Chapter 44

44

A lmost as soon as the door closes, Chloe lets her legs go out from underneath her and sits down, hard, on the shining white tile.

"Yup, understandable," Gurlien says, grabbing her backpack from her and pulling out one of the 5 Hour Energy shots and a protein bar. "Eat this."

Carefully, Delina nods at Maison, then helps him sit next to her, his knee throbbing.

"It's not broken," Maison says, before she can even say anything. "I'll be okay."

"You'll be slow," Gurlien replies, but he gives Maison one of the protein bars as well, before he eyes Delina. "Do you need something?"

"Give me some of the chocolate," Delina says, then locks eyes with Maison. "I'm gonna touch your knee."

"Is it safe to stop here?" Maison asks, but his voice is raw. "Should we move?"

"Chloe needs to eat first," Gurlien interrupts him, strict. "I don't think you realize how incredible that was."

"Thanks," Chloe mumbles around a mouthful of food.

"No, I think I get it," Maison says, and his face is a bit pale.

Delina takes the distraction to put both her hands on each side of his knee, and he cuts his words off short.

And she lets herself think.

The kneecap isn't quite in place, slipped out of its socket, spearing the nerves on either side of it. It's not broken, there are no tears in the cartilage, just…it's out of place.

"It's dislocated, you need a hospital and a splint," Delina says, and looks to Chloe, who's palely chomping on her food. "Is there anything in the backpack?"

"Ace bandage," Gurlien replies for her, already pulling it out, but his face is grim. "Can you walk?"

"Yes," Maison interrupts, grimacing. "I can walk, I'll be fine."

"I can put it back," Delina says, and he pales further. "I'll put it back and we'll wrap it. This is gonna suck, when will the next rotation of guards be in earshot?"

Gurlien looks up and around, at the blank white walls and hallway that stretches onwards, down and away from them. "It's the stasis ward, they don't need guards, just the occasional patrol."

"Maison," Delina starts, and his eyes snap up to her. "Can I do this?"

It turns her stomach, too, but he nods.

Without waiting, she lets her mind sink into the sensations of his leg, then jerks the kneecap over with her hands.

He chokes, halfway between a yell and a grunt that echoes along the stark white walls, and pain slams into her, sharp before abrupt relief. He sags against the wall, briefly, before blinking, tears in his eyes.

"Oh my god," Gurlien mutters, then Delina quickly tries to wrap the knee, to provide some sort of stabilization. The entire joint feels wobbly, uncertain of itself, but the pressure is another bit of relief.

"I'm so sorry," Delina whispers to Maison, whose head is swimming.

"No, it'll be good," he says, weakly, like he's not even paying too much attention to the words falling out of his mouth. He slumps forward, his head hitting her chest.

"I got you," Delina says, and takes a brief moment to stroke his hair back, before she lets herself look around the hallway.

It's featureless, the fluorescent lights bouncing off the polished tile and walls, stretching on for far too long.

There's a box mounted to the wall, a few meters away from them, and another one at the far edge. No doors to go in and out, no windows, nothing.

And they're going to have to walk down it, with Maison still blinking back tears of pain and Chloe staring numbly in front of her face, mechanically chomping on her food.

She exchanges a quick glance with Gurlien, and his face is grim.

"This isn't good," he says, which echoes what she's feeling, but saying it feels wrong. "Any dead on this floor?"

Strangely, the answer is no, but she squeezes her eyes shut, tries to feel something. Anything.

But there's no other beings but them.

"Absolutely nothing, except for the other bug in my pocket," Delina says, before she lets her hands rest on Maison's knee, stretching his leg out.

He grunts, his jaw clenching, before he raises his chin. "I'll be okay."

"Yeah," Delina says, before handing him another protein bar. "Still eat this."

Gurlien pushes himself up to standing, carefully approaching the box on the wall.

It's roughly the size of a fire extinguisher box, the same featureless bright white of the rest of the hallway.

"It's the first of the control runes," Gurlien says, opening it and peering inside. "Written in India ink."

Maison nods at her. "Can you help me up?"

"Is that wise?" Delina asks, but he braces himself on the wall, then, just like they would do if one of them was sick, helps him to stand, before she tucks her shoulder under his arm, letting him lean his weight on her.

He steps, experimentally, on the bad knee and it wobbles. The bandage helps, the pressure something, but it needs more, much more.

"When we get out, I am finding a safe hospital for you and taking you to it," Delina declares, and he nods, his face pinched. "And then you are gonna stay the fuck off of your leg until I can't tell you're in pain anymore."

Still, she walks him, limping, over to the box.

Sure enough, looping runes, beautiful in indigo brush strokes, incomprehensible.

"Don't ruin these," Maison instructs, leaning heavily against her, and a small, remote part of her, is alarmed at how much. "These aren't to take down, we need both sets intact to deactivate them."

"That's what I thought," Gurlien says, scowling at them. "We need someone to flick this switch, then go to that one," he throws a nod down the hallway, "and flick the same switch."

Delina peers at the beautiful markings. "Then we can destroy it?"

"Should be," Maison says, his voice tight. "Then let's hope the Wight knows what she's talking about."

Gurlien throws a look to Chloe, whose eyes are at least a bit more aware now, and she swallows down the protein bar.

"I can move," she says, and her voice is raw, like she spent the last hour screaming. "Alarms have got to be ringing, we can't stay here forever."

She takes a deep breath, then hugs her backpack to her chest, standing up, and is far less shaky than Maison is. "I'm okay."

"It'd be more believable if I wasn't aware of your headache," Delina says, and Chloe sighs, pulling out another energy shot.

"I'll be okay, I'll just be hungover once we get out of this," Chloe grumbles, and that, at least, seems reasonably likely. "Let me take a look."

Maison leans his cheek against the top of Delina's head, as Gurlien and Chloe debate the inner workings of the runes, and tremors run up his side.

"If you have to run, it's okay," he whispers to her, "take my mom and run, I'll be okay."

"Oh fuck off," Delina whispers back. "Stop with the self-sacrificial bullshit, we both know I won't do that."

He sighs against her, and she tightens her grip around his middle.

"We'll find something for a splint, and then we'll get out," Delina whispers back.

"I can do this side," Chloe says, with a pale glance to them. "Delina, you'll have to do the matching switch when we get over there."

"Okay," Delina replies, and, despite the exhaustion still on her mind, Chloe deftly draws something in the box, and the entire hallway groans to life.

Maison twitches, like he wants to pull Delina behind him.

Instead, shutters, giant ones, clatter and roll up, on either side of the hallway, revealing tall windows.

Each into a small, individual room. Hundreds of them, all barely bigger than a closet, stretching down the entire length of the hallway.

Delina's breath hitches.

"Have you ever been down here before?" Chloe asks, voice hushed.

"Not this one, but a different one," Maison whispers, and Gurlien nods as well. "It's only a good threat if you know what you'd be facing."

And with that, they start down the hallway.

In the first room, someone sits in the corner, eyes listless, staring out into nothing. There's blood on the side of their head, fresh, but their clothing is about two decades out of date.

The display plate reads a name, then ‘murder.'

They don't react as Delina passes, as if they can't even see out of their little room.

The next room, a young woman stretched out on a cot. Her eyes stare up at the ceiling, and her display plate reads ‘insane.'

Another, and a sickly young man, skin clinging to bones, curled up on the floor, with the display plate ‘failed Half Demon.'

Next, a twisted mass of flesh, not even identifiable as human, though breath flutters against the skin. Display plate reads ‘experiment, won't die.'

Delina swallows, then looks back down the hallway.

There are too many rooms.

"How can a place like this exist?" Delina asks, and her voice echoes hollow through the shining hallway.

"Oh, this isn't even the only one," Gurlien replies, mouth grim. "There's one in Paris, one in Atlanta, and one in Mexico City."

"And South Korea," Maison says, and his knee sends a pang of pain up at him with each step, despite Delina's support. "The Paris one is the worst."

"Which room is the Wight?" Chloe asks, and somehow she's still eating, though her face twists. "I want to make sure we're releasing someone correctly."

"Eight oh nine," Delina answers, and her own words are remote against her ears.

Another room, and there's someone splayed on the ground, a bloody hole punched through his sternum, but he still breathes.

She stills.

"That one will die if we drop the spell," Delina whispers, certain horror crawling along her spine. "Can he feel that?"

"Can't ignore it," Maison replies. "Can't heal, can't sleep, just sitting with the sensations of when you were locked up." With his free hand, the one not clutching around Delina, he taps the sign.

Which reads Nicholas, Mass Murder.

"So this would be his punishment," Gurlien says. "He can't die, he can't recover, knowing that the moment the spells would drop he'd perish."

Words evaporate from Delina's mind, at the ghastliness of all of it.

They pass another half-demon, body emaciated, curled up on the bed, and she's marked for death, too. The skin is too thin, the arteries too nebulous, the nerves too sharp. She might take a dozen breaths, each one more painful than the next, before her brain would give up, starved.

If Delina clings a bit stronger to Maison, she can't tell.

Another person, bleeding from the eyes and ears, black and red blood mixing, barely breathing, and the nameplate reads ‘Sauv, Terese Project.'

The moment she takes the runes down, he'll die as well.

Goosebumps rise on her arms, despite the relative warmth of the hallway.

"Here," Chloe says, jogging forward a few steps, "eight hundred and nine…oh."

Inside the room, the wight's half transparent, like she had been caught halfway through disappearing, her long curly hair unruly. She's sitting on the floor, staring numbly out the window, her eyes not tracking them.

She's also maybe twelve.

Maybe.

"Oh my god," Delina whispers, covering her mouth.

The wiry hair and coloring echo the Wight from the cabin, almost a younger mirror image.

All four of them stare down at her, and she doesn't react. The display plate reads ‘Stella, Ransom Insurance.'

"If she's been here for six years, she hasn't aged in that time," Gurlien says, hushed.

"That's a crime," Delina hears herself say. "It's a crime, she's just a child…you grew up like this?" she asks Maison.

He shakes his head, and there are still lines of pain around his eyes. "Not in here, it was just a threat."

"He was too powerful, too useful," Gurlien replies, constantly looking over his shoulder. "And…alive enough for it."

If that statement wasn't enough to light the fire inside Delina to burn this entire place down, the pre-teen wight comatose in front of them, all gangly elbows, would be.

"Let's do this," Delina says, moving Maison towards the box, and—

The very next room is the demon with the half-shaved head. The one from the bar.

And she's not prone like the rest of the hallway.

Locking eyes with Delina, she paces, right at the glass separating them.

The blackened wound on her cheek, from Delina's strike, still flakes, as if no time at all had passed. Her gut wound still glistens with black blood, and her claw marks from her own fingernails on her neck still bleed.

There's still the leash around her neck.

On the shaved side of her head, three electro patches stick to the skin, wires draping down her back. Medical leads, like ones Delina's seen on EKG machines, all directly into her brain.

"Oh fuck," Chloe says, the moment she sees the demon, and the demon deliberately flickers her eyes over to Chloe, appraising, not stopping in her pace.

Maison straightens, then winces, his knee wobbling, and the demon's gaze immediately snaps to him.

She bares her teeth at Maison, halfway between a smile and aggression, before she mouths something.

Of course, no sound reaches through the glass, and she scowls in frustration at that.

"So this is where they keep her," Gurlien says, stepping close to the glass, and she jerks to look at him instead, an evaluating expression over her face. "Not my first choice, but I guess it's safe."

The Demon paces back over to Delina and Maison, and mouths something again, then tugs a finger underneath the leash.

The nameplate reads ‘Ambra, Terese Project.'

"Fuck," Maison says, staring at the words on the nameplate. "They succeeded."