Amplified by Alexia Purdy Read Free Book Online Page B

and he reached back inside for his weapons. He produced his hunting knife since our larger weapons had been confiscated when we’d entered.
    “A little help here, ” I hissed. He immediately joined me and continued banging on doors as we passed. Eventually everyone in our group had joined in, and we held our ground at the end of the hall in a standstill.
    “You won ’t get far out there. It’s nightfall.” Mercer’s dark eyes dug into me like ice picks, and I was sure he would tear my throat out if he was allowed to. One slip and he’d pounce on us.
    “I ’ll take my chances.” I leaned in to whisper into Rick’s ear. “Show us the way out, Einstein.”
    “Okay, just don’t push the needle in anymore.” His raspy voice made him sound like he was near fainting. What had happened to that crazy mad scientist who’d cracked my mother’s sanity until it was broken beyond repair? Something wasn’t making sense, but I pushed the thought back for later. I had more important issues to deal with at the moment.
    “Well, don ’t make me.”
    “This way.” I let him go and held the syringe pointed at him, nodding down to it. “You run, I stab.”
    He bobbed his head up and down and turned forward, pointing ahead. We headed in that direction. Once we ’d turned down several halls and gone past the lab, I noticed Mercer and Christian were no longer following us. “Where did your fine leaders go?”
    “Probably to round up everyone else in the armory.”
    Nice.
    “Where ’s that?”
    “Toward the rear of the facility.”
    “Any way to lock it down so they can’t get out of there?”  This wasn’t sounding good for us at all. We had limited weapons.
    “Uh… I… um….”
    “Spit it out , human,” Rye hissed. He had been next to me the whole time, but I hadn’t noticed with my focus on Rick. I gave him a tight smile and nodded.
    “Yeah. I can lock it down from my lab. It’s like a quarantine mechanism we set up in case there was a severe mutation that got out.”
    I grabbed his arm and turned him toward the door to his lab. “ Don’t just stand there. Turn it on.”
     
     

Chapter Six
    Chemicals and Quarantines
     
     
     
    “How secure are we in this lab? It’s made of glass all over the place.” Elijah pressed a hand against the cool surface of one of the see-through walls. He turned to view the hall in each direction, but no one was coming. Not yet. “I don’t like the looks of this.”
    “It ’s a fortress, I assure you. The glass is extremely impact resistant and bullet proof. There is no getting in or out. It can also be sealed for quarantine protocols.” Rick pushed his glasses up slowly with his left hand. His right arm was dangling at his side, probably dislocated. My bad.
    “Get the armor y and back section locked down now.” Rye wasn’t losing focus, and I was glad to have such stringent and focused warriors at my back.
    “Okay, j ust one moment.” Rick fumbled with his fingers as he hit a half dozen switches before turning three keys and flipping a bright red switch. A huge rumble shook the ground as the gates shut. Several monitors above this station displayed the rush of activity in the lower floors of the fortress. Only a few stragglers had been trapped outside the quarantine walls, and the bulk of the vampires ran at the noise of the large lockdown doors sliding down into place. I couldn’t find Mercer or Christian on any of the monitors and wondered where they’d gone off to. I hoped they were trapped behind the barrier, but they would know about this feature and had probably made it out before we’d gotten the doors secured.
    “How long before they get the doors back open?”
    Rick settled into one of the rolling chairs, sighing as his eyebrows furrowed with pain. He held his arm, dangling uselessly at his side. “It’s made to keep things inside or out. It could take them days to get it open again if they really, really tried to short circuit the system. They