Page 77 of Intertwined Souls

Rage steps forward and helps him pull it open while Harley squeezes my hand so hard I can hardly feel my fingers, but I take the uncomfortable feeling for her. She needs me right now.

“It’s empty,” Ryker grumbles as he and Rage step to the side so we can look in.

It’s a small closet-sized room with no light. The door is just the wall on squeaky old hinges that are barely holding it up.

“I had no idea this was here,” Harley says, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I didn’t find it right away when I came down here,” Ryker explains. “I think the only reason I did was because they had just put stuff in it and then didn’t close it all the way.”

Rage clears his throat. “Harley, I know this can’t be easy for you, but can you tell me if everything's the same?” he says softly.

Pinching her lips together, Harley pulls me along with her as she walks over to the small, dingy bathroom, glancing around. Then she spins around and heads towards the center of the room, glancing down at the floor. “The, uh, the ring thing is gone.”

“The what?” I ask, furrowing my brows.

Still not letting me go, she squats down and runs her free hand over the ground. Rage shines a flashlight on the ground in front of her and stops when she finds a small hole that looks like it had a screw in it.

“This is where there was some kind of metal ring attached to the floor that the other end of my chain was attached too.”

“Fuck.” Rage's voice cracks. He presses his hand against his mouth and clenches his jaw so hard his teeth can be heard grinding.

“That’s it, though. The room is the same, but the mattress, clothes, and chain are gone. Upstairs, everything seemed the same, but I can take a closer look.”

Rage, who had walked to the other end of the room and put his hands on his knees, taking deep breaths, stood back up straight. “Okay. After that, we can get the fuck out of here. How did you know the code to the safe?”

Her fingers shake in my hold, so I tighten my grip, silently reassuring her that I am here with her. “Tammy’s favorite day of the year was the day my mom died. She would make sure to remind me about it and taunt me, and I had some of my worst beatings on those days every year. I heard her giving Tabby the passcode to her phone once when I was upstairs cleaning, and it was the same as the day my mom died, so it didn’t take much to assume she would have the same code for her safe.”

“Fucking hell,” Rage mutters, while Ryker looks like he is ready to go hunt Tammy down and murder her right now. Not that I blame him; I think the only reason I can remain calm is because Harley is holding my hand, keeping us both steady.

Harley walks through the house with us checking each room, but she doesn’t notice anything different. We walk back into the office where a few of the others are still going through some of the shit they had in the desk.

Harley releases my hand and circles the desk glancing down at some papers. “What is this?” she questions, pointing at something.

Sugar comes up next to her and explains, “We found these files and ten thousand dollars in a hidden compartment in the safe.”

Harley flips through the papers before she looks up and focuses on Grayson. “Remember that rec center we found when we were tracking everyone’s locations?” she asks, and he nods at her. “What was it called?”

“Jacksonville Recreation Center. Why?” He approaches the desk to stand next to her.

“This file is labeled for the rec center, and all the papers inside are like face sheets of different kids. It has a picture of them, their age, their ethnicity, and a little bit of information about their personalities.”

“I’m going to assume that the center isn’t keeping face sheets like this on kids. Or if they are, they definitely don’t just hand them out to other kids' parents,” Ryker snarks angrily.

“Why would they have left these behind, though? And the extra cash? The safe was completely empty besides these things in the hidden compartment,” Rage sighs as he runs a hand through his beard.

“Should we keep these?” Harley asks quietly, staring down at the pages while running her fingers over their pictures. She freezes after a moment and then shoots her eyes up to look at Grayson. “Could you look into these kids? Could Nerds? Can we find out if they are missing or if something is going on with them?” She shoots off questions in one big breath.

Grayson places a hand on her shoulder. “Breathe, beautiful. We can take pictures of each page, and I’ll see what I can find. But I don’t think we should take the pages right now.”

“Why not?” she asks, a crease forming between her brows.

“We are making sure that anything we’re looking at is put back how it was. Nerds brought a device that scanned every room for cameras or bugs, and the only one that popped up was ours. So unless someone is outside watching us, no one knows we’ve been here, and we want to keep it that way so Nerds can place a few hidden cameras and bugs,” Rage responds.

“And we should probably get a move on. We’ve been here too long as it is,” Sugar says.

Everyone agrees and gets moving so we can get out of here. Once we’re all ready and heading out the front door, Harley stops in the driveway and spins around to face the house.

“Someday, sooner rather than later, we are going to come back here and burn this fucking house to the ground,” she seethes.

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