Page 89 of Intertwined Souls

He points out how the bookshelf isn't lined up with the wall like the other one and the flooring has marks on it to the side of the shelf where it looks like it slides open. Noah feels around the shelf until his fingers hook into some kind of handle in the back. His grin widens, and in his excitement at finding the hidden room, he doesn’t open it with caution.

Instead, he slides it open quickly, and before he can even look inside a blur is flying forward and tackling him to the ground.

“Shit!” Noah curses and easily flips her onto her back, straddling her thighs and trying to pin her down.

Her white hair is long and braided all the way down to her hips. She is extremely pale and completely naked. I quickly make my way to them and drop down to my knees next to her. She is grunting and trying to get Noah off of her, but it’s clear she doesn’t have much strength.

Grabbing her cold, pale cheeks between my hands, I manage to get her steel blue eyes to look at me. “Hey, you’re okay. We are here to help, but we need you to calm down and then he can let go of you. Can you calm down and talk to me?” I ask softly.

Her sunken in, exhausted eyes roam over my face before she very slowly nods her head. Looking up at Noah, he looks hesitant but begins to move off her and then releases her wrists.

“Do you have them?” she rasps.

“Have what?” I ask her, but she isn’t looking at me. Her focus is on Noah.

“Please. Please. I’m done. I swear. Just give it to me,” she begs, her eyes watering as her hands begin to shake.

“Is she talking about drugs?” Ry whispers to someone behind me.

Noah must have heard what Ryker said because his face goes from confusion to understanding. “Okay, I have some, but I need you to get up and leave this place first, okay?”

“No! I can’t! Not without the pills! Give them to me! He swore! Give them to me!” she yells hoarsely as her face contorts with fury.

She lunges for Noah again, taking a swing at his face and managing to land a punch directly in his nose. I leap forward and wrap my arms around her chest as she fights and screams for the pills and how we can’t do this to her again.

Someone comes up next to me and does something to her because then she slowly calms in my arms until she becomes lifeless, drooping down until I can barely hold her up.

“What?” I ask in confusion, looking up at Gabe who is standing next to me with a syringe in his hand.

“Doc gave me a few of them in case we had anyone who was struggling like this. It’s just a sedative to keep her asleep until we can get her out of here and figure out what to do,” Gabe explains.

“Whatever they were giving her, she must have been cut off cold turkey for her to be reacting like this,” Noah seethes.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ryker says as he squats down in front of me and picks the girl, Oakley, up bridal-style before carrying her out of the room.

Taking a deep breath, I stand up and glance into the hidden room which is more of a bare closet than anything. Just plain white walls and a single light bulb in the middle of the ceiling. Sucking in a breath, I can’t help but think about the basement I was trapped in for years.

These people have gone through the same thing if not worse. We’re not so different. “They’re safe now,” I whisper, inhaling. I’m safe now.

Hands touch my shoulders. “They are safe now,” Cade repeats quietly. I lean back against him, and he kisses the top of my head. “You don’t need to be here any longer. Let’s get out of here.”

We head downstairs, but the swirling thoughts in my head about how close we came to missing Oakley makes me pause again before going outside.

“What’s wrong?” Cade asks when he notices that I’ve stopped.

“We need to check again. The downstairs. I mean, we are going to burn this disgusting place down, but we almost missed Oakley. What if we miss someone else and then they get burned alive because of us?”

Cade stops my rambling when he wraps his hand around the nape of my neck and bends down to lock eyes with me.

“Breathe, baby girl. Vance and his guys went through all of the downstairs rooms. There is no one else. They combed through checking for more people and any information they could find. We checked upstairs thoroughly. Let’s turn this place of horrors into ash and go home.”

“Okay,” I breathe, and we head outside to where everyone else is.

My eyes immediately home in on Gabe and Vance where they seem to be in a quiet heated argument. Vance rolls his eyes and glances over at me and heads towards us.

“We rigged the place. Figured you might want to do the honors,” he drawls, holding out a small detonator to me.

Eyeing him warily, I ask, “Why would you figure that?”

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