I know Soren is thinking the same thing I am when neither of us follows Yri immediately. Saige’s words about getting their hands on Ezra’s blood, using it to experiment on the humans. But also not to show a reaction, and killing this man to steal the cooler would definitely fall under ‘having a reaction’. We’re caught in another impossible situation that no one could have prepared us for, knowing that no matter what choice we make, someone will get hurt.
But it has to end somewhere. And I know Ezra would agree it’s worth the risk, because if she found out we left countless human women to suffer the fate Saige described, she’d kill us herself. I’m a blur, standing behind the man before he even turns his back to see me coming. His blind trust is his undoing and I snap his neck. It’s harder than I remember, and my days of sickness and starvation don’t make it any easier. But I have something to motivate me, something to fight for that gives me that extra boost to manage it.
Iwillbe brutal to protect her, even if it haunts me.
Letting him fall into a heap while Soren’s massive frame blocks the door, I open the cooler, rip open the blood bags, and pour them down the drain. We leave without a word, but Soren claps a hand to my shoulder as I pass by him, offering his approval.
We walk quickly, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves. The hallways are still empty and we never open another door, knowing each must contain its own horror. But we can’t save everyone when we can barely even save ourselves. I wasn’t lying though; Iwillfind a way to come back and save Saige somehow, need to repay her for saving my flight.
Yri’s face is stony and I see him tapping on Ezra’s thigh, knowing he would have started the clock as soon as he got here. We only have to wait another five seconds before stepping into the main room, and I try to keep my expression on lock down, to not look at anything for long. Up until now, we haven’t seen another person. Here? There are dozens of men, so we act like we belong, trusting the human knows what she’s doing.
We emerged from the tunnel into a humongous cave, making it clear we’re inside the mountain. The room is massive; I doubt I could even throw a stone and hit the other side. The path we’re on wraps the circumference of the room, a metal walkway hovering fifty feet above a pit. Beneath us are dozens of women, human if I had to guess, corralled like cattle.
My eyes fall on the path that leads above us in a slow slope, carved from the stone of the mountain. There’s a steel door at the top ledge, and as promised, there’s no one manning it. We take our first steps, keeping our eyes straight ahead.
Based on the reaction the man collecting her blood had, people must assume we haul out the dead. It’s a perfect cover; gives us an excuse to be covered in blood and filth, to come and go like janitors. Like Saige and I discovered a decade ago, people overlook low tier workers.
“Dimitri drained another one, did he?” a burly man laughs, stepping out from another tunnel and falling into step with our group.
He reaches over and lifts her head by her hair to see her face and I fight against the blind rage that wants me to lash out. But I need to keep a level head, need to not show them any reaction. Survival is more important than honor right now.
“Shame,” he continues despite our lack of response. “I wanted a go at this one; she looked like she’d put up a good fight.” He drops her head and continues walking. I grab Soren’s wrist and dig my nails into his skin, trying to convey to not react since his jaw is clenched so tightly.
She’s in the same clothes she came here in. That has to be a good sign, right? They didn’t touch her, she’s okay, and we’re going to get out of here.
Tap, tap, tap.
It helps, the steady rhythm to keep my thoughts from spiraling out of control. No freaking out, no getting worked up. Saige sacrificed herself so that we could escape and we can’t make it be for nothing, we’ll never get another chance if we fail.
When I speak, my voice comes out sure and steady. “You and me both, but what ‘ya going to do?” I shrug, nonchalant.
He snorts. “He’s not usually so careless with the dragon bitches, likes to keep them alive for months to drain ‘em.” He scrunches up his forehead and looks at Ezra’s unconscious form again. “Didn’t we just get this one in about a week ago? He’s never that careless.”
Soren tries to salvage the situation. “That’s above our pay grade. We just haul ‘em out when you’re through.”
The man nods, accepting as much, before looking between Soren and I. “It takes three men to haul a corpse these days?”
“Just following him out; supply run.”
I’m just pulling lies out of my ass now, hoping he’ll accept it and leave. We’ve reached the base of the slope now, and start our ascent, but he doesn’t back off.
“Since when do they send grave diggers on supply runs?’ He narrows his eyes, suspicion taking root.
“Just following orders,” Soren snorts, rolling his eyes. “If you’d rather go, be my guest; we have plenty of other shit to do already.”
Finally, he backs off, but I can tell he doesn’t completely buy into it, knows something’s off. He tosses a few looks over his shoulder at us as we continue to climb the slope, but he starts walking away. There’s a shout as someone emerges into the main room from the tunnel we took to get here, and we start walking faster; it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out they must have found Dimitri’s body.
“Go!” I hiss, and we drop all pretense, bolting up the ramp towards the door.
I hear the shouts behind us and a bullet catches me in the shoulder. I nearly cry out in relief that it’s an actual bullet and not another of those damn tranquilizers or whatever other horrific things they create here. Soren shoves past the door and we slam it shut behind us, checking around for anything we could use to bar the door.
There’s some more shouting and a bark of orders as we see the couple of men posted on guard out here. Despite my shoulder, adrenaline floods my system. Ren and I are a flurry of motion as we take them down while Yri braces himself against the door, Ezra on the ground beside him.
Soren is already digging in one of the men’s pockets, pulling out a set of keys and jogging over to one of the two trucks parked nearby. We never saw a single set of tracks on our journey up here, so there must be another path down the other half of the mountain they use to haul people and things in and out. With as much equipment that’s down there, I have no illusions this is the only entrance. Chances are there are dozens throughout the mountain and that’s how they were able to sneak up on us so easily.
Soren rams the jeep into the door as Yri scoops up Ezra and jumps out of the way. It will buy us a little time, but not much. And we don’t even have any clue where any other entrances are, how many there might be, or the number of men inside that hellhole.
“Up or down?” Yri barks, looking as torn as the rest of us.
