The sight isn’t worse than the smell, but it tells a horrible story.
This is a prison.
There is a long hallway that leads to a door in front of us. Above us are grates that cover huge fans.
Air flow.
But on each side there has to be more than fifty doors. Over one hundred total.Cells. I can’t see inside of them, but over the steady whirring, I can hear the wailing. The screaming. The sobbing. This is where they keep the victims.
The realization hits in two waves.
I can find Luna, but she’s down here.
I am down here, how will I ever escape?
“Don’t look around, focus on my back,” Darius says and this time the men holding us don’t stop him.
I stare at his back. The purple thread is now visible again, a comfort. It comes from my chest to near the top of his back. Connecting us by the hearts.
But there are two others.
One that wraps up and behind me, assumingly towards Grayson and Axel. And another…
My attention shifts to it. To where it leads. It doesn’t go up at all. The thread is leading to something down here. Orsomeone.
“Move along.” My captor’s hold on my shoulders propels me forward, and I refocus my attention on Darius’s back.
We continue our trek down the hallway, it is at the very end door on the left that the thread leads.
I want to investigate, to break free and throw the door open, but then what?
My captor shoves us through the door at the end of the hallway. I attempt to not let my curiosity take hold, but I can’t help myself.
It’s a mistake.
This area is different. It is shaped similarly to a horseshoe, on the outskirts are different rooms, but unlike where we came from, some of theseI can see into. The rooms are either made up of clear or foggy glass. There are over twenty areas.
Some of them are occupied.
The clear glass leaves the inside’s activities on full display.
This time I cannot swallow down the bile. I bend over, hands on my knees and empty the contents of my stomach. It lands on my socks, and my captors shoes.
He grunts in annoyance. “Disgusting.” He shoves me away from him as I continue to fall apart.
“Let me help her,” Darius states. “My father won’t be happy if she isn’t ready in time.”
A few beats later his familiar hand is on my back.
He bends over. “Sunday,” he whispers into my ear. “If they threaten my life, I don’t care. Whatever happens if you want it to stop you just tell me and I will do whatever I can.”
I don’t understand what he means, but I don’t have time to ask.
“Let’s go.” My goon tugs me up by the back of my shirt, nearly choking me.
Doing anything to not look into the rooms around us, I focus on the center of the horseshoe.
It isn’t a room but an empty area, there is glass that goes straight across, but through that and down below is a large space. Almost similar to a theatre stage, complete with rows of seats on all sides.
