“It doesn’t look like anyone's been here,” Diesel admits, flicking one of the light switches on the off-chance there might be power. There isn’t, of course, and I’m not sure it would help because the storm that has picked up outside would likely knock it out again.
“We need to find the entrance for the cellar,” Lucky shouts over a particularly loud rumble of thunder.
“Call the Ravens. See if G can give us a clue where the entrance is,” I yell at Diesel, as I make my way into the outdated kitchen.
Whoever inherits this place will need to do some extensive remodeling and updating. I suspect it was constructed in the fifties.
“Fuck, no cell service,” Diesel grunts, coming in behind me.
I pull out my cell, and sure enough, I don't have any either.
“Lucky?”
He pulls out his cell, glancing at the screen before shaking his head. “No. Don’t know if it's where we are or because of the storm, but it looks like we’re on our own.” He sighs.
“Let's get searching then.” I urge, wishing we had more to go on. After an hour of combing every inch of the place, it becomes apparent that there’s no cellar underneath the house.
“There's nothing here, Diesel. Either your information is faulty, or we’re in the wrong place,” I tell him.
He runs a frustrated hand through his hair, looking out the window as the rain falls in sheets outside.
“I was so fucking sure.” He sighs, dipping his head.
“Wait, what's that?” Lucky asks, coming up behind us and pointing out the window.
“What? I can’t see fucking anything with this weather,” I snap, but then I see it in the distance. Some kind of barn. “Shit,” I shove the back door open then pause, turning back to Diesel, who is hot on my heels.
“Did you jimmy this open?”
He shakes his head. “Nope, it was already unlocked. I’m guessing the front door was the same?”
“Yeah, and after seeing the place, there’s nothing here to steal. The gates not there to keep people out, which means….”
We turn to look at the barn at the same time before taking off at a dead sprint, but it doesn’t matter how fast we are, each of us is soaked again. The barn creaks under the onslaught of rain, but at least it's dry inside.
It's dark, the windowless space not offering us any help in our search as we all use our phones for lights.
“Over here,” Lucky yells, shoving away hessian sacks filled with grain that spills as he kicks and shoves to reveal a metal door in the floor.
Unlike the house, this door has a large, solid padlock keeping it closed.
I pull my gun and wait for the others to step back before shooting it. The loud echo of the bullets hitting metal as they ricochet makes my ears ring, but I keep my distance and don’t stop shooting until the lock gives way.
Using the sleeve of his Henley, Lucky pulls the lock from the door and tosses it to the floor with the sacks of grain.
Diesel reaches over and pulls on the rusted metal handles, the protesting groan of the corroded hinges almost as loud as the bullets.
And that's when the smell hits us.
Not fermented grapes you would expect to find here, but the unmistakable stench of death.
Chapter Three
Diesel
We make our way down the steps into the gaping mouth of darkness, guns drawn, unsure what we’ll find.
It smells of damp, decay, and blood, making me brace myself, but the room we find ourselves in is empty. A large wooden island sits in the middle of the room with racks underneath for bottles of wine, each section empty, now.
Two doors lead off from this room, facing each other on the opposite side of the island. We make our way over to them, the pit of dread growing larger with each step. We’ve spent a year looking for this girl, hoping and praying that whatever she has suffered through, she’ll be strong enough to survive. As the cloying scent of blood fills my nose, I have a horrible feeling we’re too late.
Lucky takes the door on the right and I take the left. Rebel stays between us with his gun raised, offering us cover if needed.
The door is locked, but this time with deadbolts. I slide them back, each one feeling like a countdown until finally I push the door open and gag at the smell as it hits me in the face.
It takes me a second to register what I’m seeing.
I hear Lucky cursing behind me, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the macabre scene in front of me.
At one point, this might have been a walk-in cooler of some kind, but with the power out, nothing kept the contents of this room from rotting.
And that's precisely what’s happened to the bodies hanging from hooks in the ceiling—each in varying stages of decomposition.
Pulling my T-shirt over my nose, I move inside to check them over. There are five in total, all of them dead and likely have been for some time, but thankfully none of them is our girl.
I step back out and close the door, trying to shut the stench of death inside, but now the seal has been broken, the smell just lingers in the air.
I look up at Rebel and shake my head.
“She’s not in there.” We both turn to Lucky, who walks out of the room he was searching, looking green.
“She’s not in there either unless she’s one of the ones too badly decomposed to recognize, but I don’t think so. I think they’ve been here a hell of a lot longer than a year,” he says, as I suspected.
“I don’t think she’s here. I don’t think anyone has been here for a while. If I had to guess, I’d say this was one of his killing grounds before he took Ava, but I won’t stake her life on that. If she’s here, she’s hidden somewhere else on the property. We need to call this in and get more hands out here to look.”
I head up the stairs and make my way through the building and don't stop until I’m outside. I drop to my knees and suck in lungsful of clean air, letting the falling rain cleanse me.
“Fucking Christ,” Lucky groans from beside me. “Bates told me about that church they found Reign in, but I couldn’t quite get my head around it until now. Jesus, fuck. Come on, Diesel. You need to call Orion and see what he wants us to do next.”
I climb to my feet and follow behind him in silence as he heads toward the gate, still trying to wrap my head around everything we’ve just seen. The rain hammers down but the wind has let up. Still, the bars of the gate are slippery and make climbing the bitch precarious as fuck.
Once on the other side, we grab our bikes and make our way to the nearest motel.
As soon as we pull into the parking lot, I check my phone and see I have a signal. I dismount and make my way to the little overhang at the edge of the building, shielding my phone from the rain as I place my call.
“Diesel?” Orion answers, speaking before I get a chance. “Fuck, we’ve been trying to get hold of you. They found her, she's at Havenview Hospital, it’s—”
I cut him off, knowing exactly where it is.
“I’m ten minutes out from there. I’m on my way. I’ll call you back when I get out of this fucking rain and let you know what else we found tonight.” I pause for a minute before asking, “She okay?” After seeing the bodies down in the cellar, I have no idea what to expect.