The four of us continued our search.
We went another ten minutes without finding any addresses or anything like that, but we were out of time. We still had a building to map and kidnapped victims to find. So we hurriedly made sure everything was in its place and walked out of the room with Bas in the lead again.
He led us to the next floor down, and we did the same thing—checking each room and keeping an eye out for anything helpful.
By the time we made it to the basement door, I was thrumming with energy.
We hadn’t found much in terms of a paper trail, which made sense. They wouldn’t want any of their illegal activities written down anywhere. But we had run into several people, a mixture of humans, blood witches, and even one dragon that I didn’t recognize—strange considering there were so few of us left in the world. I could tell from his power that he was on the younger side, no older than two centuries, but I didn’t know who he was.
But Oak had recognized him from their time in the cult.
In fact, they recognized several people and had reported their names into the comms so our guys outside could do some background checks.
Bas turned to us with his hand on the basement doorknob. “Ready?”
We gave nods, and he slowly opened the door.
Having to open doors to go in and out of the rooms had been an issue the entire time we’d been here. There were video cameras—and actual people around—so anything could pick up random doors opening and closing by what seemed to be an invisible person. And if someone was paying attention, they’d see a pattern of us checking the rooms and making our way down here.
I was afraid the alarm would sound, but so far, it hadn’t.
We all held still, listening, waiting, but no one came.
With a nod, Bas headed down the stairs and into the basement.
I kind of expected it to be dark and dank down here, but there were actually a lot of lights on… and a lot more people down here than any of us expected.
The basement was very large, taking up the entire length of the building. I was a little horrified by what we might find, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the first thing I saw.
On the far side in the back, there was a row of cages. There was no other word for them.
They were cages for people.
There were at least sixteen cages—they were kind of stacked with two rows to walk through, so I didn’t know the exact number yet. Each one was probably fifteen by fifteen, and every single one of them was jam-packed with people. In some of them, the people were practically sitting on top of each other. They were dirty, skinny, many had tear stains or were actively crying, and all of them looked terrified.
In front of the cages were a few tables, a small kitchenette, lots of chairs, and a few cots—a hell of a lot more than the poor people in the cages had. And all of the people walking around were carrying assault rifles, knives, handguns, and an array of spells, potions, and tonics. I couldn’t even count how many each of the… soldiers had. But it was a lot.
And there were a lot of them.
It was going to take a lot of firepower to take them all down.
There were also quite a few people walking around who didn’t have any weapons or spells at all. I watched them for a few seconds before I realized they were acting as servants to the soldiers—cooking, cleaning, bringing them food and drinks, taking them clean clothes, and was that a washer and dryer next to the kitchenette?
All of the servants had chains around their ankles.
I wanted to puke.
I wanted to rage.
I wanted to set each and every soldier on fire, burn them to a crisp, and eat them so they could never hurt another soul again.
Were the servants people they’d taken out of the cages? Were they rotated in and out, or did they keep them?
A woman in one of the cages off to the left let out a loud sob, and a nearby soldier banged on the cage threateningly and yelled, “Shut up, whore, or I’ll cut out your tongue and make you.”
The woman tried to quiet down, but she was crying harder and having trouble.
I was about to suggest we make a distraction to give the woman a chance to quiet herself when a loud bang happened in front of the last cage on the right.
