Chapter 35
Lola
Iwiped my blade on the sleeve of an unconscious guard, mimicking the twins and Marcus before looking at the absolute mess.
We could barely walk around as the ground was littered with bloody bodies. Dark red and black blood splattered the walls and us, painting a pretty macabre picture.
“What I don’t understand is that they don’t even try to call for backup,” Marcus mused, crouching to inspect one of their faces. “I mean, we keep finding them in clusters…Why not call for the others? We’d be vastly outnumbered.”
“It’s like they’re mindless. They see us, and they attack as one,” Savi signed. “Like one brain controlling them all at the same time.”
“Then Marcus is right,” I said. “Why not order them all to attack us? Why wait until they see us before they actually jump at our faces?”
“We need to move before that theory is put to the test,” Marcus said, standing up and pointing at a lone door at the end of the corridor.
We all walked through it, expecting another group of guards behind it and not much else only to freeze at the sight in front of us.
“Fucking Hell,” Marcus murmured under his breath, eyes wide as he took in the scene; dozens of cells, filled to the brim with battered Divines.
Their gaunt faces looked worried as they stared right back at us, pushing their bodies as far as they could from the door cell and piling themselves on top of each other against the far wall.
The girls took the bunch of keys dangling in Marcus’ hand and rushed to the first cells, working on unlocking it.
I checked the map I doodled. So the Divines were here. It meant the Earthwalkers and the few humans were on the other side. We could find and free all the ones that weren’t under any sort of mind control.
The girls were patient with them, trying to silently express the reason we were here. That they were all safe with us, and they shouldn’t be scared anymore.
I took a step in their direction. Might as well make myself useful so we could free them as fast as possible and move on to the next ones…
Marcus grabbed my wrist. “Wait, hold on.”
He pulled me back toward the door, voice dropping to a controlled whisper.
“You’re not going to like it.”
I frowned. “Tell me anyway.”
“We need to prepare in case your first theory is true. Arc was missing with Dimitri, and didn’t come back with him. Dimitri is shaken up about this place. Arc controls Hellrisers, and the guards here are all demons that look completely lobotomized and—”
“Wait, are you suggesting Arc is behind all this? After telling me the opposite just moments ago?”
He winced, turning his head to the side in shame, like he knew the idea was preposterous and yet couldn’t shake it off his mind.
“It kills me to think about him like that. Arc has been nothing but a great friend to me over the years and I—It just doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t,” I said sharply.
“There could be lots of reasons the demons are acting like this. Maybe Arc is involved, yes…But as we said, what if he has to do this against his will? What if someone is making him use his powers on the demons here to create their own army? You yourself said Arc couldn’t—”
“Yeah, well I thought about it a little, and even though I don’t get why he would do it, everything points in that direction.”
Sadness clouded his face as he let out a sigh and stepped closer to me.
“Look, you might be right. There’s definitely a chance that someone else is behind all this and using Arc against his will. But we—as much as I don’t want to believe it, we need to be prepared for all scenarios.”
I’d rather get these thoughts out of my head. “We still need to move forward. We can free more people. We can free Arc, if he’s a prisoner too.”
Marcus looked around the large room, to the cells that were slowly but surely getting opened and people carefully walking out.
“Whatever you do, I’ll follow. I won’t let you down, but I—I’m worried of what we’ll find if we dig too deep.”
I placed my hand on his arm, giving a reassuring squeeze. “Everything is going to be fine. We’re a team, right? We’re unstoppable.”
It took a few seconds for him to give me a sad, hesitant nod before we got to work in helping all the Divines out.
I repeated “Don’t worry,” and “everything will be alright,” so many times that it started to ring hollow. Some of them might have been locked up for years. Of course they were wary of anyone suddenly coming to their rescue.
Marcus and the girls recognized a few, often ending up in tight, teary embraces as they tried to keep their head cool and not crumble at the horror these people had been through.
Once everyone was out, all four of us gathered against the door, facing the fifty or so free prisoners.
“We dealt with a lot of guards already, so the way out should be pretty quiet,” Marcus said, looking at each of them.
“If you keep walking forward once you’re out of here, you’ll end up in a large parking garage that leads to a tunnel dug into the canyon.
Said tunnel will bring you outside. If you’re not sure where to go once you’re out, you can go left and walk about half a mile until you’ll find a hidden cave with a car and a bike inside it.
You can wait for us there, and we’ll bring you back to camp as soon as we’re done freeing everyone. ”
The Divines all exchanged worried looks before one of them asked, “What if we encounter guards? Most of us are too weak to—”
“Speak for yourself!” another interrupted. “I’m staying and I’m fighting!”
“You’ve been here for barely a few months,” another one retorted softly. “Some of us were caged for years. We can’t fight. Not like this.”
Francesca lifted her hand, interrupting them, before she turned to me and signed, “Savi and I can escort the ones who want to leave and come back to get more of them.”
“Yes, let’s split up in teams,” Savi continued. “You and Marcus keep freeing everyone and we bring them out to safety. The ones who want and can fight will come with you.”
I looked at Marcus, ready to translate, only to see him nod with a grave look on his face. That ass did understand most of what they were saying.
In the end, only four stayed to fight with us, refusing any weapons. “We’re eager to hit them as hard as what they did to us,” one of them said as we started walking to the next wing.
“How long have you been locked in here?” I asked one of them as we walked at the end of the group, protecting the rear as Marcus led.
His blue eyes darkened and he shook his head, the dirty ginger strands falling over his forehead.
“I’ve been here a little over a year. Got caught right before things started to get weird.”
“Weird how?”
He looked at me, slowing his pace. “We used to be all locked up together. Demons, angels, any and every Earthwalker…Guards were humans before. Then, something changed; Hellrisers blooded prisoners were taken from their cells and never came back. Then, they started moving us around into groups of our own species, and the Hellrisers reappeared…But they were no longer on our side.”
My throat bobbed as I saw the memories flashing on his face.
“Human guards were slowly replaced by other Immortals, some of them our friends. But they became strange. Violent, angry…They didn’t recognize any of us.
The beatings were the worst part. Do you know how it feels when someone you trusted most of your life suddenly turns on you and beats you to a pulp? Many times?”
I didn’t, and I couldn’t imagine going through that.
“But that was all that happened, to be honest. So maybe, it was better than before, when the humans made weird experiments on us. At least, since the demons took over, we’ve been mostly left alone.”
“Have you ever seen who runs the place?”
The angel shook his head sadly. “I wish I did so I’d know who to both blame and thank.
” He saw the confused look on my face and explained.
“Blame for holding us hostage when they very clearly don’t have any use for most of us.
Thank, because I’d gladly take a beating once in a while rather than be a lab rat. ”
I pondered it for a while, even as we fought more demons and freed more people.
But all the prisoners we found were either Divine-blooded Earthwalkers or simple Divines. Not a single Hellriser blooded Immortal in those horrifying cells.
Which meant, we were still looking for Marcus’ lovers…
By the time we reached the “restricted area” door, we’d freed over two hundred prisoners, and there were seventeen of us fighting and progressing in the building.
“I’m not going in there,” a shifter said, taking a step back and colliding with a Divine who moved to stabilize her.
“What’s in there?” I asked.
She shook her head and looked away, holding herself tight. The one behind her answered, “We don’t really know. But, the few Immortals I’ve seen who were brought behind this door never came back.”
Marcus’ head perked up. “Were they also Divine?”
Most of them shook their heads darkly and I met my friend’s gaze. It could be where they were taking the ones that could be brainwashed. All the Hellrisers and some of the Earthwalkers. Maybe we’d find the one responsible for this mess—and Arc.
“All of you go with Marcus and keep freeing the prisoners you find,” I said, leaving the back of the group to get to the door. “I’ll go and check what’s going on behind—”
“No,” Marcus snapped.
His hand was a tight cuff around my wrist. “Marcus—”
“I said no. You’re not going in there alone.”
“What about them?” I asked, waving at all the Immortals we had freed and who’d been fighting with us for the past hour. “You can’t leave them here to wait and—”
“With the map you gave us, we can handle the rest of the rescue,” one of the oldest Earthwalker said, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a reassuring smile. “You folks go and do what you have to do.”
I turned back to Marcus. “It might be dangerous, you can’t—”
“Oh, and you can?” he quietly snapped. “I told you, whatever you do, I’ll follow. I’m not leaving you behind. You’re my friend. We’re a team.”
Anxiety turned my stomach into knots but I forced a smile. “You’re just terrified Carter and Dimitri will skin you alive.”
“Firstly, yes. Secondly, we don’t know what’s behind that damn door. It could be a horde of demons. Could be other prisoners. Could be Arc or the person running this Hell of a place.”
Damn stubborn demon. “Fine. You know, I like you better when you’re carefree and funny.”
“Yeah, well. Now you’re dealing with the less enjoyable side of me,” he said, releasing a bit of his hold. “I’m still a high ranked warrior, and this is a serious situation. We’ll have time to joke around once we’re all out of here and on our way back to camp.”