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They didn't make it to higher ground. After twenty minutes, Zoe insisted that they stopped. Elijah didn't want to waste any more time, but the girl had been through what she probably considered a huge ordeal, so he'd give her a little time to rest.

He stood watch by one of the trees while Jake and Zoe sat a few feet to his right. He tried to think up a plan for once they reached the lab, but all he could hear was Zoe crying about her dog and how she wanted her dads, and it was making it hard for him to concentrate.

"Maybe we should just go back," the girl sniffled.

Jake sounded conflicted when he said, "I don't know how far it is, though. Maybe we're really close to the lab now."

"But it's dangerous," she complained sadly.

Elijah snarled irritably and looked down at her. "Did you think it was going to be like walking through a rich part of a city?" he scoffed. "You're the one looking for evidence or whatever the fuck to prove yourself useful. You willingly got wrapped up in this."

"I didn't know I was going to almost die in a snow mountain and lose Antonio!" she exclaimed as tears trickled down her face.

The demon snarled again and glared ahead.

"I mean...maybe she's right, though," Jake then said. "Those guys almost got away with her. We don't know what's waiting for us at that lab, and—"

"I know," Elijah interjected, glaring down at him. "And the only reason you two are even here with me is because I can't risk you getting captured. Neither of you get to decide whether we continue or not."

Zoe then pouted. "Yeah, well you probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for us, either. I helped you with Lamar's guys—"

"I stopped Lamar's guys from killing your careless ass," Elijah sneered.

"But I stopped them from killing you!" she insisted.

"Right," he grumbled. "I had it under control."

"Sure didn't look like it."

"What are we talking about again?" Jake questioned.

Elijah rolled his eyes and scoured the darkness ahead for any signs of danger, and to his relief, Zoe didn't say anything else; instead, she told Jake about what happened with the lycans in the underground city. But the mention of lycans reminded him of what Luell said, and he didn't want to wait to ask now that Zoe was back. "You can talk to lycans," he said, cutting Jake off. He looked down at her and watched her frown strangely.

She looked a little unsure and said, "Yeah...well, so can you."

"True Speech," Elijah muttered skeptically. "How do you know it?"

"How do you know it?" she questioned.

Elijah turned to face her and leaned his back against the tree. "Jake told me that you know about the Ancients, who are apparently the only ones who know True Speech."

Zoe glanced at Jake and shuffled around uncomfortably. "I know a little," she mumbled.

"The sangdevoro one?"

"I mean...yeah."

"Tell me what you know," he demanded.

She frowned defensively. "I-I...I can't."

"You can't?" he questioned impatiently.

"I-I'm not really supposed to talk about them. B-but I do know that people with Ancient blood have True Speech."

Elijah wasn't sure whether that was enough to confirm that he might be connected to the sangdevoro Ancient. "Have Ancient blood how?"

"Well...I guess through the bloodline. But there are also people who have learnt it or gained it through certain demon bloodlines. There's the uh...asmodi demons, which were created by two of the Ancients, and because those demons have a connection to the Ancients, they can sometimes learn True Speech," the girl explained.

Jake then frowned confusedly. "This is getting a little too much for my brain."

Elijah knew that he wasn't an asmodi demon; he was sangdevoro...right? He frowned and shifted his sights to the darkness. No, he wasn't about to stand there and ask himself if he was wrong. He heard those doctors call him sangdevoro a hundred times.

"You were in that Lyca Corp. place with lycans, right?" Zoe asked.

He glanced at her and nodded.

"What if...they did something to you to let you communicate with the lycans?" she suggested.

"Wouldn't that be a bad idea, though?" Jake asked. "I mean wouldn't they want to keep their prisoners from being able to talk to each other? To stop collaborations and whatever."

"No," Elijah muttered. "They let us interact with each other so that it was harder for us to kill each other when we were told to."

Both Zoe and Jake looked astounded.

"That's barbaric," Zoe exclaimed.

"And they thought it was fun," Elijah grumbled. But he didn't want to stand there talking about it. "Are you ready to move?"

Zoe exhaled deeply and nodded.

Jake helped the girl to her feet, and once Elijah started leading the way, they followed.

Now that he knew Zoe had information he wanted, he wouldn't stop trying to get it out of her. He didn't know what she meant when she said that she wasn't supposed to talk about the Ancients, but he was going to get it out of her. He wanted to uncover whatever he could about himself, things he would have probably never known if he didn't escape from Lyca Corp. As of right now, though, he just wanted to get to higher ground so that he could see if he could locate the lab that was supposedly out here.

They walked through the thick forest in silence and eventually reached the foot of a mountain. Elijah led them up the narrow path carved into the rock, and once he was high enough, he scoured the snowy valley. The edge he stood on allowed him to see for miles, but the falling snow was starting to get thicker, and if he couldn't decide which glow in the distance to head towards in the next few minutes, he might lose sight of both.

"These labs are meant to be secret, right?" Zoe asked. "So...would it make sense for them to be that smaller glow to the left?"

"We don't know whether this is a hidden facility or a larger-scale one," the demon muttered.

Jake shrugged and said, "I think we should just flip a coin. Anyone got a coin?"

Elijah rolled his eyes and tried to concentrate. The metal in the mountains was still skewing his senses, but he had to try and see if it would be any easier higher up.

It wasn't.

He snarled irritably and dragged his hand over his face. He had to decide. Even if there were more than three of them, he wouldn't consider splitting up; Zoe was too valuable, and since she'd lost her pet, Elijah was certain that she'd be reluctant to let her friend wander off on his own, too.

"I think we should go to the smaller one," the girl said.

"Same," Jake agreed.

Elijah didn't want to just agree because it was what they both wanted. He needed to be sure. But how was that possible? There was no way to tell.

"Elijah?" Zoe asked. "Come on."

"No," he refused.

But Jake then scoffed and said, "You should trust her instincts, man."

"Should I?" Elijah questioned irritably.

Zoe didn't look as confident as Jake did. "Well..." she drawled.

"She has these crazy guessing skills—not even kidding. She's only been wrong...what? One time out of ten?"

She shrugged unsurely.

Elijah wasn't convinced.

"And one of her dads has this like...all-seeing eye deal. I've seen him predict shit that's literally happened word for word. That's gotta mean Zoe's the same, right?" the pardus said with an excited grin.

"All-seeing eye?" Elijah raised an eyebrow.

"You know...prophecies and stuff," Jake answered.

Zoe shuffled around and crossed her arms. "I mean...I don't know if it's the same for me. Maybe it's just pattern recognition and good intuition."

Jake shook his head. "No way. Give yourself some credit."

She shrugged. "I don't know," she mumbled.

Elijah rolled his eyes and shifted his sights between the two distant glows. The larger one could either be a huge Lyca Corp. facility or a small town, and the smaller one could be anything from a single house to an entrance to an underground lab.

But which should he head towards? Which type of facility was more likely to be out in the mountains?

He scowled and pondered. These mountains were full of precious metal, and there was no way Lyca Corp. would pass up the opportunity to mine it and turn it into ammunition and weapons to use against Caeleste, so there had to be a mine, and the smaller glow could very well be the entrance to it.

"Come on," he said and started heading down the left side of the mountain.

"M-maybe we should go to the bigger one act—"

"No," Elijah snarled, cutting her off.

"O-okay..." she mumbled nervously.

They made their way down the side of the mountain, and once they reached the bottom, the falling snow evolved into a storm. Jake and Zoe huddled close to Elijah, who led the way forward.

"Just wondering, uh..." Jake said as he walked around a tree in his path. "What's the plan when we get there? I mean...there's only three of us."

"I can't come up with a plan until I see what we're dealing with," Elijah muttered.

Zoe worriedly said, "Just be careful, please."

He rolled his eyes again and glared ahead. If it was a mine that they were heading towards, then he'd have a lot of corners and turns to use to his advantage. However, if it was a lab similar to the one he'd spent most of his life in, then things would be a lot harder. But he had to get through. If Haru was inside, he'd do whatever it took to get him out.

The demon glanced at Zoe. "How's your wound?"

"Um...it's still a little achy," she answered.

"Do you think you can move a little faster?"

She frowned unsurely. "I mean...I can try."

"I could carry her," Jake said with a shrug. "Only if you want," he added, looking at Zoe.

The girl nodded. "Okay, thank you."

Elijah stopped walking and watched as the girl climbed on the leopard's back. Once she looked comfortable, the demon picked up the pace. He started running, and Jake managed to keep up. The sooner they got there, the sooner he could work out what his plan was to get inside. And then...hopefully, he'd find Haru.

He ran, and ran, and ran until he could see the light glowing through the trees up ahead. He wasn't sure what he'd find once he reached it, but the closer he got, the more cautious he started to feel. His heart beat a little faster, and his hands readied themselves to grasp his weapons.

"Stick close to the trees," he told Jake and Zoe.

The leopard and the girl riding on his back nodded in response. They both looked nervous, and Elijah could hear their racing hearts. He knew that they weren't prepared for what lay ahead; these two weren't prepared for anything outside of a social media video, were they?

With a quiet sigh, Elijah focused on the mission. Scout the place out, come up with a way to get inside, and rescue Haru...if he was there. Elijah sorely hoped that he was, but reality was starting to creep up on him. It would be a little too coincidental, right? He spent years convinced that Haru had been shipped off to Ascela, so why would he be in some lab in the mountains outside of some random town?

He reached the tree line, and what sat at the bottom of the steep, snow-covered hill wasn't what he'd been expecting.

It was a radio station, not a mine.

"Is...this the place?" Jake asked, looking at Elijah.

"I think it's some sort of transmitter...tower...thing," Zoe said.

"So...it's not a Lyca Corp. lab entrance?" the pardus questioned with disappointment in his voice.

Elijah couldn't be sure. Lyca Corp. and El'Vorian could disguise their lab entrances to look like anything, even a radio station. "I don't know," he answered, glancing at them. "I need a better look."

As the demon led the way, his companions followed him along the tree line and around the hilltop. He kept his sights on the building, examining everything he could with his sharp eyes, but his unparalleled vision that came with being a demon was still hindered by the vendite inside the mountains. Where he'd usually be able to make out the details on a face from this far away, he could only see the silhouette of the person inside. He tried to sniff for the poisonous herbs which Lyca Corp. employees and detainers used, but all he could smell were Jake and Zoe. He couldn't hear anything other than his companions' hearts, either.

He huffed irritably and crouched near the hill's edge. From where he now stood, he could see the radio station's entrance. There was a jeep parked outside, and in the garage, he could see the back of a black van.

And it had El'Vorian's insignia on it.

Elijah wanted to see who was inside. He needed to know exactly how many people he was going to have to kill to get in. So, he pulled his bag off his back, unzipped it, and took his Prăpădi M82 sniper rifle out.

"Uh...w-what are you doing?" Zoe asked nervously as she climbed off Jake's back.

"Scoping the place out," he mumbled as he lay on his stomach and positioned his rifle in front of him. He then peered into the scope and adjusted the zoom using the dial on the side until he could see clearly. He slowly searched from one end of the building to the other, counting seven armed men inside: two at the computers, three playing cards, one taking a nap, and another smoking on the balcony. He could maybe pick off half of them before the rest worked out what was going on, and while he might usually take that risk, he couldn't put Zoe and Jake's lives in danger. He needed them alive.

"Is it Lyca Corp.?" Zoe asked confusedly.

"Mm-hmm," Elijah murmured, double-checking that he hadn't missed anyone. He then glanced up at his companions and pondered for a moment. It was no use asking if either of them knew how to use the rifle; he already knew the answer. He could storm in there and use his pistols and claws, but he couldn't tell what kind of weapons those men had other than assault rifles on their sides. The last thing he needed was a face full of silver dust. He looked at Zoe and told her, "I need you to create a distraction."

The girl's startled eyes widened. "L-like what?"

"Anything to get those guys to come out. Set the truck on fire or something, but you're going to have to do it from a lot closer than here. The metal in the mountains will limit your reach," he said.

"Why can't you just shoot them all from up here?" Jake asked.

"Because they'll take cover and call for backup," Elijah snarled irritably. "I need them all out in the open so I can kill them before they can make any calls."

Zoe looked terrified. "But what if they catch me or shoot me?"

He sighed again and glared back through his scope. He'd done everything himself since he was a kid; why would things suddenly change now? The demon pulled one of his pistols out and ensured the silencer was attached. Then, he leaned his head to the side away from his scope and aimed the pistol at the truck's fuel tank.

But when he fired, the bullet hit the truck's tire, which burst but didn't snatch the attention of the men inside. Elijah exhaled deeply, trying to increase his focus, and then he fired again.

The truck burst into flames with a deafening explosion, and the ground atop the hill shook. Elijah stared back into his scope and watched as the men came running out of the station one after the other, and once the door swung shut behind the seventh guy, the demon got to work.

His first bullet pierced a man's skull, sending blood and brain matter splattering over the face of the guy beside him. Elijah shot him next, and then he fired at the third man's leg to keep him from equipping his rifle.

He could hear the remaining men shouting in panic while searching the hill, but Elijah had the high ground, and they'd all be dead before they spotted him.

Elijah fired at and killed the injured man, and then he jerked the gun right and shot at the fourth guy, who was running back towards the door.

But the light of the fire must have reflected off his scope; the last three guys started firing in his direction—

"Get down," he grunted, and Zoe and Jake hit the ground.

He didn't stop. He fired at the fifth man, and when the bullet pierced his neck, he collapsed and choked on his own blood. Elijah fired at the guy who tried to help his bleeding comrade, and he executed the final man just in time—he was about to use his radio.

And that was it. The guards were dead, and all he had to do now was get down there and figure out how to get inside the lab that this place was hiding.

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✧ Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the chapter! ✧

♛ What was your favourite part? ♛

✟ Why do you think that Zoe can't talk about the Ancients? ✟

✙ Do you think Haru is in this lab? ✙

❖ Got any questions? ❖

◈ Let me know! ◈