I follow Harris, Synn, and Frost to the lowest level of the compound. We're in the bowels of the place, it looks like.
We march toward a closed metal door at the end of the hall. We stop in front of it. There's a keypad next to the door. Harris flips it open and enters numbers into it. It opens wide, and we file inside.
Maxim is chained to the wall, buck naked. He groans, which makes me laugh.
“Uncomfortable, asshole?” I can’t help taunting him.
He doesn’t respond.
I take a second to glance around the room. There's a large drain in the middle. Plastic lays over the entirety of the floor and the walls. There's a table off to the side with all kinds of fun torture tools on it and a stool.
Synn walks over to me. “Need to Rage Out, brother?” he whispers.
“Fuck yes I do.” I let the rage wash over me, picking up a large pair of razor-sharp hedge trimmers.
“Hang on.” Frost holds up a hand. “We have to question him.”
Harris takes the lead, dragging the stool over to perch directly in front of Maxim. “You need to answer our questions, or this will get very bad for you, very fast,” Harris tells him.
I start the questioning, walking right up to the sick fuck. “So, Maxim... you are Demon mask? Who are the other three masks?”
He just smirks at me. Smirks.
Seething, I grab his head. “I will not ask twice, got it?”
Maxim tries to shrug, though he’s chained up. “I don’t care either way if you know who they are. Former students. All three of them, from years back.”
I startle. “Names? Location?”
“Lionel, Arie, and Gabriel. Good luck finding the training camp...”
“The what?” Frost comes up next to me. “The fuck is that?”
“Where do you think some of the students go after we’re through with them?” Maxim snipes.
This smug bastard...
“Where the fuck is it?” I grit out.
“Oh, now that; that is a secret.” Maxim shuts his mouth tight, pressing his lips together.
I just smile, feeling more unhinged by the second. I hold up the trimmers, moving to grab his hand and poising the blades over his thumb. I raise a brow, but he just shakes his head.
A loud snipping sound echoes in the room, and his severed thumb falls to the floor. He doesn’t even blink, the fucker.
Synn shoves me aside, brandishing a wicked dagger. He goes for an ear. “I will cut the whole fucking thing off if you don’t start talking,” he threatens.
Maxim pales a bit. Clearly not down with losing another limb. "Look— I don’t have the damn coordinates. It's way outside of The Retreat.”
Harris sets his jaw, still on the stool. “What is the purpose of The Retreat?”
“What does my father have to do with it?” I tack on.
“It sure isn’t a reform school,” Maxim laughs. “It’s a testing ground. To locate students who can be molded into soldiers. Your father owns it.” Maxim clams up tight after that.
“Not enough info,” Synn growls, chopping through Maxim’s ear, severing it easily.
Blood runs down Maxim’s face, dripping off his body. Maxim screams as Synn runs a hand through the blood, smearing it all over himself with a maniacal grin.
