Page 31

“Can’t get locked in if there isn’t a door to close,” Lance says simply.

I am fucking swooning, and he didn’t even do it for me. The level he will go to in order to make others feel safe is incredible. When we go to the hatch, Lance descends first, and then Huxley. I go down behind him, and everyone else follows.

There are work lights everywhere to keep the place illuminated.

I keep hold of Huxley’s hand as we slowly walk down the main corridor.

This place is insane. I have so many questions, but I don't want answers to any of them.

Huxley suddenly stops walking and looks into a room.

He looks to be lost in thought, so I squeeze his hand to get his attention.

“Do you want to go in?” I ask. He nods, so I walk in first. It is a simple room with a metal table bolted down in the center.

Chains with leather cuffs are welded in place at all four corners.

There is an opening on the table right in the perfect spot that it would give access to a man when he is restrained on his belly.

Huxley gently touches the table and runs his fingertips across the smooth surface. “This is the room I was in every day,” he says quietly. “Haley, Doug, Richard and the others who wanted to use me… It all happened here.”

“It’s so empty,” Corbin says.

“I had the room emptied before you all got here,” Lance says. “What looked to be Doug’s office was also emptied. They are working on the other rooms now.”

Huxley looks around for a moment longer before we leave the room and continue on. The next stop that we make is Doug’s office. I can tell it is because it’s the only room with a desk instead of a metal table or bed frame. “Did you get the floor safe open?” Huxley asks.

“I’m sorry. The what?” Lance asks.

“The safe in the floor?” Huxley asks.

“We didn’t find one.”

“It’s under his desk,” Huxley says, nodding for Lance to grab the other side of the desk.

They both work to move the massive desk back a few feet before Huxley leans down and pulls up a trapdoor.

It blended so well that no one would have seen it.

Based on how it was set up, the door spanned the foot space under the huge oak desk.

Huxley kneels down and types a long code into the keypad before a tone sounds, and you can hear the locks disengaging.

“I’ll write the code down for you. The only reason I know it is because Doug told Dad the code while he was raping me in here last week. It just kinda got stuck in my brain.”

“Oh my God…” Lance says when he pulls the door open and it reveals hundreds of file folders. Stacks upon stacks of photos, and a gallon-sized bag full of flash drives. In one corner there is a cardboard box labeled “Clara and Zoriah.”

“Oh God,” I say. “Lance, that has mine and my mother’s name on it.”

“Oh, fuck,” Corbin says.

Lance puts on gloves as Vanessa takes several photos. Lance kneels down and pulls the box out. He stands and sets it on the desk before handing me gloves. “What…”

“It’s your name. Your trauma,” Lance says. I nod and pull the gloves on before taking off the lid to the box. Dad and Corbin step over, and tension immediately fills the room when we all see the VHS tape sitting on top. “Vanessa, does tech still have the VHS player set up?”

“Uh. Yeah. I believe he is still going through the others we found,” she says. Lance takes the tape out and slips it into an evidence bag that Vanessa holds open before she takes it out of the room. Under the tape are a few random items. One sparks a memory, and I pick it up.

“Is this…” I start to ask.

“Your mother’s wedding ring,” Dad says quietly.

I pick up a small necklace next, and it has a broken chain.

Memories slam down on me of Richard on top of me.

Instead of trying to make it go away, I let myself think about it.

I close my eyes for a few minutes, and I can remember something getting yanked off my neck.

“This is mine,” I say. “I was wearing it, and Richard ripped it off me.”

“I bought you that for Christmas,” Corbin says. “I mowed so many lawns to buy that. You were so damn excited when I gave it to you; you told literally everyone who looked at you that your big brother bought it for you.”

“I remember at the hospital you kept feeling your neck like you were trying to find it,” Dad says.

“I don’t know how I forgot about that,” I say. “There is so much missing from that time period.”

“Your brain has a way of protecting you,” Lance says. He takes the ring and the necklace from me and hands them to Dad.

When another agent comes in, Lance instructs him to bag everything individually and send it all to be processed immediately. When we leave the office, we continue walking deeper into the bunker. “Are there any other hidden doors or doors that require a code?” Lance asks.

“Yeah. There is a safe in the chapel,” Huxley says.

We continue to walk until we enter a large room with rows of benches.

In the front of the room is an altar, much like the one I was raped on.

Huxley walks past it and pulls the curtains on the back wall back to reveal an empty wall.

He looks around for a second before he pushes on the wall, and a panel pops out.

He and Lance move the piece to the side to reveal a massive safe door.

We watch as Lance types the same code in and steps back when the locks disengage.

We are all expecting a safe, but it leads straight into a tunnel.

“Son of a bitch,” Lance huffs. “Frankfurt.”

“What’s up?” A man asks when he pops his head into the chapel. “Woah, is that a…”

“Yeah,” Lance says. “Take Vanessa and your team. I need to stay with them. She will report back what is found.”

“No problem,” he says. “Hell of a last case, huh?”

“You’re telling me,” Lance huffs. “Riah, you ready to go to the house?”

“Erm… Yes… No… We will see,” I laugh nervously. “Last case?”

“Yeah. This is my last case before I move to private investigation,” he says. “It will keep me from being shipped around the country so I can actually settle in one place.”

“Oh,” I say with a smile. As I ask that, I realize that I was hoping for him to answer that way because I want to see more of him.

I don’t know him like I do the others, but I want to.

How am I supposed to know if I have a connection with someone if I’ve only been around them for a month on a very professional basis? Well, until now, I guess.

We all walk out, and Huxley relaxes significantly once we are back at ground level.

It’s like he isn’t suffocating anymore, and the world isn’t so heavy anymore.

We make our way back to the vehicles, and everything flips.

I feel like a wet blanket has been draped over my thoughts, and I am dragging.

I stay curled up in Roman’s lap for the duration of the drive to the house.

When we stop, Roman gets me out, and everyone is waiting for me.

Huxley takes my other hand, and together we all walk to the door.

Lance cuts the seal on the door that secures the scene and opens the door.

“Everything has been taken out that was not bolted down. The scene has been cleared, so take your time,” Lance says.

“Ready?” Huxley asks me.

“Yeah,” I sigh. We walk inside, and at first, I don’t recognize anything, but then we walk into the chapel.

My eyes immediately find the altar, and flashes of memories from when Haley and Doug assaulted me worm their way back to the forefront of my mind.

The closer I get, the more tears well up in my eyes until they spill down my cheeks.

I can still hear myself screaming and begging for them to stop.

Begging God for mercy. God was not here, though, because this was hell.

Now, it’s just a shell of a terror-filled memory.

We leave the room and wander aimlessly. Huxley explains what rooms were dedicated to what, who stayed where, and how life was from day to day.

Eventually, we come to a familiar room, and more tears spill down my cheeks as I walk inside.

The floor is blood-stained and that brings a tearful laugh out of me.

“Is that blood?” Dad asks.

“It is,” Lance says. “Doug’s second in command was found dead in here.”

“I knew you killed him, Riah. I just didn’t expect so much blood,” Corbin says. “Good for you.”

“This is where,” Huxley starts to say.

“Where I was raped for three days straight. Where you were forced to have sex with me. Where you were raped,” I say.

“The rest of the church was found at the end of that tunnel, minus Doug and Richard,” Lance says as he looks at his phone. “They were all shot.”

“Damn,” I say.

“Mhmm. There is a ladder that led them out and to the surface,” he says.

I look over at Huxley, and he is staring at me. Everyone is watching us as he slowly backs me against the metal table where he once fucked me. When he grabs the back of my neck and tilts my head up with his thumb, Dad clears his throat. “Uhm… Corbin and I are going to go outside,” he says.

“Yeah… I’m… bye…” Corbin says as he and Dad leave the room. When the door clicks shut, I instantly panic. When I spin around to run to the door, Huxley wraps his arms around my body so that my arms are pinned under his.