Page 38 of Evil Villain (The Royal Court)
He opened his eyes and blinked a couple of times. “I hadn’t slept or eaten in like two days.” He looked at me. “I can’t really remember. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I replied.
“I mean, we can just do some spatial deduction from this point anyway,” Kyle said. “Although we’re a little far from the original building.”
“Oh!” I yelped, then turned around and ran back to where we found Brayden’s blindfold. “Brayden,” I called. “It’s not that you don’t remember. You went too far.”
Everyone came back to where I was as Brayden asked, “How do you know that?”
“You said before that they just sort of dropped you and eventually you pulled your own blindfold off, right? You didn’t walk for that long blindfolded.” I pointed at the doors nearby. “The first building he led us to is over there, but maybe there’s an underground tunnel or something that led here.”
“That would be very like my dad,” Nathan said.
“He walked pretty confidently up to the end of the block,” Kyle said, and then put his hand on a door right near the corner. “Here maybe?”
Brayden looked down the brick wall and then his eyes widened. “Yeah! It’s that door! It opened to the right. I remember bumping against the open door frame on the left side.”
“He’s right,” Nikita said. “The rest of these doors look like they open the other way around.”
Jaxon walked over to the door Kyle was standing near and started to fiddle with it. Kyle and Brayden watched over his shoulder, and I did a quick cursory glance for any onlookers or cameras. Security was low in a place like North Postings, I knew all too well, but I still wanted to be able to see if someone was coming.
Eventually, Jaxon managed to get the door free and opened it. Brayden stepped inside and then back out. “This is it. I remember going upstairs. Two flights.” Jaxon pulled a gun out of his waistband and held it up as he led the way in, and we all filed in behind. Nikita propped the door open so we wouldn’t somehow get locked in, and then we followed Jaxon and Brayden down two flights of stairs. “There were lots of hallways,” Brayden said. “Twists and turns, but there will be a door first.”
We got to the bottom of the stairs and all stopped dead in our tracks. All at once, each one of us deflated entirely. It wasn’t that there were no twists and turns.
There was nothing at all. It was a big, empty room that stretched in all directions for probably two blocks.
“Do we have the wrong place?” I asked.
Nathan shook his head. “No. We’re in the right place. My dad just made sure it was totally cleaned out before he moved on. Even had the walls torn down. That’s just like him.”
“He tore the walls down?” I asked. “That’s excessive even for him. Are you sure?”
Kyle walked a little further into the room and pointed down. There were bright lines cutting through the floor, dividing it into halls and rooms like some sort of blueprint. “Here’s where the walls used to be. The dirt and grime is significantly less here.”
Nathan looked at me. “You shouldn’t underestimate my father. We wouldn’t be in this position if he wasn’t a lunatic.”
“So what do we do next?” Brayden asked.
“Nothing,” I replied. “We just hit another dead end.”
14
Deon
“You have to go get the fire extinguisher!” I screamed at Felicity. “Hurry up! Everything is burning to the ground!”
“I don’t know where it is,” Felicity barked back.
“On the counter over there! Hurry!”
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”
“Felicity!” I screeched.
“Shut the fuck up! I’ve got it! Move so you don’t catch on fire.”
On the screen, big, bright red letters that said ‘mission failed’ appeared. I turned and looked at Felicity, who was still flicking the button on her controller that operated the fire extinguisher as if we hadn’t already lost.