My Devoted Demons

Chapter 11 - Wrong Place, Right Time

Roman

We were pulling into the driveway of my ill-memory-ridden childhood home in my mom's white, Lexus SUV. It was nearly midnight, so I knew we had to get in and get out, with hopefully enough time to sleep before tomorrow.

The house was large and sprawling, stretching across acres and acres of land, its regal appearance making it seem more like a castle than a home.

We couldn't see much, but there were still a few lights on in different areas of the house, and there were lamps lining the sides of the paved driveway.

I slowly exhaled the breath I had been holding in my chest, and tried to clear the thoughts fogging up my mind.

We reached the garage doors and parked. I got out of the car, Caspian and Atlas trailing behind me, and opened the front door. I was confused as to why the front door would be unlocked, but when I stepped in and an on-duty guard gave me a single nod, I remembered that my mom told me she had alerted the staff of our presence.

After walking for a bit longer, we finally arrived at the door to the basement.

After I opened it, I stood before the stairs for a moment, completely still.

I'd been in the basement several times before, but this time felt different. I never liked to admit it, but I was terrified of my father. Terrified of what he could do, say, and make people think.

I hadn't realized how long I'd been standing there until Caspian rested a gentle hand on my shoulder and whispered, "Remember what your mom said."

At first, I didn't understand what he meant, but then a flicker of fearlessness lit up inside of me as I recalled the final words she'd said to me before we left. Get her out. 

I didn't waste another second as I placed a foot on the first step and rushed down the descending staircase.

It took us a while to find the weapons vault, but once we did, I slid the key into the lock and twisted it, all previous hesitation gone from my system.

There were guns, knives, bullets, and countless other types of artillery lining the walls and tables. Unease filled me as I realized that all of these deadly weapons were sitting right below my feet while I was growing up.

We each dispersed around the room and surveyed the items.

"Okay." Caspian cleared his throat. "Plan."

None of us were very well-versed in the world of weapons, so we honestly didn't know what most of this stuff even did.

The only thing we had going for us was that our sports kept our bodies in tip-top shape, which mainly meant that we had a decent shot at a hand-to-hand fight and would hopefully be able to keep it up for a long enough amount of time, or at least until our opponent got tired.

"I can grab some bulletproof vests," I offered.

Caspian nodded. "Good. I'll stash some knives, and Atlas, can you get a couple of guns?" 

Atlas said nothing and simply turned around to pick up a few hand guns off of a table. Ever since his slightly erratic behavior when he had first found out that Gwendolyn was missing, Atlas had been growing quieter and quieter. I'd never seen him like this before. 

It was usually me that got pegged as the emotion-bottler, but this new side to Atlas made me wonder if maybe he was the most like an iceberg out of all of us, keeping most of what he was thinking and feeling hidden away beneath the surface and picking and choosing the facial expressions he allowed himself to display.

I locked my eyes onto Caspian's and shared a knowing look with him. Atlas needed our angel more than we'd realized.

After a second, Caspian and I each turned and gathered our respective items.