Page 5 of Warrior

He doesn’t stop there, though. There’s another door farther down, painted black to match the wall. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed it before, but he seems familiar. He goes and yanks it open, and the squeal of hinges fills the alley.

I check back at the mouth of it, ensuring no one sneaks up on us, then follow him and Kade inside.

I’m not expecting a short set of stairs down, then a long, sloping hallway. It’s in much worse condition than anything at Bow & Arrow.

“Where does this go?”

“To Terror,” Reese answers.

Again with that name. When Tem said it, it was offhand. Easy, in a way, but more of a brush-over than anything else. Reese says it with a lot more warning in his voice, as if the idea of it makes him sick.

And Apollo said it was a guise for a sex trafficking ring.

One that Artemis was in.

My gut twists. She didn’t let us home in on that in the moment, and like an absolute fucking idiot, I let it go. Kade, too. We trade a glance, for once setting aside the fact that we’re on opposite sides.

That Kade got Artemis into this position in the first place.

You don’t just give the girl to the bad guy.

We reach another metal door, and Reese pauses. He takes a moment, mumbling something that I don’t catch, then carefully opens the door. This one is a lot quieter, and we step into yet another hallway.

This has many doors on either side, and the bulbs overhead flicker. The air is stale, and an insidious feeling overtakes me.

We shouldn’t be down here.

I glance into one of the open doors, shocked that the room inside resembles a jail cell. Worse, though, because it doesn’t even have a bed. Just a dirty, hole-filled pad on the floor. A knocked-over bucket. A single light bulb.

Others are closed, the deadbolt on the outside of each keeping them locked.

Sex trafficking has to keep them somewhere, a little voice in my head whispers.

I’m not the only one horrified. It seems like Kade hasn’t seen this place either. We follow Reese down, and I’m still fucking confused at his involvement. Tem was scared of him in the beginning.

“Were you a guard?” I ask.

He shakes his head, then presses a finger to his lips.

Right. Silence.

There are voices farther ahead. We pass what seems like remnants of a doctor’s office, although the room’s been trashed. There’s broken glass everywhere.

Reese looks at Kade. Motions him ahead of us. The voices are louder now, but Kade just scowls and nods.

He takes the lead and rounds the corner.

“Well, well,” a voice calls. “What are you doing here, brother?”

I exchange a glance with Reese.

They’re fuckingbrothers?

This can’t be good.

2KADE

“Well,well. What are you doing here, brother?”

---