The men finished up with the door. Anya never thought she’d be happy to be stuck inside this facility.
The group gathered in the foyer, as if waiting for Dom’s arrival.
Vanessa stepped forward, a frown on her face. ‘What now?’
Dom nodded at the lift. ‘Get to the Nurturing Centre. We’ll come up with a plan of action there.’
Some of the group piled into the lift. The remainder entered the stairwell until it was just Dom and Anya left. They slipped inside.
On the third step, Anya pulled him to a stop. ‘What did Carissa’s note say?’
Dom looked down at her. His warm, brown eyes melted her insides a little. ‘She said this was a trap.’
‘A trap?’ The thought chilled her. Her heart pounded too fast. She gripped her gun tighter. ‘What do we do?’
Dom held the Disruptor in one hand. He cupped her face with his other one. Sorrow and fear were lodged in his eyes. ‘I don’t know.’
They were a team now. Teams backed each other up.
Despite her worry, she smiled. ‘We’ll figure it out together.’
A sliver of tension lifted from his crinkled eyes. They resumed their descent to the first level. At the bottom, Dom closed the door behind him.
He paused in the space where he’d been tortured for close to a week. It sickened her to think the Copies—the Collective—had put him through that. Her experience—of flirtation, injections and good food—had been mild compared to his.
She caught his shiver. To keep him from reliving it, she pulled him into the next stairwell going down. Ahead of them, an echo filled the stairwell then vanished. The others had reached the next level already.
Dom paused midway. He slumped against the wall.
‘What’s wrong?’
Dom shook his head. She pressed her palm to his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart.
‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ he said closing his eyes.
‘Of course you do. We’re going to the Nurturing Centre. We’ll discuss a plan of action there.’
Dom released a long breath.
She shifted her hand to his face. ‘Hey, look at me.’
He did; his eyes were bright, pained. She saw the doubt in them, coupled with shock at this new turn of events. Max was dead and Dom had been thrust into a role by Vanessa and Charlie. But Dom had always been a leader. Their time in Arcis had proven just how much.
‘This will be okay,’ she said. ‘You and I survived this place once. We can do it again.’
Dom looked down the stairwell to where the others had gone. ‘Vanessa, Charlie, Sheila... they might be right. Maybe we should leave the city.’
‘Without having looked for the Beyond?’
She couldn’t believe what he was saying.
‘They told me this place had a weird vibe to it. I should have listened.’
And yet the pair had forced Dom into a leadership role.
Her anger flared. ‘If they wanted to dictate things, maybe they shouldn’t have told you to become leader.’ Her voice echoed loudly in the stairwell. She lowered it to a whisper. ‘We need to find the Beyond, Dom. Until we do, none of this stops. The city, the towns, the camp we just came from... the Collective found us there. It will always find us.’
Dom looked up at the ceiling. ‘But what if we don’t have enough people power to escape?’ He lowered his gaze to her. ‘What if we’re signing our death certificates by staying here? What if the right move is to leave and return with more soldiers? We’ve got a couple dozen people and a small fraction of those are soldiers.’
‘There’s Kaylie’s team. They might come back.’
Dom sighed. ‘Kaylie’s team are gone. Even with them, that’s not enough to fight a second, larger wave.’
She rested her head on his chest. The tension in Dom’s body lessened a little.
‘We also have an orb and the two wolves,’ she added.
‘The orb is useless right now, and according to Jacob one of the wolves might turn on us.’
His voice rumbled in her ear, pressed against his chest.
She pulled back from him. ‘We also have a Copy with a hotline to Quintus, a newborn, a Breeder and a man with a bionic arm.’
She glanced down at his limb.
Dom held it up, flexed his fingers and gave a little grin. ‘I keep forgetting about this.’
‘Not to mention a former medical guard who can get us into places.’
Dom’s smile faded. ‘I don’t like that he’s here.’
‘I can take him out if you’d like?’
She lifted her Electro Gun.
One side of Dom’s mouth lifted again. ‘No, but thanks. Apparently, he can get us into places.’
Anya glanced at the closed doors at either end of the stairwell. ‘If this is a trap, I don’t see us getting out of the city without a fight.’
‘I wish Max were here.’
Anya wrapped her arms around him. He tightened his grip on her.
‘Me too. And Jason. Hell, even Warren in some sick and twisted way.’ She pulled back. ‘But it’s just us. Even if we left the city and rounded up extra people to help, there’s no guarantee we’d succeed. The Collective could get the barrier working again. This is a rare opportunity to find the Beyond. We have to take it.’
‘But if it’s a trap...’
‘Then we fight our way out. Returning to the camp before we’ve tried is suicide. Above all else, we’d run out of food.’
With a nod, Dom resumed his walk down the stairs. ‘Where do you think the Copies have all gone?’
‘Maybe they’re all in the Learning Centre.’
She’d meant it as a joke, but the look of fear on Dom’s face forced her to lighten the mood. ‘The Collective doesn’t know where the Beyond is. Quintus seems to operate separately to the main group. It could be
