Cally took that as the all-clear, braced herself, and headed in.
The room was a charnel house, with a dozen Order soldiers strewn across the floor, every lifeless body a testament to brutal violence. She tore her gaze away and focused on Nico instead, who stood in his clear-walled cell, eyes red with rage.
Antoine rapped it with his knuckles, testing its strength.
Nico’s gaze fell on Belle. “You!”
She rested one hand on a cocked hip. “Just here as an impartial observer.”
“This is ironic, isn’t it?” Antoine said. “I had intended to kill you, but there’s a poetic justice to leaving you in a box. No chains, no water, but… it will do.”
“I will get out.” Nico thumped both hands against the polycarbonate, and it thudded dully. “One day, Antoine, I will get out.”
“Entomb youthenkill you?” He pretended to ponder. “I find that idea agreeable.” He turned to Cally, gesturing at a man unconscious at Belle’s feet. “Is that Darian?”
“No! You can’t leave me in here!” Nico banged the wall again.
Even face down, Darian’s finer clothes gave him away. “Yes, that’s him.”
“Excellent. Let us take him somewhere quiet.”
“Antoine!” Nico yelled. “Lady Belle, this is unjust!”
“Impartial observer, remember?” She dragged Darian behind her by one ankle, as if he weighed nothing, his head bouncing against the floor.
“I will have my revenge, Antoine!” Nico shouted. “I swear, I will find you!”
“Now I regret removing the door,” Belle lamented, as Nico’s screams of rage followed them down the corridor. She released Darian and wiped her hand on her torn dress. “What do you want to do with him?”
“Eve first,” Antoine said, eyeing his unconscious form like a wolf sizing up a juicy steak. “Then we’ll come back for him.”
There was one more floor, and only two Order soldiers remaining. Belle had dispatched them before Cally reached the bottom of the steps, and she ignored their bodies as she ran to the door of their room, sliding back the bolt.
“Eve!”
She was sitting on the bed fully dressed, and jumped up as Cally entered. “What the hell is going on? Did I hear gunfire?”
“Are you hurt?” Cally cried, pulling her into a hug. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said, patting Cally’s shoulder. Then she drew back, her smile faltering as it formed. “Holy fuck. What happened to your face?”
“This is your Eve?” Belle said from the doorway. “I saved her!” she declared with genuine delight. “Now she owes me a visit.”
“No, Belle,” Antoine said firmly.
“They didn’t torture you or threaten you?” Cally asked.
“No, they just left me in the room,” Eve said slowly. She took in Belle’s ripped dress and blood-stained appearance, half warily and half in shocked fascination. “What did I miss?”
“Not quite everything.” Antoine headed off back down the corridor.
They retraced their steps with Eve wide-eyed at the destruction, her hand clamped over her mouth. Darian waited where they’d left him, still out cold. Antoine plucked him from the ground, and as he did, Darian’s phone fell from his pocket.
Eve picked it up. “Locked. There must be something useful in here.”
Cally looked at it speculatively. “Do you think we can get a passcode out of him?”
“What a convenient excuse,” Antoine said. “Where did he interrogate you,ma chérie?”
