AllFreeNovel
Share Us
There were feeds from multiple rooms, all housing people behaving in what one could only call irrational ways.
“They’re trying them on people,” Lucero said, still unable to recover from the shock. “I thought the forced labor was awful but this… What is that person doing?” The last question was uttered in a low voice as they watched a man hit his head repeatedly against a wall.
“I don’t know what they’re doing, but we don’t have time for this,” Noelle suddenly said. Looking at the clock, she brought her teeth over her lower lip, nibbling at it as she did a quick calculation in her head. “They will soon find the sleeping guard and someone will come here. We need to grab what we came for and leave.”
“But…” Lucero was about to protest, and Noelle knew well enough what she was going to say. Her friend was too empathetic for her own good—sometimes painfully so. Noelle recognized it as a nice quality to have, but only when you lived in an ideal world where your safety was not so precarious. Yet Lucero could not stop herself from wanting to help others.
“Not now,” she said dismissively as she turned her attention back to the files, scouring through them and scanning the list of drugs housed in the factory.
“Shit,” she cursed, her eyes widening. “They aren’tjustmaking drugs, Lucero,” Noelle said as she scrolled through a document. “They are experimenting withnewones.”
“What?”
“Look,” Noelle pointed at a screen. Lucero blinked as she struggled to read the words. She wasn’t very proficient at reading since she’d never had enough practice growing up.
“I don’t understand.”
“These are all different trials. This one,” she pointed to a column, “has a different list of ingredients than the other one. They’re trying to create another drug by mixing a bunch of others.”
“Can you find what we’re looking for?”
“I’m trying,” Noelle pursed her lips, typing different names for the drug into the database.
She couldn’t claim to be any expert in the subject, but she’d watched a lot of shows and read plenty about mainstream drugs.
“I can’t find any LSD,” she ground her teeth in annoyance when her search came up empty. “Let me try something else,” she murmured as she typed in the name of another psychedelic.
“And bingo,” she breathed out in relief when she found something. “It says it’s stored in room twelve, whatever that may be.”
“I think I may help with that,” Lucero interjected.
Noelle’s eyebrows went up in question before she followed to where Lucero was pointing—a map of the building.
With a wide smile, Noelle jumped off the chair and laid a loud smooch on Lucero’s cheek.
“I love you,” she added effusively before turning to study the map.
It took her a moment to familiarize herself with the layout, but once she was confident she could do it, she asked Lucero to stand guard at the entrance and look out the window for anyone approaching the factory.
Noelle hurried down the corridor as she looked for the right room.
There were a multitude of doors on each side, and she assumed that was where the test subjects were housed. She was curious about that, but she had a goal and she couldn’t let herself be distracted.
It took her a little longer than she would have wished to find room twelve. As it happened, the laboratories were underground, hidden from view. Yet as she found that piece of information, Noelle realized that all of the upper floors must be for experiments, which meant there must be even more rooms with test subjects.
Over the time she’d been at the hacienda, she’d had to accept that there were awful things happening around her that she had no control of. But somehow knowing those people were less than a few steps away from her made her falter—especially when sheshouldn’tfalter.
Wasn’t everyone on their own? She was fighting for her own survival, she couldn’t afford to care for anyone else. She imagined Lucero would rather help them than help herself. But that wasn’t Noelle. Not even when her heart ached at the images that replayed in her mind.
She had her purpose—one that was above herself, because though she fought for her survival, it was more than just a selfish purpose. It was more than the human drive for self-preservation.
No, Noelle was fighting for Blue. And the only way she could get to him—the only way she could find out what had happened to him—was if she had the resources to do so.
She needed to get to the top.
Though the journey might be fraught with unspeakable dangers and choices that would compromise her morality, she’d already decided that she would stop at nothing to get to him.
That was her life’s mission.
