two -Ares- #3
I waste no time, no matter how painful what I’ll find behind it might be.
I almost rip the hidden door apart in the process.
And for a moment, I feel like this is my own apocalypse, that my world has ended.
Her fragile body is lying on the floor. Her hands still tied behind her back.
Her head pressed against the wooden floor.
Her breathing non-existent. It’s in this moment I realize I would go to Father and raise the fucking dead.
Raise hell on earth if it meant I didn’t have her.
I fall to my knees, scooping her up in my arms, holding her as close to my chest as I can, which hums with a pain I’ve never felt before. Like somebody is ripping me apart from the inside out, and nothing would ever put me back together.
But then I hear it, the faint heartbeat, the slow pulse, the almost non-existent breath.
“Brynn…. Brynn, look at me.” I rest her head in one of my palms as her eyelids slowly flutter open.
“What took you so long?” she asks, like it’s the only thing she has the power to do.
She’s alive. She’s fucking alive!
“I’m here now,” I whisper, my chest heaving with relief. “We need to get you out of here, but I am gonna have to ask you to take a deep breath first.” I point toward the body bag because that’s the only way to get her out of here without anyone suspecting something.
She takes a deep breath, just like I ordered, then nods for me to do it. And fuck, letting her go from my arms feels like the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.
I carry her to the van, keeping to the blind spots and out of the cameras’ reach, just in case someone is able to get them back on.
Then I tell 404 to take her to the abandoned mansion on the northeast side of my property—there’s access to the underground tunnel that leads straight to my house.
I’ve already texted my doctor to meet him there.
With my guards occupied by the game, no one will see him come in.
He’ll take Brynn to the room I kept him in, then we’ll change the access code so that none of my men can go down there.
No one can know about this. No one can know that I saved a player.
Or worse, that I let someone get close enough to infiltrate the game.
Information like this will make Kharon lose all credibility and ruin what I’ve built over centuries.
The silent control my brothers and I need to watch over this world.
I’ll stay behind for a while, tie up loose ends, make sure nothing raises suspicion. That’s exactly why I chose the body bag to get Brynn out.
It takes only a few minutes before 404 calls me from the main gate.
I gave my men specific instructions not to let anyone in or out, so they call me to double-check the story of how 404 is getting rid of one of the corpses the cops can’t know was here.
It won’t take long before they start handling the cleanup themselves.
We’ll leave a few asylum staff behind, but every trace of the players has to go.
I clear 404’s access at the gate, and head back to keep an eye on things downstairs.
I didn’t like the look McAllister gave me, and I know he usually sticks around like he needs to oversee things for himself.
He’s the kind of sick bastard that needs the stench of death up his nostrils to get his fill.
To see his kills once again as a validation to himself.
The Observants also hold high political positions, but they’re not so bold.
They usually disperse right after the winner is celebrated.
That doesn’t mean they don’t gloat about being part of this.
So I give them time to congratulate themselves on a game well played while I start ordering my men on how to clean things up around here, including the bodies.
McAllister keeps yapping away about his kills and about how he unknowingly decided the fate of the game. He claims that if he’d known two players were already fighting, he would’ve drawn it out instead. I don’t buy it—he’s not the type to pass up a kill for the sake of sport.
The longer he sticks around, the more chances he’s gonna realize we’re a body short.
Still, it isn’t the time yet to send him home. That would make him suspicious, and I don’t need more shit right blowing up in my face right now.
I could just kill him and end this now. But politicians like him are hard to find, and they require a lot of greasing. Men like him are rare, and they take time to cultivate. You don’t just ask someone to trade blood for influence. And cleaning up his death would be… complicated.
So that calls for plan B, especially since I need to get the fuck out of here before I lose my mind. But I also need to keep McAllister from going upstairs. He has already been asking questions about the hole in the floor. I don’t want to risk him finding the secret room as well.
Which leads me to another problem I left unsolved upstairs, but I instructed a couple of my men to take care of that particular issue.
I text 404 for a status, and he tells me the doctor is already with Brynn. That puts me at ease, but not entirely. I still need to be there personally, though my reasoning and common sense should dictate otherwise.
Then I ask him to call the cops on us anonymously. Sometimes you have to burn bridges to keep ruling the kingdom.
It takes only a couple of moments after 404 makes the call for one of my men who monitors the police radio sequences to let us know they’re on their way.
We’re on the edge of town now, so the first unit will get here in about fifteen minutes.
Enough time for my team to set up explosives and for the rest of the Observants and Valiants to scatter.
That includes McAllister, who is the first to run, like the real coward he is, unwilling to jeopardize his influential position over an extravagant hobby.
I initially planned a fire. That is my MO for most buildings, but that would mean a thorough cleanup. There’s no telling what evidence could be left behind, and since there’s no time for that, that only leaves me with one option. The place is going to go boom.
I personally see to it from a distance, right before the first cop car pulls in. They’re just in time to see the fireworks as the fucking building blows up and burns to ashes. Just how a place like this is supposed to. Nothing can remain of this atrocity.
I rush back home, leave my car in front of the side door, and run inside. It takes a minute to run the length of the basement tunnel, and the second I push the wine rack aside. I see 404 by the door. “How is she?”
“The doctor sedated her. She lost a lot of blood,” he says, his words unsteady, like he doesn’t have an outcome for this.
I walk past him and straight into the room where the doctor is stitching up her leg.
The wound seems a lot bigger than I could see through her pants back at the asylum.
And I can’t help myself from walking closer to her.
My heart pounds loudly in my chest because, in reality, I can’t imagine her not surviving this—no matter what she’s done. Everything else can come after.
“What are her chances? No bullshit.” I ask because I can sense when people are lying, and I wouldn’t want to kill the doctor before he gets to do his job.
“Slim… she’s lost a lot of blood.”
“You need to fix this one, Doc, or you’ll lose a lot of blood too,” I grunt, making it clear there isn’t an option where she doesn’t live.
If it were one of my men, I could accept a loss, occasionally.
Still, she isn’t someone I can let go of—even if at this point—I have no idea what will happen to us if she makes it out of this alive.