With my scalpel barely touching anything it seemed, I cut through a layer of underlying muscle. There was a fascinating, yet sickly squelching sound as they separated. Beneath them was a bleached white set of bones. My eyes traced over their grooves and hollows.
And then I saw it.
“You see that?” I asked Mel to confirm I wasn’t high off noxious body fumes.
“Yeah,” she croaked, fixated on what was busted wide open in front of us.
A piece of plastic was indeed inside of Mr. Wendigo. I sat the scalpel aside, and with slightly shaking hands, ignoring the way my nose hairs were burning from his body’s stench, I reached down into him.
I should’ve asked for someone to find me a pair of gloves, but we’d wasted enough time as it was. There may not have been a countdown going but one of my best-friends was still trapped in this shithole somewhere.
I felt muscles and inner skeletal frame against my fingertips as I dug deeper within him. My heart was pounding so loud I could hear it in my ears, adrenaline was flowing through my veins.
“Got cha,” I breathed, finally, grasping the key card between my fingers.
It came from right between the ribs, like a butterknife slicing through butter. Once it was all the way free, I let the scalpel go and rose to my feet, using my forearm to wipe my nose and eyes again. There was blood and body fluids all over my hands and wrists, dripping in excess.
“Here.” Dion ushered me towards the back of the room where a large metal sink sat against the corner wall.
I rushed over and stuck my arms beneath the cool stream of water. Globs of blood and fat coated the metallic red. I scrubbed myself quickly, rinsing the card as well before swapping places with Mel. There weren’t any paper towels in the dispenser, so I used the bottom half of my shirt.
“You good?” I asked as soon as she stepped away from the sink.
“Yeah, let’s go find our girls,” she replied.
“Follow behind us,” I said to Dion, already heading for the door.
I didn’t pay any attention to Morrigan. She was his priority to worry about. Not to mention she still seemed pretty out of it and that would only slow us all down.
Mel and I hit the hall and immediately went to the right, taking another turn a few steps later. Doors were on either side of us now. All shut tight with glass block windows.
“Check left. I’ll check right,” I dictated.
The first two doors I checked were definitely not Grace. One had a completely naked man sitting on the edge of his bed and the other had an older woman lying on the floor staring up at the ceiling.
Dion had claimed this place wasn’t meant to resemble a prison, but isn’t that precisely what it was? People were put in here to rot. Or they were used as a founding families sacrificial lamb for this fucked up game we had been forced to play.
We could very well be one of the same, but at least we weren’t locked inside a goddamn insane asylum.
“What’s this girl look like?” Dion asked, a few paces behind us.
“She’s got dark blonde and brownish colored hair. Hazel eyes. Some tattoos.”
“Fourth door on the right,” Morrigan informed us in a softly spoken voice.
“You know who we’re here for?” Mel questioned, turning to look at her.
“I was in the room across from hers.”
“What about a redhead? Have you seen her too?” I called over my shoulder as I jogged to door four alongside Mel.
I didn’t hear her reply. Or maybe I did and blocked it out because the moment I saw Gracelyn I felt like bursting into tears. I scanned the door until I found where to insert the key card, swiping it like I would a debit card. A light flashed from red to green, and a lock audibly came undone.
Mel slid the door open and barreled into the room first.
I caught myself halfway over the threshold before doing the same thing. I didn’t trust the door not to slam shut and lock all three of our asses in here together.
“Thank fuck!” Gracelyn exclaimed.
She jumped off the small bed she’d been sitting on, taking the two of us in with glassy hazel eyes.
“I didn’t know what happened to you guys,” she said with a sniffle.
“Don’t start falling apart on us,” I replied jokingly. I looked her over from head to toe, another weight flying off my chest when I saw she wasn’t physically harmed. The straitjacket had to go, though.
“Get this damn thing off me, please.” She turned so that her back was to us.
“Why are you even wearing that?” I asked.
“I tried to fight the assholes that tossed me in here,” she disclosed nonchalantly.
Mel quickly removed the hideous garb and it fell to the ground, revealing that she was wearing the same getup as us. I moved out of the way so that they could cleanly exit, keeping ahold of the door just in case.