Chapter 44
COSETTE
It’s scary seeing Nero like this.
It’s not Nero himself that scares me. The thing that worries me most is that he seems to think he can manage all of this, even though he might end up traumatized. Not just physically, but psychologically.
Yet, I have enough trust in him to know his limits. And whatever he thought about when Siege gave him an out? I’m sure that ultimately, he knows why we’re doing this.
Once Dex pressed the severed finger on the scanner—the finger that I’m trying so hard to imagine as fake—the single metallic door slid to the side, an alarm immediately blaring until the door.
The three set up a barricade of their bodies in front of me, ready to shoot at whatever’s coming out of the door because of the sirens, but surprisingly, none came.
Another minute, and still… nothing.
They lowered their weapons, no longer fearing an ambush, and we began searching the area.
The similarities to the musty basement where we found Siege sent a chill down my spine, stiffening my body. Except it wasn’t a hallway, but rather a brightly lit room with the same sterile white walls.
For a second, I thought we had the wrong place. Feeling panic surge through me that Siege and Dex had killed guards that were actually just normal security for some kind of rich man’s vault. But once Dex scanned the finger to another panel on the back wall, we saw the truth.
The ghastly truth being hidden behind the innocent-looking white room.
A warehouse.
The space was illuminated by a series of harsh, flickering fluorescent lights.
About a dozen metallic cages lined the walls, each a grim testament to the inhumanity within.
The cages were filled with the palpable terror of their occupants: actual humans.
Men, women, people my age, some younger, some older.
Their eyes, wide with a silent desperation, met mine, and the sight sent a jolt of ice through my veins. I felt my body shaking, the tremors both from outrage and despair that surged within me.
My stomach lurched, and I felt the bile rise in my throat.
How could they be treated like this? Like animals?
No, scratch that.
Worse than animals.
“No one’s guarding here,” Nero said, surprise in his voice, and I get why.
It was almost as if they’d been abandoned.
But I couldn’t seem to fucking care, my feet already on the move to go to the nearest cage I could reach. The injustice of it all, the sheer cruelty, fueled a rage that drowned out any logical thought.
“Dex, give me the fucking finger.”
I sound crazed. I know I looked crazed.
I didn’t even feel the need to throw up anymore when Dex placed the guy’s cut-up finger on my palm because my mind was on a mission.
I heaved the cage door open after the lock beeped, the sound echoing through the warehouse, a promise of freedom. I was eager to get to the next one, driven by a need to break these people free.
I couldn’t hear anything else aside from the guys instructing and guiding the people to go out the back door—apparently, there’s a back door—and find the bus, while I was unlocking cage after cage.
How could Eli’s family be so cruel?
How could the men working for them stomach being a part of this business?
I got to the last cage when I stopped and allowed myself to breathe, seeing scratched-up marks on the floor.
They kept Callista here.
I had to remind myself not to crush the finger in my palm from how hard I was clenching my fists.
A loud alarm blaring, a shrill sound, forced me to snap out of my thoughts, cutting through the relative quiet. It was similar to when we got the main door open.
I felt a wrist wrapped around me, fragile and weak, unlike my guys’, and as I looked up, I saw that it was a woman with hollowed out cheeks.
“They’re back. From port. New shipment,” she said in broken gasps, and panic crawled up my throat.
I turned to look at the guys, not knowing if they’re even around me, the alarm amplifying the chaos. Nero was the nearest to me, and I had to really focus, getting out of my autopilot mode to understand what he’s telling me from a hundred feet away.
“C! Get them out of here through the back!”
Thankfully, he didn’t have to tell me twice.
I snapped out of my anxious headspace, holding the door open for the people holed up in the last cage to get out. I helped one woman who was holding a baby, tripping over her own feet, probably from the lack of movement she’s had since she’s been here.
After the last person exited, I followed them to the back door as they fled, their exhausted bodies moving with a desperate urgency.
“Guys, come on!” I shouted to the three, but they had their guns up, aiming at the door that was slowly opening, the light from the white room seeping through more and more.
I was feeling panicked, my throat closing up because I couldn’t hold the door open, not when I had the baby in my arms.
“Get them to the bus, Cosette!” Siege shouted.
Then there were gunshots. As the back door fully closed.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
Fuck!
I wanted to push the door open, but I couldn’t find a handle.
The door can only be opened by someone on the inside.
Looking at the people behind me who were waiting for me to guide them, I steeled myself. I had to.
My guys will be okay. They’ll be okay.
I just need to get these people to safety first, and then I’ll come back.
With tears running down my face, I spoke with a shaky voice. “Follow me.”
I did my best not to space out. Not to let my thoughts go back to the gunshots that I heard before the back door closed on me.
The big bus looked like heaven as it entered my sight.
I saw from the windows that people were already filling the space, standing and trying to make room for the next group that I led there.
“I’m so sorry, but please squeeze in,” I said as I got to the doorway of the bus, guiding people up the steps.
I hate to do this. Make them feel claustrophobic after being trapped in a cage, but this was all they got.
Four teenagers, and one fucking bus.
After the woman, who had stumbled on her feet earlier, finally got inside, I gently placed the infant back in her arms.
“I’m… I need to come back for them, okay? Just… this button, it closes and opens the door,” I said to no one in particular, sobbing softly in a panic, because now that I’ve finally guided everyone here, I needed to go back.
I was about to get off the bus, when I heard footsteps approaching, and I couldn’t leave.
I can’t take it in me to leave a bus full of vulnerable people and break into a run to get my guys.
Grabbing the gun I had tucked in the waistband of my pants, I aimed at the clearing, my hand shaking as I put one finger on the safety, waiting for a bad guy to come through.
Breathe.
I could almost hear Nero say, pretending it was him guiding me through firing a gun.
Control your shake.
That’s something Siege would try to say.
Aim for the head.
Dex would be the type of asshole who would tell me that.
I almost fired the gun as soon as I saw a head, but thankfully, I was too chicken to hurt someone, because the head tilted up and I saw Nero looking at the barrel of the gun. Siege and Dex were holding him up, his arms on both their shoulders.
Keeping the safety on, I tuck it back behind me, on the waistband of my jeans, before I was running to my guys, throwing my weight in them.
Good thing they were three built guys or I would’ve been a bowling ball, them the pins.
“What the fuck happened? Did you get shot?” I was still crying, pulling away from the four-way-hug I just tried to do to look at Nero’s leg that he was holding up.
“Go on, tell our girl what fucking happened,” Siege said, sweat covering his face so that some of his hair stuck to his forehead.
Looking at Nero with my brows furrowed in worry, he only cleared his throat as he muttered, “I slipped on the goddamn severed finger.”
Despite the situation, and the new trauma I’m sure we’ll go through together as a group, I laughed, leaning forward for another hug.
I’m so fucking done being an honorary Azul.