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“Don’t be so dramatic,” Elaine said from the threshold of the elevator.
She stepped to the rear of the lift as Michio and Blondie carried me in. The tray beneath me tilted with the cage, knocking me to my hip and punishing the bruises already there. I gripped the sides to steady myself, but when they dropped me on the floor, my face slammed against the wire wall.
Elaine smirked, her gaze glued to Michio. What a delusional bitch. Michio was clearly not himself, yet she looked at him as if the world’s most sought-out bachelor had consciously chosen her to be his queen.
The doors closed with a shuddering sigh, and the elevator descended. The space was large enough to hold twenty people, windowless, and illuminated with electric lights in the ceiling. Humidity clung to my face, and my ears popped as we sank into the canyon.
Elaine tucked her hair beneath the scarf, vanishing the black locks from view. “You’ll love it here.”
I wasn’t going to hold my breath for that.
She drummed her fingers on the ledge of her belly. “The dam is self-sustained. The water generates enough power to serve over a million people. It can run for like ever. Did you know that?”
Did she seriously think I cared?
She chattered on like I wasn’t sitting on the floor in a cage and reeking of unwashed misery. “We have plumbing and electricity. Plenty of food and supplies. It’s safe and—”
“Are there other women roaming around here like you? Or are they all in cages and chained to posts outside the dam?”
She paled, and her mouth pinched in a line, her eyes darting to Michio.
He stood in front of the other guy in the corner of the lift, staring blankly at the wall. God, it hurt to see him like that. I missed him. Missed him so damned much. How was I going to free him? Words hadn’t worked, and considering he didn’t trust me enough to carry me into the elevator without the cage, I doubted I’d get a chance to punch some sense into him.
I looked up at Elaine. “Where’s the Drone? I assume he’s our next stop?”
Her hand twitched against her stomach, her lips rolling between her teeth.
I stiffened. Despite her unkindness, she was still a person, an invaluable woman, who had also once been the sad girl I’d saved in the mountains. What had happened to her? Most often mean people were victims of abuse themselves, right? What if the Drone had harmed her? Broken her?
I climbed to my knees. “Are you afraid of him? Has he hurt you?”
She glanced at Michio, gave a slight shake of her head, and looked away.
The elevator dinged.
I was carried out into a dark, cave-like opening. From there it was a series of metal stairways cut through rock, more elevators, and seemingly miles of inspection tunnels. Interesting how they kept me in the cage. Either they weren’t taking chances with me escaping or they thought I was too weak to walk.
Walking would’ve been a challenge, given the sores on my feet, but my legs were strong enough. I was certain of that.
I continued to badger Elaine with questions, but evidently, she’d left her tongue in the elevator. She trudged along behind us, irritatingly tight-lipped, her gaze glued to the back of Michio’s head.
Dim lights illuminated the archway ceilings, the natural rock walls barely wide-enough to accommodate the width of my cage, and the ground slanted at a steep grade. It felt like I was in a maze, crisscrossing the interior of the dam. But my captors didn’t falter, turning each corner like synchronized puppets, gliding from tunnel to tunnel with Elaine trailing wordlessly behind.
It was cooler down here, with a slight cavernous breeze. The deeper we went, the staler the air became, tinged with an earthy, musty aroma, like limestone and old cement.
The sound of machines clanged in the distance, growing closer and reverberating through my body like aphid threads. A moment later, the final tunnel dropped us into a wide, brightly lit room.
My ears rang against the loud vibration of generators. Eight of them sat in a line, each the size of a yacht, cylindrical in shape, wrapped in metal sheets, and topped with massive steel rotors.
The room stood four-stories high, the concrete walls stretching to steel rafters. Grated overhangs offered walkways along each level, connected by metal stairs, all of which led to countless doors—presumably rooms—and more tunnels.
And aphids.
I’d thought those vibrations in my stomach had been caused by the whir of the turbine blades, but I saw them now, their spiny bodies creeping behind the generators and prowling along the walkways, their clawed hands gripping the railings.
Pupil-less eyes tracked our approach, their hunger pulsing through me in waves, but they remained at the edges of the room and out of our way. The Drone’s pets were always so well-behaved when he was around. Little did he know, I could blow them up with a thought.
