THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (PART TWO)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
PART 2.
* * * * *
* * * *
Tommy stumbles into the infirmary, a shaky Lisa still in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder.
The place is in shambles. Cabinets hang open, their contents scattered across the floor. A group of boys rummage through the medicine storage, their movements frantic as they stuff pill bottles into their khaki jumpsuits and pockets. The pill dispenser lies in pieces on the floor, its contents looted, its steel casing dented by what looks like a fire extinguisher.
The second he sets his best friend down, the inmates suddenly freeze, attention fixed on the newcomers.
“What do we have here?” one of the boys sneers, a scrawny teen with a mop of unkempt hair and a half-buttoned jumpsuit. Tommy doesn’t recognise him but it’s clear he recognises Tommy. “How’d you swing a visit from your girlfriend in the middle of a lockdown, Shepherd?”
“I don’t want any trouble.” Tommy pants, his hands still radiating with the residual blur of his superspeed.
The rest of the group shifts uneasily, eyeing him like a cornered animal deciding whether to flee or attack. They’re thin and wiry but jittery like they’ve just detoxed whatever junk they’ve been filling their bodies with. On any other day, Tommy thinks he’d wipe the floor with them but right now his legs wobble under him, every muscle screaming in protest. The adrenaline is wearing off, leaving behind exhaustion—and the faint echo of the suppressants in his bloodstream doesn’t help.
“What’re you, blind? This whole building is in trouble.” Moptop’s wiry frame is deceptive; his eyes glint with the manic edge of someone who’s survived too many fights to back down now. In his hand, he grips a stolen scalpel, its blade catching the light.
“Gotta savour it while we can. So why don’t you back up and let us meet your girl, huh?”
The others are emboldened by his tone, eying Tommy and Lisa like they’d enjoy tearing them apart to see what their guts look like.
“Take it easy…” Tommy murmurs cautiously, stepping between Lisa and the group.
Moptop ignores him, lunging at Lisa with surprising speed but Tommy’s faster. He shoves him back with every ounce of strength left in him, but his movements are sluggish, the effort costs him.
The scalpel grazes his side, tearing through the thin fabric of his jumpsuit and slicing into his skin. Tommy stumbles back, clutching his side as blood wells between his fingers.
“Tommy!” Lisa screams, panic flashing across her face.
Moptop smirks, eyes lit like he’s got a taste for blood and wants nothing more than to keep slicing. “What’s the matter, Shep? Not so fast anymore?”
Tommy braces himself for a fight he’s not so sure he’s going to win.
He doesn’t expect Lisa to grab the nearest thing within reach—a bedpan—and swing it with all her might. It collides with the back of his head with a sickening clang, and Moptop crumples to the ground, groaning in pain.
Lisa points the bedpan at the rest of the group, her expression wild. “Anyone else want to try me?”
It’s clear the others don’t like their chances, not against two targets who can and will fight back. They hesitate, glancing at their injured leader but one of them mutters, “Let’s get out of here,” and they haul the ringleader to his feet, dragging him out of the infirmary while casting wary glances over their shoulders.
As the door swings shut behind them, Lisa drops the bedpan with a metallic clang, rushing to Tommy’s side.
“Sit down.” she orders, guiding him to one of the cots.
Tommy doesn’t resist, collapsing onto the thin mattress. His breath comes in short, shallow gasps, and his face is pale.
Lisa grabs a bottle of iodine from a nearby shelf, pouring it onto a wad of gauze.
“This is going to sting.” she warns.
“Yeah, like that’s my biggest problem right now,” Tommy quips weakly, wincing as she dabs at the wound.
“It’s prison,” Lisa snaps, her voice tight with worry. “Do you have any idea how filthy this place is? You’re going to get an infection.”
But as she works, the wound begins to knit itself together, the edges of the gash sealing shut before her eyes.
She stares, hand freezing mid-motion.
“What the—” Lisa’s voice trails off, her wide eyes darting to Tommy’s face.
“Huh.” Tommy mutters faintly, peering down at his side. “That’s new.”
“Whoa.”
He glances up at her, but her gaze is elsewhere, fixed to his forehead. “What is it?”
“Your hair…it’s…I mean, it’s white.” She reaches for it almost absentmindedly, catching herself just as she makes contact.
“Seriously?” Tommy turns, ducks down so he can peer into the half-smashed mirror on the opposite side of the room. And indeed, the dark brown colour he’s grown familiar with is being overtaken with a crisp white-blonde. “Surprises just keep coming, don’t they?”
“I’ll say.” Shoving that little development to one side, Lisa abandons the iodine, reaching instead for the water bottles lining the infirmary fridge. “Jeez, you’re sweating buckets. Here, hydrate before you pass out.”
Tommy obediently downs a bottle and then a second and miraculously, he can feel his energy returning in small increments.
“How’d they get in here? Where is everyone?” he says, nodding toward the door. “Lockdown means everyone stays put—guards, inmates, staff.”
With a frown, Lisa crosses to the window, peering through the reinforced glass. “Uh, I think I know how.”
Wincing, he joins her, heart sinking as he takes in the scene. The prison yard is a war zone. Smoke billows from a fire near the guard tower and inmates flood the open space, some climbing fences, others locked in brawls.
On a hunch, Lisa tests the handle to the infirmary office, which should be bolted shut. It swings open easily.
“Seems like someone unlocked…everything.” Lisa says, her voice low with disbelief. “This place is gonna be ashes in an hour if they keep this up. We have to get out of here.”
“We will.” Tommy stretches his limbs, emptying a third bottle of water as he goes. “You stay here while I go back for Lawyer Jeff-”
“You’re not going anywhere without me,” Lisa says firmly.
Tommy hesitates. “Lisa, come on-”
“Are you serious?” She raises her brows, waving a hand to the blood still splattered on the ground from where the junkies nicked him. “You want to leave me in the middle of this? Who’s to say they won’t come back?”
She has a point. “Look, I don’t know if I can carry you both.”
“Just get us back to the interview room,” she says, determined. “And I can help carry Lawyer Jeff out the front. There are plenty of guards near the reception office, they’ll help us.”
“We can’t trust them.” Tommy says grimly. “I don’t know what’s going on but I think this all kicked off because of me.”
“What do you mean?”
But before Tommy can explain, the unmistakable sound of gunfire echoes through the halls. Both of them freeze, their gazes snapping back to the window.
A squad of black-clad operatives has stormed the yard, their movements efficient and precise. They wield assault rifles, their faces obscured by helmets and visors.
Lisa’s face pales. “Oh my God. Did they call in SWAT?”
Tommy’s jaw tightens. He recognises those weapons, that smooth precision. “No. That’s not SWAT.”
Lisa frowns. “Then who—”
“Another extraction team,” Tommy says grimly. “They’re here for me.”
* * * * *
* * * *
Billy’s boots echo faintly against the linoleum floors, the sound swallowed quickly by the distant cacophony of riotous chaos. The smell of burnt plastic and sweat clings to the air, thick and choking. He traces the leather cuffs at his wrists as he passes corridors smattered with blood, piles of debris set on fire.
Somewhere in this mess, his brother is waiting for him.
He repeats the thought like a mantra, his magic simmering beneath his skin.
He turns a corner and immediately freezes. A group of inmates—at least a dozen, maybe more—move like a pack of wolves. They jeer and whoop amongst each other, khaki jumpsuits smeared with blood and grime. Most carry crude weapons: a chair leg here, a shattered broomstick there, but a few were better armed.
Billy’s stomach twists as he catches sight of two with stolen guard batons and another swinging a set of cuffs like a mace. They haven’t noticed him yet and he prepares to avoid them, to slip past silently.
He’s halfway through retreating when it hits him: a ripple, sharp and sudden, like a pebble dropped in still water. A thought—not his own—shoots through his mind.
Tommy, weakened and bleeding, slumping against a cot, a girl with dark hair frantically tending to him. Billy’s breath hitches, the mental snapshot causing him to stumble.
His distraction doesn’t go unnoticed. One of the inmates at the edge of the pack catches sight of him, nudging the others. “Hey, fresh meat,” he calls, a crooked grin splitting his face.
Billy raises his hands, palms out. “I don’t want trouble.”
“We do.” another taunts, a baton twirling in his hand. “Hand over whatever you’ve got, and we’ll call it even.”
Billy tries to sidestep, his focus darting to the boy whose thoughts had betrayed Tommy’s whereabouts, a spindly teenager who hovers at the edges of the pack.
But before he can get close, another inmate surges forward.
The baton comes down fast. Billy activates his shields instinctively—a shimmering electric blue barrier sparking against the metal, stopping the blow inches from his face. The attacker reels back, snarling, but his friends have already pounced.
A chair leg strikes him hard in the ribs, knocking the breath out of his chest. He stumbles, gasping, his arms flying up to block another blow aimed at his head. One hand yanks a fistful of hair, raising his face so another can connect with his cheek, the impact so hard he can feel his teeth vibrating in his jaw.
They don’t fight clean, and they don’t fight fair.
They strike from all sides, every opening a new invitation for pain. His wards flicker and flare sporadically, deflecting some blows but missing others. He feels the crack of a baton against his shin, the sharp edge of a makeshift blade slicing through his side, and he can barely breathe, can barely see through the mob of limbs and fists and jeers that are swallowing him whole.
Someone swings a club down on him but he raises his forearm weakly and-
The blow bounces off the leather of his cuffs. Alice’s cuffs.
Expelle, expelle, expelle. A new wave of magic surges through him, a pulse of heat and light. When the next blow comes, the protection magic woven into the leather activates fully.
The inmate’s baton rebounds off the invisible shield, sending him sprawling to the floor. Another swings at Billy’s head, only to be thrown backward as though struck by an unseen hand. The effect spreads like wildfire. Every attempted strike ricochets back with twice the force, tossing the attackers like ragdolls.
Billy rises slowly, wiping blood from his split lip. His wards shimmer faintly around him now, flexing with energy and menace.
He turns his gaze on the few still standing. “Leave,” he says, his voice low, almost guttural. The word carry weight, crackling with magic. “Now.”
They don’t hesitate. The pack scatters like leaves in a storm, tripping over each other in their haste to escape. All but one.
The junkie—the same one who’d fought Tommy in the infirmary—crawls backward, his hands raised defensively. “H-Hey, man, I don’t want no trouble.”
Billy looms over him, grabbing the front of his jumpsuit and hauling him to his feet. “What do you know about my brother?” His voice is sharp, unyielding.
The junkie squirms, eyes wide with panic. “I—I don’t know anything, man. I swear.”
“You were thinking about him,” Billy snarls, tightening his grip. “I saw it. The infirmary. You cut him.”
The junkie’s face twists. “It was—it was nothing personal! Just a scuffle. Some chick knocked me out, okay?”
Billy’s grip doesn’t falter. “Where is he now?”
“I don’t know!” the junkie blurts. “But the new guys—they asked about him too! Talked about Shepherd being a target or something, I don’t know!
Billy’s heart pounds in his ears. “A target for who??”
“I saw them in the yard—black suits, heavy gear, serious firepower, man,” the junkie stammers. “They were looking for Shepherd, that’s all I know!”
Billy releases him with a shove. “Get out of my sight.”
The junkie doesn’t need to be told twice, scrambling down the hall with a limp.
Billy flexes his fingers, the magic in his cuffs humming softly. They’ve got him, his coven. Even now, even after everything, they’re with him. He knows what he needs to do.
Billy takes a moment, closes his eyes and inhales, trying to focus his energy like Agatha has been teaching him. He reaches for that glimmering, dazzling weave she’d shown him: the sacred geometry, the fabric of creation. The glowing cord that connects him to Tommy materialises in his mind’s eye, stretching out before him, leading-
When he opens his eyes, he turns left without hesitation. Somewhere in this mess, his brother is waiting for him.
* * * * *
* * * *
If Agatha has to spend one more minute blasting the wards surrounding this goddess damned prison to absolutely no avail, she’s going to start blowing up cars instead.
Starting with Boytoy’s ridiculous Subaru.
“This is discrimination!” she howls at the building. “Against the corporeally challenged!”
“Is that what we’re calling spectral hags these days?”
Agatha glowers at the love of her eternal life as she leans back against the hood of a nearby sedan. “The hell are you doing here?”
Rio arches a brow. “What? Maybe it’s just a beautiful day to watch you beat your head against a wall.”
Agatha snarls wordlessly and unleashes another pulse of demonically super-powered magic directly at the prison’s walls.
The wards surrounding them flicker, revealing themselves for just a moment before absorbing the magic effortlessly and vanishing once more.
“Do you know anything about this?” Agatha demands.
She’s edgier than she wants to admit, but since her little protégé headed inside alone, she’s heard alarm after alarm trigger, listened to the sounds of screaming and gunfire going off inside, watched waves of people be herded out the emergency exits. Not to mention the giant black vans stacked full of covert soldiers that turned up in record time.
She doesn’t like this. It stinks of a trap and the worst part is that she’s stuck on the outside looking in.
Her power burns inside her with a festering, reckless energy that begs her to let loose. Demonic magic really is a different beast.
Rio, meanwhile, looks entirely unbothered. “I know an iron protection circle when I see one. Or did you miss that while you were throwing your little tantrum?”
Agatha pauses, realisation dawning with no small amount of dread. “Oh, these assholes.”
“Someone doesn’t like ghosts messing with their inmates.” Rio hums with amusement. “It wraps around the whole compound, looks like. No sticking your nose in this time, sweetheart.”
Agatha glowers at her. “You’re early. Go play with a few skulls while I fix this mess.”
“No fixing this one, Agatha. Time for your pet to sink or swim on his own.” Rio purrs back. She’s all decked out in her mortal special agent look: crisp white shirt tucked into a pair of perfectly tailored black trousers, a suit jacket clinging sinfully to her every curve.
Agatha keeps her eyes fixed to Rio’s face, refusing to appreciate the little costumery.
“That’s what you think.” Agatha smiles at her, mirthlessly and then fixes her attention to one of the prison officers who has been marshalling the evacuees to the designated evacuation spots in the carpark. His badge reads ‘DELVECCHIO’.
“Agatha…” Rio’s voice is low with warning. “Don’t do it.”
“I told you,” Agatha calls over her shoulder as she heads toward her target. “You’re early.”
Slipping into Delvecchio’s meatsuit takes a second; she hasn’t really tried possession much since she gained her spectral form, mainly because, frankly, ew.
The officer gasps suddenly when she makes contact, grabbing at his chest but Agatha does her best to ease the transition, letting her spirit gently infiltrate each of his limbs, lulling his mind to sleep.
“Ohhh…” she murmurs in the grumbling voice of the middle-aged man. “Yikes, buddy. You need to lay off the sauce, this liver of yours is practically pickled.”
“Excuse me?” the receptionist Delvecchio had been speaking to blinks bewildered. “What did you say?”
Agatha rolls her neck, adjusting to a body that has been sitting behind a desk for far too long. “Nothing at all, ma’am. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a teenager or two to rescue.”
* * * * *
* * * *
They get as far as the solitary blocks in the northwest detention corridor before Lisa taps frantically on his shoulder.
As soon as he lets her down, she staggers away and pukes her guts up right then and there.
“Whoa, are you okay?!” Tommy tries to reach for her, awkwardly but she waves him off, gasping for breath.
“Motion sickness,” she tells him weakly. “I don’t know how you’re not dizzy all the time.”
He gingerly scoops her hair back out of the way with a grimace. “I did tell you not to look.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.” she tosses him an unimpressed glare and then takes a deep breath. “Okay. I think I’m good.”
“You’re turning green.” Tommy notes with a pang of guilt. “Look, we’re not far. We’ll walk, okay?”
It really isn’t far from here to the interview rooms on the north side of the facility, especially since all the gates swing open easily, no key card required. Tommy is so consumed with hoping that Lawyer Jeff is still kicking that he doesn’t realise the next door is jammed at first.
He pushes on it again with a frown. “It’s stuck.”
“Seriously?” Lisa leans her body weight against it too, the pair of them pushing hard on the steel. It refuses to budge at first, giving only an inch or so before closing again.
Tommy scowls at it. “Hang on, lemme just…”
He takes a couple of steps away and pours on the speed to get a good run up, applying enough force to the door that it finally swings open-
Revealing an all-out blood bath beyond.
“Oh my god…” He can hear Lisa whisper but Tommy can only stare at the carnage in the hallway ahead: half a dozen bodies strewn across the corridor, bloodied to almost unrecognisable pulps. One body is slumped right in front of the door, his dead weight holding it shut. The walls are smeared with crimson and bullet holes and what Tommy suspects might be brain matter. He has no words to describe this. He’s never seen this much wilful, murderous destruction before.
He can sense Lisa shaking behind him, her hand slipping into his almost on instinct. “Come on. Just…just don’t look.”
But Tommy can’t not look. His eyes flit between the bodies, wondering if they’re people he knows. None of them wear the khaki jumpsuits of the prisoner’s uniforms but there are more than a few guards here, glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling.
What really catches his attention are the two bodies dressed head to toe in black: helmets, body armour, radios still crackling faintly with barking orders to respond.
“What’re you doing?” Lisa hisses when he pauses next to one.
He doesn’t reply right away, instead unclipping the radio gingerly from the dead man’s shoulder. With a little fiddling, he manages to crank the volume, filling the hallway with harried commands:
“-ttack Team Beta, is the subject secure? Over.”
“Negative, S.W.O.R.D Command. Subject 4B is in the wind. The bastard took three of my guys down on the way out, over.”
“Attack Team Beta, move to relieve Alpha Team in the northwestern quadrant, over.”
“- this is Delta Team, command, do you read me?! We need goddamn reinforcements down here, we’re getting hammered by this kid!”
“Attack Team Delta, this is Command. Sending Gamma Team to your location now.”
“-Goddamnit, he’s killing us, Command! Get your ass down here now or- AHHHHH!”
“Delta Leader, come in! Delta Leader, do you copy? Attack Team Gamma, approach with caution, we have lost contact with Delta Team. Subject 2A should be considered an active threat-”
Tommy stares at Lisa, bewildered and horrified. “What the hell is going on here?”
Lisa looks back grimly. “Tommy…I don’t think they’re only here for you.”
They move quickly after that, spooked more than either of them could admit. Tommy picks up the pace as they approach the interview rooms, making a beeline for familiar Interview Room 5.
Only this door won’t budge either.
Tommy can’t help the sudden terrible vision of what lies in wait on the other side, of the fate that had befallen Lawyer Jeff but before he can shove it open, a voice rings out:
“Don’t come in here or I’ll blow your damn head off!”
Lisa has gone even paler beneath her normally tanned skin. “Maybe we should just go.”
But Tommy frowns. The voice doesn’t sound like a guard. It doesn’t even sound like an adult.
On a hunch, he knocks on the door again warily. “I’m not here to hurt you. My name’s Tommy. I want to help, if I can.”
There’s a long pause and then the sound of furniture scraping against tile.
When the door finally swings open, the teenager on the other side is not what Tommy was expecting. The guy’s tall, Black, maybe around Tommy’s age but most importantly, he’s not covered in blood.
“You’re Tommy?” He checks, cautiously.
Tommy takes his chances, pushing the door open further. “Where’s Jeff?”
“How do you know Jeff?” the stranger asks, then double-takes at Lisa. “Wait, who’re you?”
“Lisa Molinari.” She introduces wearily. “Just dragged along for the ride, I guess. Who’re you?”
“You too, huh? Eddie, my name’s Eddie Gutierrez.”
Tommy doesn’t listen too hard. He finds his lawyer cradling his skull with a groan in the corner furthest from the door, surrounded by a makeshift barricade using every scrap of furniture in the room.
“Hey, Lawyer Jeff.” He says shakily, taking in the amount of blood matted into the man’s hair. “How you doing?”
Jeff winces. “Tommy? What’re you doing back here? Did Billy find you?”
The unexpected sound of his brother’s name in his lawyer’s mouth catches him off guard. “Billy? How do you know Billy?”
“He’s my son.” Jeff groans. “How do you know my kid?”
“I don’t.” Tommy says reflexively. “I mean, not yet. Look, I came back to get you out of here. It’s not safe, there’s all sorts of fucked up shit happening out there.”
“We heard the gunfire down the hall.” Eddie confirms grimly. “And some other sounds that I am gonna need some serious therapy to forget.”
“You’re telling me.” Lisa mutters back.
“I’m not going anywhere without Billy.” Jeff insists but he’s pale from blood loss and when he tries to stand, his legs can’t support his weight.
“He really needs a hospital.” Eddie confirms his suspicions. “I think he might have a concussion or worse. Did you find Billy? Where is he?”
“He’s here?” Tommy’s eyes can only widen in alarm. “What is he doing here?”
“Looking for you!” Eddie snaps back. “Only we managed to get here just before the SWAT team showed up and everyone started shooting each other!”
But Lisa is already shaking her head. “Whatever these guys are, they’re not SWAT. We heard them on the radio, they called themselves sword or something.”
“Ace of Swords.” Eddie says suddenly, nonsensically. He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter right now. We have to get him out of here, he’s fading pretty fast.”
“Not without Billy.” Jeff grinds out stubbornly.
Tommy kneels in front of him. “I won’t leave without him, okay?”
“You don’t even know him, you said so yourself.” Jeff mumbles. His speech is slurring.
“I don’t know him yet,” Tommy stresses, catching the man’s eye. “But I’ll find him and I’ll keep him safe. I promise.”
“That’s great and all,” Lisa says sharply. “But we still don’t know if we even have a way out of here yet.”
“And there’s my cue.”
The sight of a prison officer in the doorway spooks every single one of them. Tommy moves before he can think, tugging Lisa and Eddie behind him in the blink of an eye, even though the pair of them look ready to throw down.
But the officer merely cackles in a way that definitely does not befit the middle aged balding man. “Well, hi there, Tommy. It’s been a while. Love the hair, by the way.”
“Who the hell are you?” Lisa snaps, looking like she’s ready to throw another bedpan.
The officer winks back playfully. “Right now? I’m playing the part of heroic rescuer, isn’t it obvious? Hey boytoy.”
Eddie’s jaw drops. “Agatha?”
He grins. “In the flesh. Well, in someone’s flesh anyway. Now, are we going to stand around and chat or get your asses out of here?”