Peter hurried to her, and Pain tried to shake off the unease at what they were about to find as she followed him. The double doors were open, and most of the Ghosts spilled into the wide room, all steel and white light.
And rows and rows of gurneys.
Pain swallowed hard as she noticed another door, realizing that this must’ve been where Dave had woken up, his terror, his confusion, before escaping.
“These are all… recent,” the woman said, her eyes downcast. “They should be all right, if a little weak. Just pull the IV out carefully and apply some pressure for a minute. We’ll need some coats or blankets.”
Peter walked through the room with slow, measured steps, his eyes stormy. Pain instantly spotted a familiar neck tattoo on two men in the front row, unconscious from the drugs dripping down the IV. She, Jane, and Chad stayed by the doors while the others began to take the needles out and search cabinets and shelves for blankets.
“Send someone for more blankets and men—just a dozen for now, we don’t want a crowd in here,” Peter told Pain, and she nodded, leaving the creepy room.
Outside, she spotted Tyler and passed the order on to him, then took a moment to breathe. Jane and Chad joined her in the corridor, just as she heard Martin’s voice some distance away. Crap.
She peeked back into the lab and locked gazes with Marco. “Come on, let’s check the second lab.”
He and Ryan followed her, their faces in equal measures troubled and disgusted.
She opened the door across the lab, but it was a storage room. The one next to it was a bathroom. More and more voices sounded behind them, people crowding by the lab doors.
The next door swung open, and Pain halted.
“Holy shit…” Jane gasped behind her.
“Daniela?” Pain called out. The woman’s face peeked from the lab door. “What’s this room for?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, shaking her head. “I wasn’t allowed in there, only worked this lab.”
“Okay.” Pain’s voice was barely a whisper.
She stepped inside, taking in the screens on the walls, the charts, the various machines with more screens, the two beds with unconscious men strapped to them, and by the back wall, someone with a bag over his head, his arms and legs spread in something that could only be described as a torture device, holding him upright.
This place is straight from a horror movie.
The man’s naked upper body was covered in something—no, those were scars, dozens, hundreds of them, pale in the white light. Various tubes and wires connected to his arms and legs, and every few seconds, he twitched, the motion barely noticeable but still making Pain shudder.
“Pain!” Marco’s voice made her flinch, and she bumped into Chad as she left the strange room.
“He found the second lab,” Jane said, waving her forward.
Pain turned back and hollered to the crowd down the corridor, “Three more men here! Someone get Doc, get ’em out.”
“All right!” someone yelled back, and she hurried after her sister.
They entered another big room with rows of gurneys. Pain heard Martin’s deep voice somewhere nearby and closed the doors.
Jane shook her head. “Does he have to be here?” she whispered.
Pain made a face and turned to find Marco standing between two gurneys.
Next second, he was barreling straight at her, murder in his eyes.
“What the?” She jumped out of the way, and he went through the doors as if they weren’t even there, slamming right into Martin.
“You bastard!” Marco yelled, his fist smashing into his father’s face.
Eyes wide, Pain turned to search for Ryan, who was across the room. Her gaze fell on the two gurneys before her, and her stomach flipped at the sight of two similar-looking dark-skinned women. One of whom, in fact, Pain had met five years ago.
“Oh, shit. Shit!”
She leapt at Marco as he swung his arm again, his other hand crushing Martin’s throat.
“All this time they were here!” he raged, missing his father’s head as Pain hung on his arm. “All this time, and you didn’t say anything!”
The arm in her grasp flexed, and then she was tumbling down the corridor, lights flashing before her eyes.
Her shield flared just as she slammed into an open door. She saw a glimpse of Peter’s surprised face, jumped to her feet and shook her head, her vision not clear yet as she darted back. Chad got in her way, and she pushed him aside, following Marco’s raging voice.
Ryan was on him, and Marco couldn’t shake him off, but his other hand was still crushing his father’s windpipe, like a pit bull with its jaws around another’s throat.
“Let him go!” Ryan shouted, trying to pull Marco back.
Behind Pain, the men finally realized what was happening and ran toward them.
She leapt onto Marco’s shoulders, one hand clamping down on his mouth, the other on his nose. Martin’s eyes started to roll back, and Marco fought her, but she held on tight. A few seconds passed, and his grip weakened. Ryan finally managed to push him off Martin.
The older man slumped to the floor, breathing in quick gasps.
“Get out of the way!” Skull’s booming voice had the effect of a grenade dropped into the middle of the scuffle.
The men jumped through the closest open door to clear a path for him, and suddenly, his bulk was filling the corridor.
Pain jumped through the lab’s open doors just as he grabbed the disoriented Marco by the neck and threw him to the floor like some rag doll.
Next, he reached for Martin and hauled him up to his feet, the man still dazed and blurry-eyed. “There’s a backdoor, we just unlocked it. Go,” Skull said, pointing to
