He kicked at the unconscious body.
“Are you okay?” I asked, rushing to his side to inspect the deep gash, his flesh slowly knitting itself back. “Do you want us to—to go back to camp?”
He gave me an annoyed look. “And give up now? I wasn’t thrilled at the thought of coming here, but now we are. We’re not leaving without fucking answers.” He forced a smile before looking at the girls. Savi collected the guards’ weapons and pushed them into a closet.Smart.They’d be unarmed when they’d wake up. “Let’s split up to search the rooms,” Marcus continued, pointing at the doors lining the corridor.
He didn’t wait for an answer and slipped inside the first room to the right, closing the door behind him. Savi and Francesca did the same, both taking a different side, locking themselves in.
It left only the first door to the left for me to go to. I opened it carefully, sliding only my head in to check the inside before doing as my friends did.
And what a fucking Jackpot.
Metal shelves covered half the walls of the room, filled with full storage boxes and files. A small desk and old computer sat in the corner, the screen turned off. It was like being back at the Archives, but…creepier?
I double checked the lock before going through the first boxes and finding an actual gold mine.
All the prisoners were registered and kept in separate wings depending on their species. Divines, Earthwalkers…But no sign of demons.
I let out an annoyed grunt, opening more boxes, searching through more files. Where the Hell were they keeping the Hellrisers?
A pile of unorganized papers finally caught my eyes on the desk. My ass met the chair at the same time I finally got answers.
Andfuck.
Guards weren’t actual guards. Theywerethe Hellriser prisoners. There were two lists; receptive Hellrisers, and non-receptive ones. The ones we fought so far? Under some sort of mind control to protect the place. The others? A very small number and kept in a different wing of the prison.
I wanted to ask myselfwhyonly Hellrisers were controlled and forced into guards, but an answer—one I didn’t like—kept pushing all other reasons aside.
Arc didn’t come back. Arc had acted strangely before he and Dimitri left. Dimitri had shut down completely when I asked for his help to rescue Arc from here…
Could it be—
No, no, no.
Why would he try so hard to free the people from this place if he was the one actually behind the whole thing? What reason could he have? To hold these people here or even to keep Dimitri? It made no sense!
I pushed these thoughts aside—there had to be another explanation. Maybe the person running this Hell of a place used Arc’s abilities to hurt and control Hellrisers to create their own army.
The power button at the bottom of the screen blinked red and I pressed on it.Security cameras.
About twenty different scenes appeared in front of me. Prison blocks. Guards standing in corridors, guarding cells, their eyes empty and bodies unmoving. So many cells, so many different blocks…No way we’d even manage to free half of all the prisoners stuck here.
But there was one particular door that stood out. It wasn’t guarded, and the word ‘restricted’ was written in big, yellow letters on the cracked windows.
That’s where we need to go, I thought. If Arc was kept as a prisoner somewhere, it had to be behind that door. He was too powerful, tooprecious,to be stashed with others.
I doodled a quick map on a piece of paper and left the room.
Marcus gritted his teeth as Savi wiped the blood off his skin with a clean cloth.
“Found something interesting?” I asked, closing the door behind me.
“Food and medical inventories for us. And some medical supplies too,” Francesca signed.
“Not much on my side,” Marcus said, holding his breath. “Some sort of Armory and the patrolling schedule. But comparing it with where and how many guards we’ve encountered so far, it’s not up to date.”
I winced.Or they’re not following it because now that they can mind control demons, they don’t need human guards.
“What about you?” Marcus asked. “You look oddly pale. Or maybe it's the creepy light and the blood loss, and my vision is weird, I don’t even know.”
