章節 15: Under The Table (1)

The doors of the elevator slid open on the last underground floor of the base and Blake walked out with hurried steps. In that instant, all he cared about was getting the girl out of the place as soon as possible.

For someone like him, the floor was just like any other. But for a teenage girl, it might be too much. Even standing in the main corridor for a couple of minutes could give a grown up adult nightmares for days. He didn't even want to think about what it would do to a girl of her age.

Blake let his eyes roam around the empty hallway which was shrouded in darkness. The eerie silence which was lingering in the air, was enough to send chills running down a person's spine, but the twenty one-year-old boy wasn't fazed by it. Maybe it was the fact that he had grown up in the very place and knew his way around it like the back of his hand.

The sound of his shoes kissing the floor was the only thing which could be heard through the deafening silence. The metallic stench which ruled the air was enough to leave a bad taste in someone's mouth, though his steps never came to a halt.

On one side of the corridor, there were multiple rooms bounded by metal doors. Each one of them served its own purpose. The other side was bounded by a straight wall which only seemed to come to an end on the other side where it took a sharp turn to the right.

With a hastened pace, Blake made his way towards the rooms. After seeing the empty corridor, his fears were starting to get worse. He was regretting his decision of having the doors unlocked even when the rooms weren't empty. Knowing that they weren't really locked in a punishment cell and yet not being able to get out of the room itself, let alone the place, only added to his captives' misery.

But thinking about it now, he wasn't feeling much accomplished regarding it. His mind was rather filled with worries. He didn't even want to imagine what would happen if she might have found her way into the wrong room. A room where someone dangerous was being kept for the time being. Though he had his men assigned within every room, he was still worried about her seeing something indecent.

One after the other, he checked through all the rooms only for his eyes to be greeted by either darkness or a man chained to the wall with a number of his men 'looking after' him, who only recognized him with a couple of nods. They were just following the orders which were given by Blake himself.

As the seconds ticked by, the daunting feelings in his chest only grew. He stole a look at his phone's screen only to see that he was close by. At that moment, he wanted nothing but to fire his entire team which looked over the technology division. Since he was deep underground, the transmission signals were not strong enough to give him a pinpoint location.

"Damn it!" He exclaimed with frustration before putting the phone away. He knew that he was on his own. Once after the other, the sounds of door knobs being turned filled the corridor which were followed by loud creaking sounds as the doors were forced open.

After looking into six more rooms, Blake found himself standing at the end of the long corridor. With steady steps, he turned to his right and made his way towards the last few rooms which were left to check. This time, instead of checking the room in order to make sure that he hadn't missed any, he directly made his way to the door which was located at the far end of the corridor.

His steps came to a stop before the metallic door which had layers of paint scraped away from certain places. The scratches which followed the scraped off paint was proof that someone must have struggled against it.

Turning the knob slightly, he opened the door. HIs eyes wandered around the dark space as he allowed them to get accustomed to it. He already knew that the room would be empty. If someone was to be kept there for the time being, it wouldn't have happened without his knowledge as the room was different than the rest. It wasn't used just for extracting information from their captives, but also associated with rather more gruesome afflictions.

Seeing things turning out the same way as before, Blake was about to turn around and move to the remaining rooms. He had barely taken a step back when the sound of soft whimpers made its way into his ears. Though it was barely audible, it was still loud enough to get his attention.

"Is anyone in there?" He spoke up. His voice was loud and clear, but at the same time it was soft and mellow. It wasn't hard for him to tell who the person was, but he had no intention of scaring her anymore. For her to already be there was more than enough.

Because of the very reason, he had decided to come alone downstairs as soon as the gears in his mind started working. A bunch of people would have only scared the poor soul more.

"I am going to come inside, okay?" He added when he didn't hear a response. With slow and steady steps, he made his way inside, leaving the door wide open so that the light bulbs of the corridor could illuminate the bleak room until he turned on the lights of the room itself.

It only took him a couple of seconds to locate the switches. Without wasting any moment, he flicked them on. As soon as the room was filled with a pale yellow light, his eyes wandered around in search of the girl. To his dismay, they only landed on the blank walls and the grimy floor. But, his disappointment didn't last for long as his eyes ended up landing on the table which was placed in one corner of the room.