13. The Warehouse
The Warehouse
Monika
The night is a blade.
I feel it pressing against my skin as I slip out of the mansion, my boots silent on the gravel, my breath fogging in the cold.
The gate is guarded—it always is—but I've learned the rhythms of this house.
I've learned when the guards change shifts, when the cameras cycle, when the shadows are deep enough to hide in.
I've been planning this for weeks.
Not the way Gabriel plans—with his desperate hope and his trembling hands.
Not the way Aleksander plans—with his careful calculations and his quiet, devastating power.
I've been planning the way I learned to plan on the farm, when the weather turned and the animals needed shelter and there was no one else to do what needed to be done.
One foot in front of the other. One breath at a time. One small, impossible step toward something that might be salvation or might be destruction.
I don't know which one it is anymore.
The car I've borrowed is parked a half mile down the road—a nondescript sedan that Viktor uses for errands, the keys stolen from the hook in the kitchen. I don't know if he'll notice they're gone. I don't care. I'll deal with the consequences later.
I drive through the city with the headlights off, navigating by memory and moonlight.
The streets are empty at this hour—the drunks have staggered home, the dealers have counted their money, the night-shift workers have clocked out for the morning.
It's the only quiet this city knows. A thin, fragile thing, like ice on a puddle.
I know where I'm going.
I've known for weeks.
The warehouse is on the edge of the city, where the streets narrow and the streetlights stop working and the buildings look like they've been abandoned for years. Some of them have. Some of them haven't. It's hard to tell the difference in the dark.
I park the car two blocks away, behind a dumpster that smells like rot and rain. I don't lock the doors. I don't know if I'll be coming back.
The warehouse looms ahead of me, brick and steel and the faint, sickly glow of lights through boarded-up windows. I've been here before. I've stood in this alley and thrown up after seeing what's inside. I've walked through those doors and pretended I didn't see the cages.
Tonight, I'm not pretending.
Tonight, I'm going to stop it.
I slip through the gate.
It's not locked—it never is. The men who work here don't expect intruders. They don't expect anyone to be foolish enough to come here without an invitation.
I'm foolish enough.
I'm desperate enough.
I'm angry enough.
The loading dock is at the back of the warehouse, where the trucks pull in and the shipments are moved. I can hear voices—low, urgent, the kind of voices that are used to giving orders and being obeyed. I press myself against the wall and peer around the corner.
Nathan is there.
He's standing in the center of the loading dock, his hands in his pockets, his face unreadable. He's wearing dark clothes—black jeans, black sweater, the kind of thing you wear when you don't want to be seen. There are men around him—I count six, maybe seven—loading boxes into vans.
Not boxes.
Children.
I see them now. Small figures, hunched and silent, being led from the warehouse to the vans. Their faces are blank. Their bodies are thin. They move like ghosts, like they've already given up, like they know there's no point in fighting.
And there, in the middle of them, is Tasha.
Her arm is still in a cast. Her hair is still matted. Her eyes are still empty. She's being led toward one of the vans by a man with a shaved head and a scar across his cheek.
She's going back. She's going back to whatever hell Nathan pulled her from.
I feel something break inside me.
Not the part of me that wants to survive. The part of me that wants to be good.
I step out of the shadows.
"Nathan."
He turns.
His eyes widen—just for a moment, just enough for me to see the surprise before he schools his features into that mask of calm. The men around him reach for their weapons, but he holds up a hand.
"Wait."
He walks toward me. His footsteps are slow, deliberate. The same way he walks into every room—like he owns it, like he owns everything.
"What are you doing here?" His voice is low. Dangerous.
"Stopping you."
He laughs. It's a terrible sound. "Stopping me? Monika, you don't even know what you're—"
"These are children." My voice is shaking. I don't care. "Children, Nathan. You can't do this."
"I can do whatever I want."
"No." I step closer. I'm not afraid of him. I should be, but I'm not. "You can't. Not anymore."
He stares at me. His eyes are dark, unreadable. I can see the war going on behind them—the part of him that wants to protect me, and the part of him that wants to destroy everything in his path.
"You need to leave," he says. "Now. Before something happens that we both regret."
"I'm not leaving without them."
"You can't save them."
"I can try."
He grabs my arm. His grip is tight—tight enough to bruise—and I feel something cold slide down my spine.
"Don't do this," he says. "Don't make me hurt you."
"You won't hurt me." I look at him. I look at the boy underneath the monster, the boy who held me in the dark and said I was the only thing that made sense. "You love me."
"I do." His voice cracks. "That's why I'm telling you to leave."
"No."
"Monika—"
"I said no."
I pull away from him.
I walk toward the vans. The men watch me—their eyes sharp, their hands on their weapons—but they don't stop me. They're waiting for orders. They're waiting for Nathan to tell them what to do.
He doesn't tell them anything.
I reach the van where Tasha is standing. The man with the scar watches me approach, his hand on his gun, his eyes flat.
"I'm taking her," I say.
The man looks at Nathan. Nathan doesn't move.
"I'm taking her," I repeat. "And the others. All of them."
"You can't," Nathan says. His voice is tired. "You can't save them."
"Watch me."
I reach for Tasha's hand. She flinches—the same flinch I saw the first night, the same flinch that broke my heart—but she doesn't pull away. She looks at me with those empty eyes, and I see something flicker there. Something that might be recognition.
"Monika," Nathan says. "Don't."
I ignore him. I lead Tasha toward the car—my car, the one parked two blocks away. I'm going to get her out. I'm going to get all of them out.
I'm going to stop this.
The men grab me.
I don't see it coming. One moment I'm walking toward the gate, Tasha's hand in mine, and the next I'm being pulled backward, my arms wrenched behind my back, my face pressed against the cold concrete.
"Don't hurt her!" Nathan's voice is sharp. "I said don't hurt her!"
"She was trying to take the product."
"Take her inside. Lock her in the office. Don't touch her."
I'm dragged to my feet. I'm pushed through the warehouse, past the cages, past the shipping containers, past the offices where the ledgers are kept. The men throw me into a small room and slam the door behind me.
I'm alone.
I'm trapped.
I failed.
I sit in the dark.
The room is small—a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet. The walls are concrete. The door is steel. There's no window. No way out.
I failed.
I thought I could stop him. I thought I could save them. I thought I could be something other than what I am—a woman who leans in when everyone else runs away.
But leaning in isn't enough. Not anymore.
I lean my head back against the wall. I close my eyes. I think about Tasha. About the way she looked at me—the way she recognized me, the way she trusted me.
I'm going to fail her. I'm going to fail all of them.
And there's nothing I can do about it.
The door opens.
Tasha is thrown into the room. She immediately scrambles to the far side, wide eyes taking in everything.