novelraw Chapter 409: Reach Her
Chapter 409: Reach Her
The cell never stopped humming.
It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t obvious. Just a low, constant vibration deep in the concrete, like the whole block was a throat trying not to cough.
Zubair sat on the edge of the narrow bed, his forearms resting on his knees, and his eyes on the opposite wall. From anyone else’s angle he looked almost relaxed, his shoulders loose, his spine easy, and his bare feet flat on the floor.
It was only his hands gave him away.
They were constantly flexing. Sure, it was a slow, careful movement, like he was squeezing something’s neck he couldn’t quite reach.
You are wasting time, the creature inside of him muttered. It was coiled hot behind his ribs, like it was just waiting for an excuse to burst out from inside of him. Rooms like this were not for waiting. They are for breaking.
"Breaking the wrong thing gets Sera killed faster," Zubair answered under his breath.
The wrong thing, the creature echoed. You think in straight lines. Hit A, B falls, C stays. This place is circles. You burn one ring, the next tightens.
On the other side of the wall, Lachlan hit his bars again.
The deep, ugly clang carried through the block. "He walked out, Zubair. You saw it. Heard it. The door opened and he went."
Zubair didn’t look toward the corridor. He kept watching the wall, tracking the old stress lines in the concrete with his eyes. There were hairline fractures near the ceiling now—new ones—formed when something heavy in another wing had shaken itself apart.
Something had exploded, and he didn’t know how he felt about that. He’d felt that through the floor. Heard it through the bolts as the groaned trying to keep the rest of the structure together.
"Elias is not stupid," Zubair replied.
Lachlan’s snort bounced off steel. "He’s arrogant. That’s worse."
"Sometimes," Zubair agreed.
His creature snickered. He is not wrong. Your doctor likes to think brains make him special. Brains are meat. They rot just like the rest.
Zubair rubbed a thumb along his knuckles, feeling the new hardness there. The last time he’d fed, the last man he’d torn open, his body had changed again. Fire came easier now. His muscles held more. His bones felt denser, like something had poured stone into them.
Not human anymore. Not just Reaver.
Something between.
Sera’s creature had called it fuel. Lachlan’s creature called it dessert. Alexei’s just laughed and kept score.
But Zubair’s, on the other hand, used it.
He stood in one smooth motion and moved to the bars. The steel was thicker than anything they’d been caged with before—welded into the wall, reinforced at the frame, bolted so deep he couldn’t see the anchor points. The lock wasn’t a simple mechanism either. Electronic. Coded.
Break the wrong part, and he’d only trip a higher-level restraint.
He rested both hands flat against the bars anyway.
Heat bled through his palms. Not enough to bend metal, but enough to prove to himself that he could.
Better, the creature approved. You are not made for chairs. You are made for pressure. Feel the cage. Taste it. Plan. Execute. Escape.
So, Zubair did.
From his angle, he could see a sliver of the corridor. Lachlan’s door. Part of Alexei’s. The far wall.
There was no sign of Elias, but he didn’t really care about that.
What bothered him the most was that there was no sign of Sera.
Her absence sat heavy around him, like the world didn’t make nearly as much sense as it used to. But he refused to let it show.
"She’s alive," he said.
Alexei’s voice carried from the next cell, quiet and flat. "You sound certain."
Zubair nodded once, even knowing Alexei couldn’t see it. "If she were dead, this place would not still be standing."
There was a pause.
Lachlan let out a strangled laugh. "Fair."
The creature purred low. If she was gone, we would not be sitting. We would be screaming. Every bone in you would be cracked with it. Do you feel that? No? Good. She breathes.
Zubair believed it. Not because of faith but because of evidence.
The air still tasted like disinfectant and recycled breath, not blood fire and collapse. The hum in the walls came from power and systems, not emergency backups scrambling to keep corpses cold. The guards still walked past the block with controlled steps, not panicked ones.
Mercer hadn’t lost his cornerstone. Not yet.
Footsteps echoed faintly from further down the hall. Lighter than soldiers in full armor. Heels on concrete. Kearns, maybe. Or another tech.
They didn’t come close. Not this time.
"What if she’s hurt?" Lachlan asked.
"She’s always hurt," Zubair answered. "It doesn’t stop her."
He meant more than cuts and bruises. They all did.
Alexei’s metal-frame bed creaked softly as he shifted. "Lachlan, pacing won’t open the door."
"Then give me something that will," Lachlan snapped. "Because sitting here while Elias plays nice with the bastard who strapped her to that machine is making me—"
"Stupid," Alexei cut in.
Silence dropped for a beat.
Then Lachlan laughed again, shorter this time. "You’re not wrong."
Zubair listened to them and let his creature listen more.
They were quieter now than in the first hours after capture. Less pounding. Less shouting. Rage had cooled into something heavier. Not gone. Focused.
Good.
Raw rage splashed. Focused anger burned holes.
You know what I want, Zubair’s creature muttered. You feel it.
"Out," Zubair answered.
Out, yes. And once out? Find the one who wears the Director’s skin. Pull him apart. Use his bones to prop the door open so nothing can close it again.
Zubair’s fingers tightened on the bars. "We need him alive long enough to use."
You always ruin the fun with logistics, the creature complained. Fine. Half-alive. As bait.
The thought of Mercer dangling on a hook while Sera walked around him deciding whether he was worth the bite did have appeal.
Zubair let the image sit for a moment before pushing it aside. Not useful yet.
"Psycho is restless," Alexei remarked.
Zubair huffed. "When is it not."
"It thinks it can reach her," Alexei continued, ignoring the jab.
"Reach her how?" Lachlan demanded. "Through the walls? Through the cameras? Psycho planning to leak itself into the vents?"
There was a sound Zubair had come to recognize as Alexei’s half-laugh—barely there, more breath than voice.
"No," Alexei replied. "Through this."
He tapped the bars—just once. The sound of metal rang down the corridor.