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I follow on her heels before I can talk myself out of it, not even daring to look down at the yawning drop beneath us. But the exhilarating rush of the open air clears my head, tuning out everything but the mission. We hit the opposing roof and clamber up, running in a low crouch to hide behind some of the large a/c pipes to the right. Lyssa sticks her head out for a moment, then signals the all-clear. I follow her across the helipad to the access door.
Lyssa doesn’t mess around. She just shoots out the lock and kicks the door open.
We pause there for a moment, looking into the empty black hole behind it before Lyssa steps inside, then glances back at me.
I step over the threshold and take out my gun, just as she has, and I follow her down the stairs into the darkness.
CHAPTER 8
Scarlett
The reek of decay is what I steel myself for as we breach the door of Grandmother’s abandoned high-rise hideout. But there’s no putrid stench of rot and death. Instead, an almost overwhelming stick of chemicals sears my nostrils and waters my eyes.
“Jesus,” I hiss.
“We cleaned up,” Lyssa murmurs, blinking hard as well as we both adjust. “The Syndicate doesn’t need any more heat right now so I made sure it was done right.”
“What the hell did you do, hose the place down with bleach?”
“Something like that. Now shut up and let’s move.”
We move in silent tandem down the concrete stairs, ears straining for any hint of sound or movement, but there’s nothing. And then we arrive at the penthouse.
The suite has been ravaged, furniture overturned and valuables stripped away with ruthless efficiency. “Was there a safe somewhere?” I ask Lyssa.
“Yeah. But it was emptied out, unsurprisingly.”
“I should…have a look through.” I don’t want to. I don’t want to ever look into that torture room again where I spent so many hours in misery—and then pulled my parents out of it, too.
Lyssa pauses, puts a hand on my arm to get my attention. “You up for that?”
I bristle at the implication that I’m some fragile thing that needs coddling. Hasn’t she seen how lethal I can be? “I’m not breakable.” I feed the spark of my own anger to keep the sick feeling of fear and revulsion at bay. “This place holds no power over me anymore. And finding Grandmother is what matters.” Without another word, I push past her into Grandmother’s bedroom, and head straight for the torture room.
It’s alright once I’m in. It’s worse in my mind than in reality, and especially now that I know I’m free, I can handle it.
Having Lyssa right there with me helps too, even if I snapped at her before.
“I’m gonna kill that bitch so fucking hard,” I hear her say under her breath as we look around the torture room.
But there’s nothing in here to find except bad memories. “She’d never keep anything in here anyway,” I point out. “This room only had one function.”
“Yeah. Her sick, sadistic pleasure.” Lyssa pauses, then says, “Sorry. I know this is tough. It was weird for me, too, the first time I…went back.”
“I feel okay with you here,” I say, then wish I hadn’t. “Come on. Let’s keep looking.”
We head down the stairs to the next level and keep on looking. Even my old “room”—if it can be called that—doesn’t bother me all that much. Why would it, empty and barren as all the other rooms? They were purposely interchangeable, just like all of us. For the first time I regret not getting to know the other trainees when I was here. It was never encouraged, and schedules were arranged so that we barely even saw each other. The guards would never allow chatter in the hallways, and the only other person I saw regularly, apart from Grandmother, was Ariadne.
I met the other trainees only during punishment or when we were pitted against each other for so-called training, which inevitably left each of us bleeding. And on one occasion I was called in with all the other recruits for something called a gauntlet.
That’s something I try hard not to think about. Something that I dream of in my worst nightmares.
But once or twice, I’d catch the eye of another recruit—another woman—in passing. And once or twice I swear I saw acknowledgment in the other’s face.
Acknowledgment that we all had our reasons for being here.
When we hit the training rooms level, my feet slow. Lyssa sees my hesitation as we pass the changing rooms, their metallic tang of old blood and stale sweat unleashing a flood of visceral recollections.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
