Page 111 of Prey

The abandoned coal mine stretches into darkness ahead of us. Lucien mapped the tunnels six hours ago, confirming our underground route into the facility. Behind us, Raphael’s extraction team waits for our all-clear signal.

“Remember,” Nikolai’s voice is barely a whisper beside me, “children first. Always children first.”

I nod, checking my sidearm one final time. The weight of it should feel foreign, wrong. Instead, it feels necessary. These people stole children, broke them, turned innocence into nightmares, then weapons.

They deserve everything we’re about to do to them.

“Movement pattern is sweep and secure,” Nikolai continues as we advance through the tunnel. “You take left side angles; I take right. Anything that moves and isn’t under eighteen dies.”

“Understood.”

The tunnel opens into the facility’s basement after forty minutes of careful progress. Ancient coal dust mixes with the scent of fear and antiseptic—the particular smell of places where terrible things happen to vulnerable people.

My stomach clenches, but my hands remain steady.

“Basement clear,” Nikolai reports. “Proceeding to main level.”

The stairs creak under our weight despite our careful movement. I’ve learned to distribute my steps, to move like a shadow. Weeks of training with killers have taught me things no civilian should know.

The first-floor hallway stretches ahead, lined with doors that make my skin crawl. Each one could contain a child. Each one could contain a monster.

“Door one,” Nikolai signals.

I take my position as he tests the handle. Unlocked. He enters first, weapon raised, and I follow.

Empty office. Computer still running, coffee cup half-full. Someone left in a hurry.

“Clear.”

We move to the next door. Then the next. The facility feels abandoned, but Ezra’s thermal imaging confirms forty-three heat signatures inside the building.

“Door seven,” I whisper.

This one’s different. Heavier. The lock is electronic and requires a keycard. Nikolai produces one—lifted from the personnel file Marcus provided.

The door opens to reveal hell.

A child sits strapped to a chair in the center of the room, electrodes attached to his temples. Maybe eight years old, unconscious from whatever they’ve been doing to him. Monitoring equipment lines the walls, displaying brain wave patterns and stress responses.

My vision goes red around the edges.

“Jenna,” Nikolai’s voice cuts through my rage. “The child first.”

Right. Save first, kill second.

I move to the chair while Nikolai secures the room. The boy’s pulse is steady, but his breathing is shallow. Needle tracks mark his arms where they’ve been injecting him with compounds designed to break his mind.

“Hey,” I whisper, gently removing the electrodes. “Hey, sweetheart, you’re okay now.”

His eyes flutter open—brown, huge, terrified. When he sees me, he tries to shrink back into the chair.

“Please don’t hurt me,” he whispers. “I’ll be good. I promise I’ll be good.”

The words shatter my heart. I’ve heard them before, in my own voice, in my stepfather’s basement.

“No one’s going to hurt you,” I tell him, working at the restraints. “We’re here to take you home.”

“There is no home.” His voice is hollow, aged beyond his years. “They told me. There’s only here.”