Eli releases his grip and I continue the short walk towards the bodies, each of them mangled and charred with chunks of flesh slipping from the bones, landing heavily onto the black grass and that’s when my mind decides to play a cruel joke on me, showing me images of Ana’s lifeless body on top of this pile, heronce perfect skin now raw and burnt, her ocean eyes lifeless and empty.
My steps falter and I have to double over to rid the image from my mind, my hands landing heavily on my knees as I take deep inhales through my nose. Eli’s footsteps quickly catch up to me.
“Dean? What’s going on?” He says with panic in his voice and I rise to my full height again, tipping my head back towards the dark sky.
“I’m fine. I just.. I dunno, she’s not here though. I know she isn’t.” I say with confidence. I’d be able to sense her soul and I can’t. It’s not in that pile of bodies. Eli nods at my words, then Lyla gestures for us to walk back towards the prison again, leaving the horrific scene behind.
Gripping the gun tightly, I bring it up to my shoulder as we enter the threshold of the prison, half expecting to hear gun fire as we enter the derelict building. Instead, we’re met with cold silence and immediately something feels off, I can feel it in my gut.
Something isn’t right, I know it.
Clicking on my earpiece, I nod to Eli who enters into the open space first, his gun drawn and ready with Lyla taking her usual spot at the side of my leg. We move effortlessly through a cold, empty room, keeping our gazes locked on every inch of the room.
“It’s unusually quiet.” Eli states, his voice crackling through the earpiece. “I agree. Something doesn’t feel right.” I say whilst clocking a couple of doors that seem to lead down separate hallways, each of them numbered one to five. This place is fucking huge and the only way we’re gonna cover the ground we need to is to split up.
It’s dangerous considering we don’t have eyes above us, but it’s the only way.
“We’re gonna have to split up, this place is massive and I can only assume those hallways split off to different areas.” I say to Eli whilst tipping my head towards the door in front of me.
“Heard. I’ll take the left side, you and Lyla take the right. Keep talking, yeah?”
“We keep talking.”
With that I watch Eli take the first door on the left, and I take the first one on the right, letting Lyla inside the corridor first. She takes careful steps down the dimly lit hallway, her gaze darting around to every small sound she hears and I follow behind her, keeping my gun steady.
“Found anything?” Eli speaks through the comms and I reply, telling him the corridor is bare. We both agree to continue on, moving with precision between each corridor that seems to lead onto another, like a never ending maze of white wash walls and tiled flooring.
Scattered footprints cover the grim tiled floors, each of them leaving a black outline behind. I can almost envision whoever they belong to, running through these cold corridors, their bare feet skidding across the tiles. The vision is so clear in my mind but Lyla’s snapping teeth quickly yanks me back into the present, the harshness of the prison flooding my system once again.
She stops in front of what looks like an office door, her nose nudging the battered door handle. Wrapping my hand around it, I give it a small turn, the mechanisms clicking together to release the lock inside and allowing me to enter. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s definitely being used as an office of some kind. A desk and chair sit in the middle of the room, the surface scattered in random papers. There’s also a chair in the corner with a small waste paper basket next to it.
This whole place is a fucking ghost town. I haven’t seen any sign of life. Either the SatNav was wrong in the van, or Ricky is stashing these girls somewhere deeper in this prison because it shouldn’t bethisquiet.
Lyla enters the office space and begins to sniff around on the floor, her nose leading her towards the desk where she then sits, waiting for me to join her. Her chocolate brown eyes look at me with so much love that I can feel it stabbing into my chest. She runs her nose against the edge of the desk, short huffs of breath lifting up the papers.
Striding over to the desk, I plant my hand on her head and give her a quick scratch behind the ears which she seems to enjoy, then I reach out to Eli to check in.
“Storm? Everything good?”
It’s silent for a moment before his voice spills through the earpiece. “All good. It’s fucking dead over here, man. I haven’t seen anyone. You found anything?”
So it seems I’m not the only one who hasn’t come across any living being. Where the fuck is Ana? The rest of the girls?
“Yeah, nothing here either. We’ve come across an office if you wanna head over here?” I say whilst lifting up random pieces of paper and turning them over in my hand before picking up another one.
“Ten four, Viper.”
“Keep an ear out for Eli, will you baby girl?” I say to Lyla who simply tips her head to the side whilst I scour over the surface of the desk. A single piece sticks out amongst the rest of the white sea and I grab the corner to pull it free. Names upon names fill the paper, all in alphabetical order. There must be hundreds, and to the right of the names are what I assume are ages, the youngest I see is thirteen. The sight of the number hasmy stomach curdling with boiling anger and it takes everything in me not to absolutely trash this office to bits.
These people are some fucking sick bastards and it only fuels the fire of wanting to skin Ricky alive, to feel his flesh beneath my hands as I tear it away from his bones, his screams for mercy piercing into my eardrums.
Lyla’s quick bark has me snapping out of the vision, my gaze firing towards the door where Eli fills the space. He gives Lyla’s head a small scratch before coming to stand in front of the desk, his gaze roaming over the mess.
“What’s that?” He says, pointing towards the paper in my gloved hands.
“Names and ages of girls and women.” There’s a sadness to my voice as I tell Eli what’s on the paper. He takes it out of my hand and scours the page himself, I don’t even have to ask him what he’s looking for, I already know because I’m looking for a certain name too on another page.
There’s no dates on the pages but some of the names are highlighted in different colours. Green, orange and red. I’m unsure of what they mean, but I’m going to assume the red means that they’re either dead or they’ve been sold on which causes my stomach to drop like a lead weight. I don’t know what I’ll do if I find Ana’s name on these pages, highlighted in red. I don’t even know who I’ll become if she’s no longer breathing the same air as me. The thought is like a knife to my black heart.
