Like the well-oiled machine that they were, the six of them began to move without the need to communicate verbally. It wasn't that they could necessarily read one another’s minds and therefore knew that they were all on the same page, it was more that they had been together for so long, lived in such close quarters, learned to depend on nobody but each other, that led to them having a kind of sixth sense when it came to the members of their team.
No one fired at them as they slunk through the trees, and there were no shouts or anything from inside the building.
When Blade gave a quick shake of his head to indicate that he couldn’t hear anything, Voodoo assumed that like the previous lab they’d searched, which had wound up exploding around them, almost killing the six of them and Rose Gardner and Cassandra Charleston, a white noise generator was running that messed with Blade’s ability to hear.
Dragon’s nostrils flared, and from the look in his unusual violet eyes, it was clear that the man could smell the death that Voodoo felt oppressively pressing down around him. Whoever had been there had died. Recently. Meaning the idea that they’d set off a sensor of some sort was a viable possibility.
With all of them wearing night vision goggles, Lion being the only exception, his enhanced vision worked perfectly well in the dark, they didn't need to flip on any lights as Steel picked the lock, and they all stepped inside the quiet building.
If he’d had any doubts, which he hadn't after ten years of living with his abilities, he didn't have to understand them to trust them, Voodoo knew he’d been right.
Death clung to this place like a second skin.
Moving as one, they worked their way past several labs that almost looked as though they had been abandoned in a hurry. As they continued deeper into the large building, they found a living room with a TV still turned on but put on mute, and then a kitchen with the dishwasher still open and some dirty plates piled up beside the sink. Therewas even a couple left sitting on the large table dominating one wall of the room.
They kept going, all hoping they'd find someone alive, someone who could give them intel that Whitney no longer had access to, had never truly had access to since she was there as what basically amounted to a slave. Of course, they’d all hoped that Dr. Gardner himself might be there, but at the very least they wanted someone who could give them the address of the scientist’s home so they could end this—end him—once and for all.
As they kept moving, they found a room lined with glass cages so reminiscent of the one he’d been trapped in for three long years that Voodoo had a visceral reaction to it.
One that passed quickly when he saw them.
Bodies.
Lying on the floor of each of the cells.
People like him, like his team, dead.
Killed right while he and his team were outside.
January 20th
10:45 P.M.
Flashing red lights lit the otherwise dark room.
Someone was coming.
That couldn’t be a good thing. Nothing in this place was a good thing.
Pain.
It had become normal for her to the point that while Indigo Yates registered it, it felt distant, dull, and almost disconnected from her.
How long had she been there now?
Days?
Weeks?
Couldn’t be months. Could it?
Honestly, she wasn't even sure anymore. Kept in a glass cage, nowindows, no glimpses at the outdoors, it was hard to mark the passage of time. Other people were there, but the bulletproof glass cages were mostly soundproofed, and besides that, she’d learned pretty quickly that attempting to communicate was only going to wind up with more pain.
Tugging at the collar on her neck as she lay on the table she’d been placed on, she wished that …
She didn't even know anymore.
Wished for an end to her suffering.
