It felt like a century until the stranger went limp. He hoped that they were dead because at this rate, that would be the most merciful thing possible. The woman untied the stranger’s wrists and the stranger fell into an unsophisticated lump on the concrete.
To die this way . . . alone, starved, and being used as a lab rat.
It was horrible.
Damascus then took out her cell phone and made a call.
“It failed . . . I know . . . Doesn’t matter now, it’s dead . . . Vomit, convulsions, but no foam—wait, delayed response.”
The woman knelt down to the stranger again before she continued, “There is foam at the mouth . . . No, the other one is still alive . . . The other one?”
The woman glanced at him and his heart froze. “Is alive. The other girl is useless though, she’s human. Mistakes happen, but it seems like you’re making a habit of it. Fine, I’ll send them over . . . yeah, and hurry up. I hate the smell of corpses.”
The woman gave one last look at her phone, then without another word went upstairs and closed the door.
Adrian tried not to panic too much, but this was a whole new dimension of overwhelming. They could very well die, and no one would know any better. The thought of his unfulfilled life, the goals he never got to achieve, the recipes he never got to try, the people he’ll never see again . . .
“Oh gods,” Adrian muttered.
He needed a plan and fast.
Chapter 24
aria
“No . . . not you too.”
“Mira, Mira calm down. You have to calm down if that woman knows I’m awake she’ll―”
“Adrian, oh my God, please tell me this is a sick joke. Please, I can’t take another one,” Mira pleaded as her voice laced with panic.
Why did she feel so sh*tty? Aria tried to listen in on the conversation, but the splitting migraine she had made it difficult. So instead, she tried to do a check-in with her body to see what did and didn’t hurt.
With the exception of her head, she felt that everything else was fine. Then with a squint of her eyes, she was able to finally make out details of the room.
What a mistake.
She was in some sort of basement and it was dark, damp, and cold. A perfect setup for a horror movie. It also didn’t help that the voices that she heard across the room were real.
Mira was here.
Adrian was here.
There was also an emaciated body on the floor and a chill ran through her spine.
What the hell is this?
“You gotta get out of here, you have to.” Mira was so frantic and Aria was starting to get spooked. “Everyone keeps dying and I . . . I can’t. . .”
“Mira, I need you to breathe.” Adrian was trying his best to calm her down but it clearly wasn’t the most effective.
They really reached a new level of hell.
“Adrian, they do experiments on us. They’re all so f*cking insane, because they think they’re actually doing something good. I can’t handle seeing someone else I know die.” Mira was borderline hysterical.
“What have they done to you?” Aria managed to whisper.
“Mira, just breathe, okay?” It sounded as if Adrian was talking to an injured animal, and this time it was working. “I need you to just breathe.”
Aria saw as Mira attempted to comply.
“Can you tell me their schedule?”
She didn’t respond right away as she mulled over her words. “It’s . . . hard to predict. We get food . . . maybe every other day. We get water in the mornings and the woman, she . . . comes every three days, and there’s the other two . . . they take care of the bodies . . .”
Clearly, an organized operation.
“Holy sh*t,” he mutterd.
“You can’t stay here.” Mira shook her head so violently that Aria thought it might fall off. “You have to leave.”
“We’ll get out here, don’t worry,” Adrian assured her, then asked, “but why haven’t you escaped?”
“I’ve tried but . . .” She shook her arms and Aria looked at her constraints. “It’s not just rope. It’s something else and I can’t get out of it.”
“Did you try shifting?”
“I haven’t. When I first got here, I couldn’t because the car accident f*cked me up. I was in and out of consciousness for the first week.” Mira nearly spat.
“What about after that?”
“They f*cked with our minds down here, Adrian.” Mira shook her head and it hurt Aria to listen. “They really f*cked with us.”
“What did they do?” Aria found her voice.
A new wave of alarm washed over Mira. “You’re here too?”
“I—”
“They got you both?”
She was going to start spiraling soon, and Aria knew that if she made too much noise then the woman might come and see what was going on.
“Mira,” Aria said her name so harshly that it was almost unrecognizable.
Before Mira could have an episode, Adrian added on, “We’ll get out of here, I promise. We’ll all get out of here alive.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Mira started to sob softly.
“Mira, we’ll get the hell out of here,” Aria tried to reassure her. “Believe it.”
Maybe Aria was trying to reassure herself more so than Mira, but at this point it didn’t matter. The only thing that was relevant at the moment was getting the hell out of here, then they would deal with everything after.
“Hey Aria, are
