It was surreal seeing Dex work.
Up until this point, it was easy thinking about how we’re all doing this to help people by taking down the bad guys. But once I’ve seen Dex sneak up to the guy while he was distracted, plunging his serrated knife into his neck and then pulling himtowards the wall of the building and resting him there as blood continued to spurt out? I felt lightheaded.
C, the amazing woman that she is, caught my panic, and she immediately held my hand.
“Stay with me, for now,” she whispered to me before exchanging glances with Siege.
With a nod, I watch him silently run towards Dex, and they both round the building, simultaneously doing the knife-to-the-neck attack so easily to the two other guys.
My hand wrapped around C’s, squeezing, and I wanted to hold her, just drink some of her in to calm myself, but Dex was already making his signal for us to say that the coast is clear and we should head inside.
Hand in hand, embarrassingly feeling like Cosette was the one guiding me, we followed Siege and Dex to the entrance of the building.
“Combs, do you need a second?” Siege asked while Dex was holding a single cut-up finger, wiping the blood off it as he looked at the biometrics scanner on the side of the door.
I looked at Cosette’s worried face, and I thought about Callista. How scared and unhealthy she looked. Then I think about all the people that might be insidejust like her, and I shake my head, taking my gun from its holster.
“No, I’m ready.”
44
COSETTE
It’s scary seeing Nero like this.
It’s not Nero himself that scares me. The thing that worries me most is that he seems to think he can manage all of this, even though he might end up traumatized. Not just physically, but psychologically.
Yet, I have enough trust in him to know his limits. And whatever he thought about when Siege gave him an out? I’m sure that ultimately, he knows why we’re doing this.
Once Dex pressed the severed finger on the scanner—the finger that I’m trying so hard to imagine as fake—the single metallic door slid to the side, an alarm immediately blaring until the door.
The three set up a barricade of their bodies in front of me, ready to shoot at whatever’s coming out of the door because of the sirens, but surprisingly, none came.
Another minute, and still… nothing.
They lowered their weapons, no longer fearing an ambush, and we began searching the area.
The similarities to the musty basement where we found Siege sent a chill down my spine, stiffening my body. Except it wasn’ta hallway, but rather a brightly lit room with the same sterile white walls.
For a second, I thought we had the wrong place. Feeling panic surge through me that Siege and Dex had killed guards that were actually just normal security for some kind of rich man’s vault. But once Dex scanned the finger to another panel on the back wall, we saw the truth.
The ghastly truth being hidden behind the innocent-looking white room.
A warehouse.
The space was illuminated by a series of harsh, flickering fluorescent lights.
About a dozen metallic cages lined the walls, each a grim testament to the inhumanity within.
The cages were filled with the palpable terror of their occupants: actual humans.
Men, women, people my age, some younger, some older.
Their eyes, wide with a silent desperation, met mine, and the sight sent a jolt of ice through my veins. I felt my body shaking, the tremors both from outrage and despair that surged within me.
My stomach lurched, and I felt the bile rise in my throat.
How could they be treated like this? Like animals?
