Page 96 of Warrior

And yet, I can’t stop. I continue past the amphitheater and almost breeze past a door hidden in a recess. I hadn’t noticed it before, when we were carting Artemis and Antonio out of here as fast as we could.

Or before, when I took a moment to remember the horrible feelings I held every time we came here. I just wanted to understand it, and Tem’s reaction to seeing me for the first time in nearly a decade. But instead, if left me more confused.

The door is stuck. I kick at it until the hinges fail with a loudcrack, and a cloud of dust puffs out of the room.

It’s a storage closet, from the looks of it. Small, cramped, dark. There are boxes stacked pretty much everywhere, leaving only a narrow space to step into the room.

Which I do, because I am the cat that curiosity will no doubt kill one day. But Kade used to say I had nine lives. A few are surely gone after a harrowing deployment, though. And now the recent interactions with Gabriel.

I shiver.

It’s not cold down here by any means, but… I don’t want to think about where Gabriel made me go. While I was in an in-between state.

Instead, I flip one of the lids off a box and pull out the first folder my fingers brush. I steady my light, aiming it at the first page. There are two photos—one professional shot of a young woman, some sort of portrait. The other, she’s naked.

My throat closes, and nausea rolls through me.

It’s a personal record on the first page. Age, weight, height… hair color, eye color. Address. Even her parents. Behind it are handwritten notes.

Patient 52Y presents as a virgin. Hymen is intact. Patient required sedation for further examination…

I snap it closed, then grab another file.

Another woman, then another. Finally, I just… I stop.

There’s got to be fifty folders in this one box.

And there are a dozen more boxes.

My stomach cramps. I stumble out of the room, just barely rounding the corner when my dinner reemerges. Onto the floor.

I can’t even remember the last time I puked, but I do now remember why I try to avoid it at all costs.

Except for the horror my imagination is creating and running away with, it’s hard not to stay hunched. I wait for the second wave of nausea to roll through me, and I swallow sharply a few times.

They’re just boxes.

Even if they contain ghosts… we’re compartmentalizing.

Boxes.

Paper, cardboard, dust.

I carry them out three at a time, my muscles straining. I put them in the bed of my truck, parked in Artemis’ usual spot. I didn’t want to drive her car again and incite the Hell Hounds. That Malikai is one angry fella…

No, thanks.

I make four more trips, filling the truck bed completely. I roll the cover across it and grimace. It will protect the pages, and the sky overhead is clear. The stars glitter brightly, all signs of the sun long gone. There’s no chance of rain, although wind could do a number on it.

The last thing I need is to lose this miraculously found evidence of Terror.

On the way home, I’m rerouted. Road closures near the center of town, with firetrucks lining the sides of the street. I coast through an intersection and look left toward the university. Just beyond my vantage point, smoke catches a familiar orange-and-yellow glow of flames.

Someone in a high-vis orange vest spots me and heads in my direction.

I roll down the window. “What’s up, man?”

“House fire,” he explains. He has a tattoo on his face. A black X marking out one of his eyes. “There’s some worry about the gas line, so the trucks have been ordered back.”

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