He blinked at me, coming out of his stupor. “What about Henry and Jack, the other two with collars?” Noah asked.
“Already gone,” I said. “We sent them out. Go.”
Zach nodded and gripped Noah’s arm, tugging him from the room, heading for the rendezvous. It was up to me to find the comms room and download every bit of data I could on this entire enterprise.
TWENTY-SIX
Novak
I didn’t likethe basement before we even reached it.
The air changed first, heavier, stale, carrying something sour underneath the chemical cleaner that tried and failed to mask it, and I slowed without needing to signal it, my body already adjusting, already preparing for what spaces like this usually held.
No guards.
That was the first problem.
The second was the cells.
Metal gates. Concrete. A row of them stretching into shadow, each one occupied.
Seven.
All girls.
Each of them watched us and probably thought we were a new kind of hell, and I didn’t have time to react with anything useful.
“Eden?” I asked, scanning faces.
The girl at the far end shrank back.
Target acquired.
“We need to get them out,” Kai said behind me, already moving, already assessing locks, hinges, weaknesses.
“Eden first,” I reminded them.
“We’re not leaving the rest of them,” Kai shot back.
I turned on him then, irritation cutting sharply. “No one’s getting left,” I said, voice low but edged. “But, Eden first.”
That was the priority; it had to be the priority, and then Kai found the light switch and flicked it up, flooding the room with harsh overhead light that made every girl, including Eden, flinch.
“Fuck,” Kai muttered.
I closed the distance to the end cell, Kai taking the bolt cutters from my pack as soon as he had the gate open, and I dropped to one knee in front of her.
She was chained to the wall, one wrist secured, a single narrow bed behind her, but she seemed awake and clear-eyed. I guessed they wouldn’t let the mother of a baby die down here, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t breaking, and when she flinched as I got close, I didn’t stop until the chain was severed and the restraint was gone.
“Up,” I said, keeping it simple, offering a hand but not forcing it.
She hesitated, then took it, unsteady as I helped her to her feet.
“Wait here,” I added, already turning away because time mattered more than reassurance.
Kai worked as fast on the other locks, and between us, we cleared them in under a minute, girls stumbling free, disoriented, scared, huddled together without needing to be told.
I herded them toward the door, positioning myself at the front, Kai dropping back to cover the rear, the formation automatic.
