Page 100 of Kings of Cruelty

I make a disgruntled sound. I pull my phone out and tap the flashlight, shining it around, but I can’t see anything from up here. “I’m the best one to go down if the stairs are flimsy,” I tell them. “The two of you would break them, probably,” I tell Kyran and Knives.

Yuri nods. “She’s got a point. And if something happens, the two of you would have an easier time pulling us out, too.”

I can tell Kyran wants to argue, so I hurry down the narrow, steep stairs. The steps creak ominously, and I have to duck my head until I’m several steps deep.

The air is cold and humid down here, and the ground feels rough under my feet. I move my phone flashlight from side to side, and all I see is rough hewn walls.

Yuri joins me down there and waves his own flashlight around. “Fuck,” he mutters, shining his light at a specific spot.

There are metal rods extending down from the wall to the ceiling. It’s a cell, I realize, and on the other side is a corpse, still chained to the wall.

My phone clatters to the ground.

That explains some of the smell, I think, half-hysterical.

Yuri bends down to pick up my phone and hands it back to me. “The weapons. Come on.”

He puts his arm around my shoulders and leads me deeper into the cellar. I make sure to keep my eyes straight ahead.

The only blessing is that it isn’t a large space. Two cells later, we find several large crates lined up against the wall. Yuri goes to one and opens the lid.

“There’s our weapons,” Yuri says. “Semi-automatic rifles, American made. I can think of a few people back home who would want these.” He shakes his head ruefully. “We will make use of them soon.”

I nod, my eyes flicking back in the direction of the corpse before I stare back down at the weapons. “Let’s see if we can get one of these back to the stairs. They can’t be that rickety if they got these down here.”

Yuri grabs the handle on one side, and I take it on the other. It’s heavy, but we can do it, and the crates are narrow enough to fit up the stairs. Kyran and Knives help lift them out.

“How many crates are there?” Kyran asks.

“In total? Probably around fifteen. They won’t all fit in our cars.” Yuri grimaces. “Let’s grab what we can and come back for the rest later.”

Knives and Kyran go down to grab more crates. When we’ve got three crates—and somehow each of them is carrying a whole crate on their own—we start heading back to the cars. I want to say that I’ll help with the heavy lifting, but I don’t want to go back down there.

“Do you know who the person was?” Yuri asks Kyran. “The one chained to the wall.”

Kyran shakes his head. “No clue. I didn’t know that room was there. The body looked at least five years old.”

I eye him, but I don’t want to ask him how he knows. “Great,” I mutter. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. Things to do, people to see.”

People to shoot, too.

I hope the person down there was shot, and not left to starve to death. I want to believe my father wouldn’t be that cruel.

We take a faster route out. Halfway to the cars, I realize Kyran has stopped walking. He’s in front of an open door, staring inside, the crate of weapons at his feet.

Curiosity gets the better of me, and I go to his side. I look inside, and I hiss in a breath at the sight of chains and equipment that was never used for anything ethical or humane.

Blood has stained the ground, most notably in two places, and I wonder if bodies bled out here.

I touch Kyran’s arm, and he jumps, looking at me with a face as pale as if he’d seen a ghost.

“This is where it happened,” I say, unable to keep the edge from my voice. “Isn’t it?”

Yuri and Knives have gone on ahead, and I’m grateful for that much. They don’t need to hear this conversation between me and Kyran.

Kyran doesn’t look at me, but he nods. “He was going to kill me, Sierra,” he says, his gravelly voice low. “Both of us.”

I close my eyes, not wanting to see the room, but it’s been burned into my vision. I can’t stop seeing it, and now I can’t stop thinking about what it might’ve looked like then.

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