Chapter Thirty-Four
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ZOE COULD SENSE CAMRIEL hovering in the stairwell and Amaros was only one room away. It was reassuring to have the knights ready to leap to their defense. She exchanged a glance with Grace, then they entered the room where they could hear a woman sobbing quietly.
Spotting them, she began to babble almost incoherently. “Please, please! You have to cut me loose!” she begged in a hoarse whisper. “They could come back at any time!”
Covered in bruises, her wrists and ankles were bloody from the ropes that were tied around her limbs. It was obvious she’d been there for days. She’d fought to free herself, but the ropes were too tight.
“It’s okay,” Zoe said soothingly. “The men are all dead. You’re safe now.”
“Dead?” she asked blankly. “You killed them?”
Zoe wasn’t offended by her incredulous expression.
“Not us,” Grace said, taking her larger knife out of her pocket and handing Zoe her penknife. “Our friends took care of them. They’re keeping watch to make sure none of their buddies try to ambush us, if there are more out scouting or something.”
Zoe began sawing at the ropes. Tears of relief replaced the poor girl’s anguish. “I thought I was going to die,” she said. “They told me they’d kill me if I kept fighting them.”
“You were very brave,” Zoe told her, getting flashes of the trauma she’d suffered. She wasn’t a saint, but she didn’t deserve to suffer a fate like this.
“Take this,” Grace said when they’d cut her free. She handed the young woman a sheet.
Wrapping herself up to cover her nudity, the victim sat up and shuddered. “What now?” she asked plaintively.
“We’ll cut the other women free and you can all decide what you want to do,” Zoe replied.
“Should I wait here?” she asked uncertainly.
“If you want,” Zoe said.
She nodded, then crossed her arms to hug herself, seeking comfort in the only person she could trust. It would take a long time before any of these women would be able to trust anyone else.
Room by room, the cambions freed the captives. Zoe scanned them all and determined most of them had gray souls. That changed when they started cutting the women on the third floor loose.
The first room they approached that held a captive was quiet.
From the furtive movements coming from the bed, the female was awake.
About Grace’s age, she seemed surprised when they entered.
“Who are you?” she demanded. Her blonde hair had been washed recently and she wasn’t soiled like the others.
She seemed to have privileges the others didn’t.
Not as bruised and battered as the other females, her wrists and ankles were chafed, but not bloody. “We’re here to rescue you,” Grace told her. The friendly, soothing tone she’d used on the other victims was gone. Now, she sounded neutral.
“Where are the men who did this to us?” the girl asked.
“They’re dead,” Zoe told her flatly as she moved to cut her hands free. Zoe focused on her wrists, while Grace began hacking at the rope around her ankles.
Rage flashed across the girl’s face before she could hide her true emotions. “Good,” she said in fake satisfaction. “It’s about time someone helped us.”
“You’re welcome,” Grace said with a hint of sarcasm.
“Are you two alone?” the girl asked.
“Nope. Our friends are downstairs,” Zoe said. “They’re taking care of the bodies.”
More rage flared before she could hide it. “I was planning to kill them myself once I got free,” she said.
“Uh, huh,” Zoe said, moving around the bed to cut her right hand free.
She’d spotted a small penknife in the girl’s hand as soon as she’d entered the room. She was hiding it behind the rope, hoping Zoe wouldn’t notice it. She waited until her rescuer had cut all the way through the rope before she swung the blade at Zoe’s throat.
Amaros exploded into the room and caught hold of the girl’s wrist, moving so fast that Zoe didn’t get the chance to defend herself.
The girl gasped in reaction, but it wasn’t terror that shone in her eyes.
It was lust. The flashes Zoe had caught of her recent past had been beyond disturbing.
She’d enjoyed what her captors had done to her. Her sick, twisted mind craved abuse.
“I’m sorry,” the girl said, squeezing out some fake tears. “I thought they were going to kill me.”
“Yeah, right,” Grace said with an eyeroll. “We would have slit your throat while you were tied up and helpless if we wanted to kill you, not cut you free.”
“I made a mistake, but I can make it up to you,” she wheedled, angling her breasts towards Amaros. He kept his attention on her face, which made her pout angrily.
“Don’t try that again,” the knight said in a hard tone. He took her knife and put it in his pocket. “Go downstairs with the other survivors.”
Zoe had heard them gathering on the second floor, then making their way downward.
“Okay,” she agreed, pretending to be docile as she gathered a sheet around herself. They waited for her to amble downstairs before they continued to free the other women. Amaros once again stayed out of sight.
Two more victims gave off disturbing flashes as Zoe and Grace cut them loose. Neither of them tried to attack their rescuers, but they were just pretending to be helpless and grateful.
“The rest of the survivors are in the lobby,” Zoe told the final captive.
Older than the others, she was in her late thirties. Her eyes were as cold and hard as the winter that was rapidly drawing closer. “What are you going to do with us?” she asked, wrapping a sheet around her body, but keeping her hands free. She was poised on the edge of attacking them.
“Nothing,” Grace replied, keeping her knife in her hand. “You’re free to go with the others.”
“So, you’re just going around, rescuing people who are in trouble?” she asked skeptically.
“Yeah,” Zoe lied. It would be stupid to admit their base was just a short distance away. They couldn’t take care of every human they ran into. They would have to figure out how to survive in this harsh new world either alone, or with other survivors.
Dismissing them as being unimportant, the captive winced when she stood up, then shuffled to the door.
Grace caught Zoe’s eye, so she hung back to hear what she had to say. “We can’t trust some of these women,” she whispered.
“I know,” Zoe agreed. “That last one just now is the worst. Her soul is completely black.”
Grace wasn’t surprised. “What sort of crimes has she committed?”
“Murder, identity theft, blackmail, fraud and a bunch of other stuff,” Zoe replied. “She’d just been arrested for killing an old man in his home after robbing him when the Rapture happened.”
“Talk about having the luck of the devil,” Grace murmured in disgust.
“We’ll need to speak to the guys about what we should do with them,” Zoe said.
Screams came from downstairs as they left the room. One of the girls had spotted Camriel and was in a panic, thinking he was one of their attackers.
Rushing past the last victim they’d freed, Grace and Zoe moved at normal human speed to try to defuse the situation.
Clustered in the lobby, some of the women had grabbed chairs to try to fend off the warriors. Amaros and Camriel were waiting for the cambions at the bottom of the stairs.