CRYPTIC | completed

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END GAME
part ii
•

Chapter 12 - MAD CITY

~

My eyes were groggy when I woke up. A hand was on my shoulder. I frowned and opened my eyes. Luca sat next to me with an unreadable expression.

"You like oatmeal?" I frowned.

I mumbled a quiet "yeah" and looked around as I ate the plain oatmeal. It was dark, drab. A metallic odor filled my lungs. Old blood stained the hardwood closer to the closed door. The cold room was lit by a dim lantern's light.

I turned to Luca. "Why am I here?"

"I've told you. My employer requested you speak to him."

"Those weren't the words you said."

"What?"

"You said he wanted you to bring me to him. Why am I here?"

"He didn't exactly give me a copy of his plan, so that's for you to find out on your own."

Luca murmured a few words to himself. He got up and left the room, leaving with the door's click of it locking.

* * *

"The hell do you mean she's gone? You were on watch."

"She was there, quiet and unmoving. The next she had vanished."

Daxton did his best not to scream at the guard. Ash analyzed people and theorized how they could escape for a part-time job—it was no question she was capable of running away. But Daxton never thought she would be so—what was the word he was looking for?—foolish to run off while a killer looked for her.

He shook his head and paced the room. The guards had already searched the grounds for any clues of where she went. Not even a fingerprint was found. It seemed to Daxton that she became a ghost, too. Just like Luca was.

He shook the thoughts out of his head and looked at the window she crawled out of. He looked to the corner of the room to the camera. Of course, he thought, the camera's always on.

He moved to the computer just outside the concrete room and checked the footage.

"Shit." He shoved back his chair, angered. There was no footage on the cameras, it was all deleted by someone who did not have approval to do so.

An insider.

Daxton cursed once more and picked up his phone.

"Goddammit, answer me—hello? I know, it is urgent, believe me.

"He broke into the server."

* * *

"Why the hell does it smell like blood here?"

The group of six officers closed in on an old warehouse, graffiti covering the building. Abandoned trains and cars were discarded inside, rusting away.