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“Careful,” Dominic called.
Malakai was already inside.
Cursing under his breath, Max hurried after him, Dallas and Aspen right behind him.
The building—the Facility—looked like a tornado had gone through it. The place was littered with debris, most of the walls were smashed or blackened, and there were gaping holes in the roof. Sunlight streamed in through the holes, spreading patches of buttery gold across the concrete floor. It was cooler in here, though not by much.
Max couldn’t stop staring at the blackened walls. He swiped a finger across one and rubbed the chalky black substance between his thumb and forefinger.
Soot.
“Max?” Dallas called. “You might want to take a look at this.”
Glass and stone crunched and clacked under his feet as he joined Dallas and Aspen beside a big metal chamber.
Fire-resistant. An emblem of a flame was bolted above the door, and there were warnings in multiple languages—Ilevyn included—all over the exterior walls of the chamber.
Max called upon his Sight and checked for auras. There weren’t many here—they had likely been hidden as thoroughly as this building—but the few traces that remained were filled with such anguish, they nearly bowed his knees. He didn’t need to know who these people were to figure out that this here—this fire-resistant chamber—was a torture device.
He turned around to find Aspen studying a big aquatic tank nearby. The Reaper tapped a knuckle against a portion of glass that wasn’t shattered and said, “How much you want to bet that our blue friend spent a lot of time in here?”
Max turned again toward the fire-resistant chamber…
Maya. Gods—
The door creaked.
Max drew his gun. “Where’s Delaney?” he mouthed.
The girls didn’t have a clue. They drew guns of their own, and together they crept toward the front doors, Max taking the lead.
Max eased around the corner, the girls watching his back.
He pointed his gun toward the doors. Scanned the hallway.
Empty. The door was still swinging slowly, as if pushed by wind. Sunlight flooded the entrance, but no one was there.
Max was about to turn when something slammed into the side of his head—
Malakai sauntered through the second floor of the building, wiping sweat off his brow. Endless fucking sweat.
This floor was lined with dozens of cells. There were doors instead of bars, yeah, but it made no bloody difference. The place reeked of prison life. Malakai would know; he’d spent time in both Blackwater and Darkwater, but his sentences hadn’t stuck. There were numbers above these doors, the rooms empty apart from beds and desks. Abysmal. Depressing.
“If someone tried to bring me here, I’d kill ’em,” he muttered. “I’d kill ’em, and I’d do it slowly.”
Voices shouted up from the ground floor. Bullets cracked through the building.
Malakai stopped. Turned.
More bullets cracked. Someone shouted out his name—
Aspen.
“Shit.”
He took off running, footfall clapping against the walls. When he reached the crumbling staircase, he leapt off the top step—
Fire blasted his way—swallowing the space he was about to land in.
