When we hit the front, Beau doesn’t hesitate. He raises the gun and blasts the door straight off its hinges. It buckles inward with a scream of wood and steel, smoke curling around the frame.
That’s when I see it.
“Wait.”
I grab his arm and yank him back.
A glint above the doorway. Mounted rig. Tripwire shotgun, hidden behind the molding.
“Fuck me,” Beau mutters.
I raise my Glock and fire twice.
The mechanism snaps. A deafening boom rings out as the rig fires harmlessly into the ceiling. Splinters rain down. The hallway beyond fills with smoke.
We move in.
Gunfire erupts immediately from the stairwell.
Two on the ground floor. One on the second.
Beau dives behind a column and returns fire with his backup Glock, forcing the two downstairs into cover. I go left, staying low, my side burning now.
The guy on the landing leans out to aim.
Bad move.
One shot to the head.
Beau keeps the downstairs guards pinned while I creep up from the side and take them both out with two clean shots to the back.
“Clear.”
“Fucking amateurs,” Beau mutters.
We keep moving, clearing each room one by one.
Every door opens to nothing. Every space is empty. We check, clear, and lock them behind us.
One hallway has blood smeared across the floor, with drag marks cutting through it.
There are no bodies.
Then we find the door.
It is heavier than the others, reinforced with steel brackets and bolted from the outside, like whatever is inside is not meant to leave. I step back, plant my foot, and kick hard near the lock. The frame gives with a sharp crack, wood splintering inward as the door bursts open.
The smell hits immediately.
It is a rancid blend of iron, bile, and decay that coats the back of my throat and makes my eyes sting. It smells like something has been opened and left that way for too long, like the room itself is rotting.
A chain rattles overhead.
I look up.
A body hangs from the ceiling by the wrists, suspended at an unnatural angle. The head lolls forward, chin dropped to the chest, mouth slack and open like she tried to scream. The shoulders are bare and slick with dried blood. The entire lower half of the body is gone, severed at the waist, as if someone carved away everything below and stopped when they were satisfied.
What remains of the torso is still leaking.
