Page 69 of Blood Descendants
Ares looks up, scanning the face of the building. I realize after a moment that he’s checking for cameras. When he doesn’t find any, he wraps his fingers around the chain and gives it a hard yank.
It falls to the ground, broken.
Damn.
The door protests as Ares slides it open. For a moment, he disappears into the dark interior. As I step inside, my eyes adjust, taking in the dim space.
It’s empty except for a few empty crates at the far back of the building. There’s nothing in here. Just a dusty, stained concrete floor.
“Foot tracks going back toward that office,” Ares says, nodding his head in the direction of the back left corner. “They look recent.”
I squint in the dark, but I can’t see anything. Then again, I don’t have the eyes of a vampire.
Ares sets out in that direction, and I scramble to catch up with him. There is a walled-off section with one lone window that looks out into the bulk of the warehouse. A steel door separates the spaces. When he finds yet another lock on the door, Ares looks over his shoulder at me.
“Someone really doesn’t want anyone getting inside,” I say, arching a brow.
Ares gives a small nod of agreement before he breaks the chains and pulls the door open. This one does not squeal like the other door. It swings open silently.
It’s dusty in here, too, but the smell is different. Like more moisture. Colder.
There is an open space, though it isn’t large. Two desks are pushed up against the wall, but there are no chairs. And they look like they’ve been there since the eighties. There are three doors breaking off from here.
Ares checks the first door to find a supply closet with an assortment of random, forgotten about items. Door number two reveals a bathroom that is surprisingly clean, considering the rest of the space.
Door number three reveals a set of stairs plunging down into the ground.
Ares looks back at me, and I wonder if he can hear how hard my heart is beating in this moment. Something surges inside me. Excitement. Hope. Fear. It all wraps its cold hands around my throat.
Without a word, Ares steps down onto the first stair. Thenthe other.
Nerves are eating me alive, but I don’t stop as I follow after Ares into the dark.
I expect my footsteps to echo throughout a cavernous space. Instead, the sound bounces back to me. Then I hear the sound of someone sucking in a sharp breath.
And it wasn’t Ares.
“Please,” a woman says, her voice terrified. I startle so hard my foot slips on the last step. “Just let me out. I swear I won’t say anything. Just, please. I need to go home.”
“Fuck,” Ares says. One second later, I feel half-blinded as a few overhead lights turn on, buzzing loudly as the tube lights warm up.
Cages. My entire body feels numb as my eyes take in bars first. And then my eyes focus, and I see people.
A man backs away from the bars quickly, his entire body shaking with fear. A brunette woman walks up to her bars, gripping them and staring out at Ares and me.
“Oh my gosh, please,” a second woman says, this one with brilliant red hair. “Please, get me out of here. Before those other guys come back. Please.”
“What the fuck?” I breathe out, all of my organs squeezing with disgust and terror.
There are six cages in this damp, dark space. Prison cells. In each one, there is a bed. In each one, there is a toilet and a sink. Exactly like a prison cell.
And there are three people in those cells.
“What the fuck is going on?” Ares asks, his brows furrowed as he looks around at each of the people. “Why are you here? Who?—”
“You’re not with those assholes?” the calm brunette asks.
“What assholes?” Ares asks, trepidation in his voice.
