dead because of me."

"You did what you had to, Joan. Mourn later. We need to leave."

Addie pulls me out of Lexi's office and back into the stairwell. "The best way out is through Dr. Rodriguez's lab. That exit is guarded by two of our own."

As we make our way back to Dr. Rodriguez's laboratory, blood flows in a steady stream down my leg, soaking my sock. Already I'm dizzy from the blood I'm losing. The laser pen must have nicked an artery.

Determined to stay conscious and not make things even worse for Addie, I focus on putting one foot in front of the other. We make it back to the hallway that leads the laboratory, and Addie freezes.

"What's wrong?"

"The lights are on. Not the emergency lights that come on when the breaker is overloaded, the regular lights. Which means everything is back online down here—including the cameras."

"Then they've seen that the pod and cells are empty. Lexi will have called for security to head down here by now."

"Move fast," Addie says, and then shoves her laser pen into my hand so that I can defend myself.

Before I can give it back to her, she's racing down the hallway and all I can do is limp after her as fast as I can. We burst into Dr. Rodriguez's lab, which is silent and empty. Lozen has left but that still leaves—