Unlocked (The Alpha Group 3)

"Whatever. Get on with it," Trey said.

I took a deep breath, and pressed down.

And the room was plunged into darkness.

There were two brief cries of surprise, and then the crack of gunfire, but I was already diving to the right. Unfortunately I wasn't fast enough. Heat exploded through my arm and I stifled a scream. It was just a graze along my bicep, but it hurt like hell, and blood was already seeping through the ragged slash in my sleeve. I forced the pain away. I couldn't think about that now. If I went down, so did Sophia, and that was not an option.

A few more bullets slammed into the darkness around me, one passing close enough that I could feel the wind of it on my face. I scuttled along the floor, fumbling blindly for the edge of the desk and pulling myself around it. I hadn't been sure it would work. I'd heard rumours about what happened when someone without authorisation tried to log into the central database, but nobody had ever been stupid enough to try. As I understood it, the whole system, lights, door locks, computers, was now locked down, and an alert had gone out over the network. In a few minutes, Alpha would be showing up here in force. Of course we still had to survive until they arrived.

For a moment I thought that perhaps Sophia hadn't understood my message, but a split second later there was a loud crack, the sound of wood splintering. She'd thrown herself to the ground.

"What the hell, Trey?" It was Liv's voice, and there was a tremble running through it now.

He let out a howl and fired blindly again. "We checked everyone. It had to be you. It had to!" He sounded as though he was talking mostly to himself.

There was a distant commotion outside. No doubt Trey's guards were trying to leap to his defence. But with the system down, all doors into this room had sealed themselves. They weren't getting in any time soon.

Trey had gone quiet now, apparently realising that sound was everything when you were fighting in the dark. Sophia, however, was still audible. Judging by the noise it had made, the chair had broken when she fell, but she still had to extricate herself from the remains. If I didn't distract them, it wouldn't be long before they found her.

It was incredibly disorienting being in pitch darkness. My mind's eye knew roughly where I'd landed, but with no point of reference I felt lost, like I was swimming in a sea of nothingness. I groped behind me where I thought the bookshelf should be, but all I snatched was empty air. I could still hear Sophia struggling to my right somewhere.

"Trey?" said Liv again.

"Quiet," he hissed. His voice had moved now. It was in the centre of the room. I was running out of time.

Finally, my hands found something solid, the leather spine of a book. I slipped it from the shelf as quietly as I could and then hurled it towards where I'd last heard Trey. I don't know if I struck anyone, but there were two startled screams as the book collided with something, and another bullet zinged into the furniture to my right.

I threw several more, sliding softly along the ground, never staying the same spot. Judging by the yelp of pain, at least one of my projectiles hit its mark, but it wasn't enough. At best I was just delaying them by a few moments. Trey had stopped firing now, knowing the muzzle flash gave him away. I debated simply charging the area where I'd heard him cry out, but I doubted he was staying in one place, either. All that would do is make me an easy target.

I wracked my brain for a way to locate him in the darkness. His mistake had given us a chance, but he still had the advantage. He was armed and I was wounded. Even through the endorphins flooding my brain, my arm was burning like crazy. It wouldn't kill me, but I was already feeling woozy and light-headed. I needed to end this soon.

I fumbled through my pockets looking for anything that might give me an edge. Keys, wallet, phone.

Phone.

And just like that, something clicked into place in my head.

Burying it beneath my jacket, I took a moment to steady my quivering thumb, then I swiped the screen. I had to be quick. I was shielding the light as best I could, but in the pitch darkness it could still give me away. Fortunately, on this unit I only had one number in my favourites list. Sophia's.

I mashed the call button, then locked the screen once more, stuffing it into my pocket to hide the noise. Trey had used her phone to text me just half an hour earlier. I hoped to god he was still carrying it.

After a few agonising seconds, I was rewarded with a chime just a few meters to my left. It was one of those abrasive, pre-programmed ringtones, and it sounded impossibly loud in the blackness. Someone gasped, and I prepared to charge towards the noise, but then another gunshot rang out.

For a moment, I was overcome with confusion. Trey had the only gun, and the shot hadn't come from the same place as the call sound. But then Liv spoke, and I understood.

"What?" Her voice was soft, but full of disbelief, the phone still ringing by her side. There was the sound of something heavy dropping to the floor.

Trey let out a long shriek, and the pain of it was nearly enough to pin me in place. In spite of everything they'd done to us, and the years I'd already thought her dead, I still felt a burst of anguish myself, knowing that she'd been shot. But this was my opportunity, and Sophia's life still hung in the balance. I had to act.

I launched myself into the darkness, hurling my body towards the source of the cry, praying that he was frozen in shock. My shoulder contacted something soft, and there was a grunt, and then we were tumbling to the ground. I wrestled blindly for his arm and two more shots sprayed into the darkness. The sound was loud enough to set my ear ringing. I was bigger than he was, but I was injured, and he was filled with the mad fury of a man with nothing left to lose. My wound was like fire, spreading all across my left side, as I wrestled him for control of the gun. Sophia must have removed her gag. I could hear her calling to me now, desperate and frightened, but I didn't have the oxygen to reply. Every ounce of me was going into this fight.

Somehow, I pulled myself on top of him, wrapping my hand around his fingers and twisting, sending the gun skidding off into the blackness. He clawed at me with his free arm, snarling wordlessly, but with his body beneath mine, my superior weight came into play, and I managed to keep him at bay. But it wouldn't last. I could feel myself tiring.

With one final surge of energy, I forced my way through his guard, seizing his hair and pulling it up before slamming his head back onto the floor. His body went limp.

And just like that it was over.

As the adrenaline faded, the rest of the world came back into focus. Sophia was still calling for me. "Sebastian? Please, answer me."