Labyrinth of White - The Moon Trilogy - Book #1

Chapter twenty-three:

They walked through the halls, Alex leading them. They only changed directions a couple of times, but after the first intersection, Alex stopped hesitating, and he seemed to get surer of where they were going with every step he took. Rachel got rather lost after the first few blank, white halls, and she wondered how Alex could even remember anything, much less a way through this mess.

Up ahead she heard voices, and she froze just a second before the others, her breath catching in her throat. She wished, not for the first time in her life, that she was invisible.

The owners of the voices came into view. There were two of them. By the way they were dressed, she guessed that they were guards or soldiers. They had dangerous-looking guns in their hip-holsters.

At first, they didn't notice her and her friends, but then they turned the corner. Their eyes found the group and their hands immediately flew to the guns at their hips. Something about their movement was almost mechanical.

Before they could fire the lethal-looking weapons, there were two flashes of light that Rachel traced back to a gun—still smoking—in Sam's hand. Both guards dropped to the floor, scorch marks on the front of their shirts where the flashes had hit them.

Alex continued walking as if nothing had happened, as if the hallway hadn't started filling with the stench of burnt flesh. He struggled to get the gurney around the fallen guards and the telepath almost fell off, but he made it by without much incident.

Clarity was the only one who reacted to the fallen guards, and she cringed away from the bodies, hugging the wall as she passed. Rachel didn't blame her. She had been the same the first time that she had seen a dead person, despite having killed that person herself.

As they went on, they began to see more and more people. Some of them passed by without noticing the group of intruders, but others either drew a weapon or tried to call on what could only be a radio. They left a trail of smoking corpses behind them as they made their way through the maze of white, and Rachel thought it could only be a matter of time before they were discovered.

After it seemed like they had been walking for hours, they stopped at another set of double doors. Alex typed something into a keypad. There was a low, robot-like tone and then a click. A green light on the keypad lit up and the chrome doors slid open to reveal an elevator. The elevator was the same bright white as the halls. All of the whiteness was making her eyes hurt.

Alex wheeled the gurney into the elevator, and once he was safely situated inside, Clarity, Sam, and lastly, Rachel, climbed in as well.

Alex clicked a button and the doors slid closed. The elevator gave a sickening jolt and started moving down. Rachel had forgotten until then how much she disliked elevators.

It was a short time—which actually felt much longer—before the doors slid open again. On the other side of the doors, there was a hallway similar to the one they had just left. The only difference being the fact that the doors here were located much closer together.

Once again, Alex took the lead. He pushed the gurney through the doors and into the blindingly white hallway beyond. As soon as they were all off the elevator, the doors slid shut behind them.

Brilliant. Our only escape route just moved up a few floors.

Rachel couldn't help but feel uneasy as she followed the others. From somewhere nearby, she heard a low moaning. Most likely from behind one of the locked doors. She was undecided whether or not to believe that it was machinery or a person when there was a hoarse screaming from another spot farther down the hall. The grating noise sent chills up her spine, convincing her that both sounds had indeed been people. This was definitely not a good place to be.

Alex stopped in front of a seemingly random door and started to type in a code on the keypad. In the middle of typing, he was interrupted by a very loud and very close scream. His finger paused and he winced before he continued typing.

She looked to see where the scream had come from but quickly realized that it had come from one of the locked doors. She tried not to imagine what they did to people that made them make such horrible sounds.

Then there was another noise. This one was much, much worse than any they'd heard so far. Her blood turned to ice at the sound of an unknown voice.

"Ah, Alex. So nice of you to return."

She whirled around to find the source of the strange voice, dread bubbling hot in her stomach.

In front of them, blocking the way to the elevator, stood a man. He was just as unknown as his voice, and she was sure she'd never seen him before, which had to mean that he was a hostile force. His ice-blue eyes had a hard glint to them, further supporting the hostile theory. His voice had the slightest twinge of a British accent.

He let out a long, low laugh that sent a shiver up her spine. "It was very thoughtful of you to bring your friends with you."

The elevator doors behind him swung open and about fifteen guards stormed out, their weapons at the ready. She spun, ready to bolt in the opposite direction, but there were even more guards blocking that route.

There was another short burst of screams coming from one of the nearby rooms, adding to the chill that had settled over her.

She turned back to the man. A cold smile spread across his face. Her heart started to beat faster. There's no way out...

The gray-haired man laughed again, the sound so sure and evil. He'd caught them and he knew it. He knew there was no way they could escape. He made a motion with his hand that she almost didn't catch. There was a chorus of countless clicking sounds as the guards cocked their guns.

At the next move of his hand, the guards fired. She felt a sharp pain in the back of her neck, and her hand flew to the spot of its own accord.

She pulled, and a small, red-tipped dart came away in her hand. She'd hardly registered what it was before her fingers went numb and she could no longer keep her grip on the tiny cylinder of metal. Her eyes felt heavy.

The others had been shot with identical darts, from what she could see.

There was a silence so loud that her ears rang. Or maybe they were doing that because of whatever poison that had been on the dart. No one moved.

Clarity was the first to topple, followed just seconds later by Sam. The edges of her vision clouded over, and she could hardly muster up much more than a vague sense of her earlier dread.

She stumbled, just barely able to keep her footing as her legs went weak and numb like her hands.

Her vision filled with bright pinpricks of white light, swirling so fast they made her light-headed.

As her mind went blank, she traced one of the bright specks across the hallway, only for it to blink into darkness in the corner of her eye.

She was conscious just long enough to see Alex fall to the ground. He landed on top of his wings and she thought she heard a crunch, but her head was so foggy that she couldn't be sure what was real and what she had imagined.

She couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. Her eyelids slid closed and she let herself fall into the blackness of sleep.