The door itself is wide open, but he’s right. There’s a lock hanging off the hook on the doorframe. Spike enters the closet and moves everything to the side…and there it is.
Opening the door, Spike turns his flashlight forward and heads down a set of stairs. Holding my breath, expecting the worst but hoping for something far less, I follow.
“Do you notice something?” Spike murmurs when we’re several steps down.
We stop.
I strain my ears.
Nothing.
“No sound at all,” Tank says.
“Close the door,” Spike orders, reaching for his walkie. “Bones, shoot off your gun.”
We wait. Nothing.
“Think I might’ve shot the drone,” Bones says a moment later. “Sorry, Foster.”
“He did,” Foster groans. “And he smiled at it before he pulled the trigger, the dickhead.”
“Soundproof,” I say.
“There’s only one reason to soundproof a basement,” Tank mutters.
No one disagrees.
We keep going, guns raised, flashlights cutting through the dark like blades.
Spike reaches the bottom first.
He goes still.
“Shine your lights down here,” Spike orders.
His flashlight cuts through the black first.
Then mine. Then Tank’s. Then Foster’s.
And the second our beams sweep across the basement…I stop breathing.
Because the first thing I see are the bodies.
Dead. Bleeding. Twisted on the concrete like discarded trash.
“That one’s Cortéz,” Spike says, stepping closer, his light locking on the vacant, glassy stare of Damian fucking Cortéz on the far wall.
Good.
Let the bastard rot.
“Foster, call in…FUCK.”
Spike’s voice cracks.
I follow his beam and see it…A chair. A body chained to it. Back facing us.
My chest caves.
