I glanced back and forth between the open doorway and the multitude of computers before me. If I hacked into it now, surely I'd be able to find the location of my friends? But there was also the possibility of the guards coming back and finding us here.

I bit my lip, weighing my options.

"Caleb, can you... stand near the door and tell me when the guards are coming?" I asked, pulling out a seat and sinking into the soft leather.

"Uhh... sure. Why?" He walked to stand near the door, peering out carefully, before turning back to me, his head tilted in question.

I shrugged. "I want to try and hack into the system and find my friends."

"You can do that? Damn." said a soft voice near my ear.

I jumped when I felt a breath over my shoulder and turned to see Caleb standing directly behind the chair I was in, peering at the computer screen.

When had he gotten there?

"Don't scare me," I glared, "And keep a look out, quietly."

"Yes, ma'am!" He mock saluted and I rolled my eyes, shaking the mouse to start the computer back up.

My hard drive had been taken away when I had been thrown in the cell and so had my torch. So all I had with me now was my brain and experience.

I sighed, stretching out my fingers before me and wriggled my shoulders.

This would require a lot of concentration and the best of my abilities, but I could do it.

I had to.

The screen lit up, causing me to blink. Slightly because of the brightness against the dim lighting of the room, but also because of the logo that I saw there.

STARKON'S.

Which meant we were still somewhere in STARKON's facility. I thought back to the elevator that we had been in before I woke up in the straitjacket. There had been no basement levels shown on the elevator buttons, but from the faintly musky air and the slight pressure in my ears, I knew we were quite a while underground.

So STARKON didn't want the public knowing about this underground facility of theirs? What else were they hiding from the public?

I frowned, filing the thought away for later deliberation. Luckily for me, the computers hadn't been left alone for long enough for them to require a password to start it up again and after a few seconds, I found the software that they used to manage the security onsite.

Clicking through the footages of the of the security cameras, I felt cold sweat cover my body as I realised that there would be too many to go through individually and not enough time. I felt my breath hitch in my throat as I stopped on one that showed a stampede of guards armed with weapons. They had been passing hallway H, and we were in P.

And they were heading our way.

"Levi," A frantic whisper cut me out of my concentration-infused state of mind. "The guards are a few hallways down. And from the large... weapons in their hands and their metal shields, I'm willing to bet that they're onto us."

I cursed.

A quick glance told me that Caleb was watching the progression of the guards through the grainy footage of the security cameras on the wall of screens in front of me, shifting uneasily from side to side.

I bit my lip, forcing myself to calm down.

It's fine; you've got this Levi. Remember what you've been doing every day for your whole life.

"Just- Just a few more minutes... I'm almost there."

But are you, Levi? After all, it was your fault that your father isn't with you right now.

I resisted the urge to scream at my inner conscious and focused on the task at hand. There was no time to be wallowing in self-pity. I had to find my friends.

Or that'll be something else that you lost to them.

No. I shook my head- not wanting to think about what I'd do if that was true, but at the rate I was going, I wasn't sure if I could find them at all.

I jolted as a sudden thought occurred to me. Surely a large of a facility as STARKON would have a prison log of some sort?

Hastily switching to another window, I entered Brandon's name into the database.

No Results.

I cursed, typing Addison and then Aiden.

No results found.

I could feel myself start to panic. Maybe they weren't even in the same facility?

I entered my own name; my full name into the database, not sure how to feel when it came up with no results as well.

No, wait. Maybe... it's not by name?

I clicked into the prisoner logs and sorted them by most recent. There was a second when I was worried that there wouldn't be any luck there either. But then I saw the images of our faces from the most recent school photos we had, each of them with a number accompanying them.

But how could STARKON have the images that had been taken at school?

I shook away the stray thoughts, about to close the window when something caught my eye.

An image of Caleb. A closer glance told me that the picture must have been at least a few years old as he looked a lot younger and frailer than he was now. There was a preview of what the file contained near his prisoner number and I squinted to read the print.

Second escape attempt on October 5th, XX38. Exited cell and at large for three hours but...

I frowned when I realised Caleb's last escape attempt had been almost two years ago. Had he been here this whole time and not tried to escape again?

What on earth could keep him here?

"Levi! Twenty seconds!" Caleb's hushed whisper echoed across the room, breaking me out of my thoughts.

No time to think about that now.

I typed furiously, my fingers flying over the keyboard. I could feel a bead of sweat drip down over my brow and I spared one second to tug at the neck of my shirt.

I couldn't fail. Not here, not now.

Tapping in a string of letters, I pressed enter, hoping that it worked. The screen flashed purple for a second and I felt my heart plummet. But then, a group of coordinates came up on the screen and I blinked. Working quickly, I hurriedly entered them into the system, eyes scanning over the highlight sections of the facility blueprint and committing them to memory.

Then, I selected the security cameras that we would meet on the way and compiled it so the footage from the last half-hour would be played on loop. It would leave us with some time to get away before they figured it out.

Or so I hoped anyway.

"Ten seconds, Levi!" Shouted Caleb, using his powers to unscrew the grail covering the vent.

I cursed, quickly shutting down the computer and effectively destroying any evidence that I had ever been there. Dashing over toward the small opening, I leapt inside, using my powers to carefully fit the screws back in. Taking one last glance at the room that we had been in a second earlier, I turned and started crawling as fast as I dared away from the control room.

Behind me, I heard a series of loud bangs and the unmistakable echo of bullets ricocheting off the walls. I winced. Those computers would surely be destroyed. There was a muffled shout, ordering us to come out of hiding but it was no use.

We were already long gone.

~*~

I cursed again when my head hit the roof of the vent above me. Whose genius idea had it been to design them so narrow? Although granted- I didn't think they designed the vents with the purpose of an escape route in mind.

And I could barely see my hand in front of my face... again. It reminded me of a certain laundry chute- of which I did not want to recall.

Here's a confession- there is such thing as a villain scared of roller coasters. I supposed you could blame that on a traumatising childhood memory that my father had inflicted upon me...

My heart clenched in my chest and I swallowed the lump in my throat.

"Levi...?" whispered a voice, pulling me back to the present. Of which we were currently climbing through a dusty vent.

If I had been honest, I thought travel-via-vent would be a lot easier than it actually was; especially with the amount detail that the undercover action books that filled my library went into. But, it was actually very narrow, dusty and extremely maze-like.

While I knew we were still headed in the correct general direction, the last time we had passed a grail in which we could exit was around 12 rights and 8 lefts ago. I hoped we wouldn't be stuck in here forever, wandering around in circles.

"-right direction?"

I blinked, having only caught the latter half of the question.

"Sorry, come again?"

He chuckled softly. "I asked if you were sure we were going in the right direction."

There was a pause before I spoke.

"Well... right direction yes... but exactly? No." I muttered, stopping at yet another intersection.

"Why didn't you ask for help then?" I could almost hear Caleb smirking and I rolled my eyes. "If you asked, princess, then Mr Aerokinesis here could help you in your endeavour."

I rolled my eyes again, shaking my head at his antics and sighed.

"Alright then, Mr Aerokinesis. Where are we?"

There was a pause as I felt a gust of wind, causing my bangs to go awry. I shifted my weight onto one of my arms to brush them back and almost fell when another gust blew through in the opposite direction.

"What are you doing?!" I hissed, trying to glare at him through the darkness.

"Shh," was all he said before he closed his eyes and silence fell upon us.

I shifted awkwardly, feeling cramped in my crouched position. To entertain myself, I used my powers to plait my hair until I heard the vent creak dangerously.

It creaked again, and I could've sworn I felt it shift under our weight.

"Um, Mr Aerokinesis? Any minute now would be good."

I was about to tap him on the shoulder before his eyes snapped open, making me jump at his glowing yellow-green irises focused on me.

"Right, Right, up, left, right, left." he said, making me blink.

"What?"

"The directions that we have to take to find any vent opening big enough for us to fit through."

"Oh..." I trailed off and then shook my head. If we followed Caleb's directions, we would be going slightly off course to where Brandon and the twins were and with a time frame like this, it was almost certain that they would suspect that we'd go out to save them.

They would be expecting us and we wouldn't have any time to lose.

"Is there another way? One that's a little further east?" I asked Caleb, biting my lip.

There was another soft brush of wind before Caleb spoke.

"There's a smaller opening in that direction but..." He trailed off.

"But what?" I prompted, a little impatiently. We had to get a move on, and the way the vent was creaking and groaning under our weight for the last few minutes wasn't helping.

"You'll probably be able to fit through, but I don't think I can..."

I glanced at Caleb's broad shoulders and then back at my slender frame. Shrugging, I started crawling toward the right fork in the vent.

"We can worry about that when we get to that. East it is!" I exclaimed, not waiting for Caleb's answer and wincing when my voice echoed slightly in the metal walls of the vent.

Suddenly, a muffled thundering of footsteps made its way to my ears and I clapped my hands over my mouth.

I heard the distinct click of the safety being removed off a gun and cursed internally.

We had been discovered.  

a.n.

Hey guys! Now that it's the holidays, I was thinking of updating twice a week, so I'll try to update again on friday! 

Feedback welcome as usual! 

SpiderPrincess

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