Hidden and Silent (SpyxFamily)

Ch. 19: Part Two

       Everything but the reflective paint and the highway immediately in front of Yuri was blackness and shadows, swallowed whole by the night with no stars or moon to highlight the trees on either side of the road. The pale, yellow cones didn't reach far enough for his liking and he strained his eyes for his turn, hoping he hadn't already missed it.

With no traffic in sight, he slowed as he scrutinized his surroundings and found his turnoff.

Yuri was not pleased to be returning to these roads and certainly not at night as if it was here just to make the experience creepier. The further he went, the more disrepair the roads fell into. For every turn he made, the foliage grew thicker and crowded the pavement just a bit more. Branches seemed to overhang a little further each time he looked up.

The road turned to dirt and Yuri slowed to the pace of a turtle as the last stretch morphed into what equated to a wide animal trail. Yuri jostled with each root and bump and somehow the forest floor was smoother when the path ended and he continued on.

Until the clearing.

The engine died with the twisting of the ignition, the lights faded, and Yuri was plunged into instant silence. He flicked on his flashlight and stepped out of the vehicle into chilling air.

The forest was unnaturally still. The sounds of nocturnal life were absent—of the owls hooting, small animals scurrying around. A fox sneaking through the brush. Not a snap of a twig or scratching on bark. The wind was near nonexistent, flickering the odd leaf as if reminding Yuri it was still there haunting the woods, and it was as if it had stilled for him. Watching him. Knowing what he was doing here. Daring him to do it and whispering things in his ears.

It ran shivers up his spine. Goosebumps blossomed on his skin and he wasn't sure if it was caused by the cold or the knowledge of what this place was. Of what had happened here.

Yuri's spot of light seemed inefficient after being used to the headlights, but he had turned off the car automatically, forgetting he wasn't done with it yet, and continued on anyway. He made do with the pale, blue circle that crawled on the ground in front of him until the ghostly light found it.

The doors.

Yuri ran his light along the edge and pulled a device that the SSS had confiscated from his pocket. He knelt and found the latch hiding on the doors' rim, and popped open the small, rectangular panel.

He fit the device into the socket and pressed a button.

The mossy dirt shifted and Yuri stood back as unmaintained metal groaned terribly and rose like jaws ready to swallow him. An abyss even darker than the night sky and the endless blackness of the forest opened before him and invited him in.

The wind gently moved through the woods in anticipation.

Yuri returned to the car. With another twist of the ignition, the engine roared to life, the headlights shone once more, and he drove into the abyss.

The tunnel was as long as he remembered and the lights striving to dispel the dark seemed pathetic in comparison. It stretched itself thin to wash over the concrete and with every second that passed, Yuri expected it to set on the end of the tunnel.

And it did a couple minutes later.

Unlike Yuri's first time here, the lights were out. The hangar was dark and Yuri didn't notice he'd entered at first. Using the headlights, Yuri took a slow lap around. All of the cars were gone. Taken away by the SSS and repurposed.

When the headlights found the box on the wall he was looking for, Yuri parked the car there, and went to it.

He opened the panel, yanked on the levers, and the hangar in all it's bloody glory was illuminated.

His sister's work.

Yuri was very proud of his sister. He always would be. When he learned she was an assassin, it eventually made sense to him. It was his sister after all. Who else was more capable? As strong? To know who to kill and who deserved it the most? And Yuri would always find her work here commendable.