He winced, turning his head to the side in shame, like he knew the idea was preposterous and yet couldn’t shake it off his mind.
“It kills me to think about him like that. Arc has been nothing but a great friend to me over the years and I—It just doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t,” I said sharply. “There could be lots of reasons the demons are acting like this. Maybe Arc is involved, yes…But as we said, what if he has to do thisagainst his will? What if someone is making him use his powers on the demons here to create their own army? You yourself said Arc couldn’t—”
“Yeah, well I thought about it a little, and even though I don’t get why he would do it, everything points in that direction.”
Sadness clouded his face as he let out a sigh and stepped closer to me.
“Look, you might be right. There’s definitely a chance that someone else is behind all this and using Arc against his will. But we—as much as I don’t want to believe it, we need to be prepared for all scenarios.”
I’d rather get these thoughts out of my head. “We still need to move forward. We can free more people. We can freeArc, if he’s a prisoner too.”
Marcus looked around the large room, to the cells that were slowly but surely getting opened and people carefully walking out.
“Whatever you do, I’ll follow. I won’t let you down, but I—I’m worried of what we’ll find if we dig too deep.”
I placed my hand on his arm, giving a reassuring squeeze. “Everything is going to be fine. We’re a team, right? We’re unstoppable.”
It took a few seconds for him to give me a sad, hesitant nod before we got to work in helping all the Divines out.
I repeated “Don’t worry,” and “everything will be alright,” so many times that it started to ring hollow. Some of them might have been locked up for years. Of course they were wary of anyone suddenly coming to their rescue.
Marcus and the girls recognized a few, often ending up in tight, teary embraces as they tried to keep their head cool and not crumble at the horror these people had been through.
Once everyone was out, all four of us gathered against the door, facing the fifty or so free prisoners.
“We dealt with a lot of guards already, so the way outshouldbe pretty quiet,” Marcus said, looking at each of them. “If you keep walking forward once you’re out of here, you’ll end up in a large parking garage that leads to a tunnel dug into the canyon. Said tunnel will bring you outside. If you’re not sure where to go once you’re out, you can go left and walk about half a mile until you’ll find a hidden cave with a car and a bike inside it. You can wait for us there, and we’ll bring you back to camp as soon as we’re done freeing everyone.”
The Divines all exchanged worried looks before one of them asked, “What if we encounter guards? Most of us are too weak to—”
“Speak for yourself!” another interrupted. “I’m staying and I’m fighting!”
“You’ve been here for barely a few months,” another one retorted softly. “Some of us were caged foryears. We can’t fight. Not likethis.”
Francesca lifted her hand, interrupting them, before she turned to me and signed, “Savi and I can escort the ones who want to leave and come back to get more of them.”
“Yes, let’s split up in teams,” Savi continued. “You and Marcus keep freeing everyone and we bring them out to safety. The ones who want and can fight will come with you.”
I looked at Marcus, ready to translate, only to see him nod with a grave look on his face.That ass did understand most of what they were saying.
In the end, only four stayed to fight with us, refusing any weapons. “We’re eager to hit them as hard as what they did to us,” one of them said as we started walking to the next wing.
“How long have you been locked in here?” I asked one of them as we walked at the end of the group, protecting the rear as Marcus led.
His blue eyes darkened and he shook his head, the dirty ginger strands falling over his forehead.
“I’ve been here a little over a year. Got caught right before things started to get weird.”
“Weird how?”
He looked at me, slowing his pace. “We used to be all locked up together. Demons, angels, any and every Earthwalker…Guards were humans before. Then, something changed; Hellrisers blooded prisoners were taken from their cells and never came back. Then, they started moving us around into groups of our own species, and the Hellrisers reappeared…But they were no longer on our side.”
My throat bobbed as I saw the memories flashing on his face.
“Human guards were slowly replaced by other Immortals, some of them our friends. But they became strange. Violent, angry…They didn’t recognize any of us. The beatings were the worst part. Do you know how it feels when someone you trusted most of your life suddenly turns on you and beats you to a pulp? Many times?”
I didn’t, and I couldn’t imagine going through that.
