Page 38 of Alphas Never Hide

“Idon’t scent anyone,” he said, confirming my brilliant deduction.

Henudged the door open to reveal a small room of shelves filled with garbage.Upended, empty boxes and plastic food wrappers were strewn across the surfaces.

“Thismust be how they hid from us for so long,”Haydensaid. “Theyhad food stockpiled.Lookslike they are getting to the end of their supplies, though.”

Thenhe peered into the hallway, one way, then the other.Hemotioned for me to follow him, as ifIneeded the reminder.Weexplored room after room.Wedidn’t find anything, andIcan’t sayIwas disappointed, especially whenHaydenhad talked about smelling death earlier.

Atthe first fork in the tunnel, we turned right.Ifwe continued to turn right each time, we should make it out again.Wasn’tthat the trick for mazes and labyrinths?Ihoped it was.I’dnever been in one before.Thenext door we found was closed, but the doorknob turned easily underHayden’shand.Assoon as it opened,Haydenfroze.Helooked at me.

“Youdon’t have to come in here,” he whispered, andIknew we’d found the place whereI’dbeen kept.Ishovedhim aside and walked in.Whenwas he going to figure outIwasn’t letting him leave me behind anywhere?Noteven in the hallway.

Iground my teeth together soIwouldn’t gasp or curse or scream.

Theroom, with its cage, looked the same as whenI’dleft it.ThepotI’dbeen given to piss in was still in the corner.Thewater bottlesI’drationed were in the other corner.Thebars protruding from the ground and the ceiling should have made it impossible for a faun like me to break out.Except, luckily for me, they hadn’t given nearly enough thought to the locking mechanism, which hadn’t survived being kicked repeatedly by a hoof.

“Yousee that?Idid that.Ibroke out of there.Ha!Fuckthem and the turtle they rode in on!”Ipointed at the broken bits of lock scattered across the ground.Inamongst the debris were chunks of my hooves and a few splatters of blood too.Mygaze skittered away from those.

“Goodjob.”Haydennodded.

Ididn’t need his approval, butIstill liked the acknowledgement that for once in my lifeI’dbeen badass enough to break out of a cage, all on my own.I’drescued myself.Iwasn’t a weak-assed dimwit in distress who needed someone to save him.I’dsaved my own damn self.FuckingA.Oorah, or whatever it was that marine dudes said in movies.WasIsaying that right?I’dnever enlisted, so what didIknow about those things?Fuckit.Iwas going to say it anyway.Oo-fucking-rah.

“I’mglad my head is tougher than that lock.”Helaughed, soIknew he was teasing me. “Youdid some pretty good damage in here.”

Igrinned back at him, feeling better about this whole situation thanIhad just seconds earlier.Weleft the room, andIdidn’t look back.

Behindthe next door, we found my backpack.Icouldn’t believe it.Iignored everything else and ran for it.Aquick search confirmed everything was exactly asI’dpacked it.Evenmy laptop was still in there.Fuckingawesome with coconut on top.Myphone and my shoes were beside my bag like they’d been tossed there and never looked at again.

Whenwe got back to town,Iwas buying a lottery ticket.

Ishoved my phone in my pocket, andItied my shoes to my bag.IfIhadn’t been wearing my hooves,Iwould have switched shoes right then and there.Itugged the backpack over my shoulders, and everything seemed right with the world.

Except…Mybackpack wasn’t the only one in the room.

Therehad to be at least another six or seven sets of belongings in here.Sonof a corn-filled turd.Thiswas bad.

“Let’sfinish our search,”Haydensaid. “Ifwe don’t find anyone else, we’ll come back and search forIDs.”

Inodded.Ihad no desire to rifle through someone’s belongings.Ifthey were caged likeIhad been, they’d been violated enough already.

Afterfinding the next several rooms empty,Iwasn’t holding out much hope of finding survivors.Ourluck didn’t improve.Whenwe arrived back at the place we’d started from—only making right-hand turns had worked—we decided we’d found all we would.Thecages had allbeen empty.Therewere no survivors, but thankfully there weren’t any bodies either.AtleastIhoped that was good news.

Thenwe doubled back to the room where we’d found my backpack.

Ieyed the heaps of other bags.

“Iguess we need to look through them.”Iswallowed.

Wecouldn’t carry everything back, but we couldn’t leave it here either.WhatifRobbiecame back and found his brother’s scent in the tunnels?Iwouldn’t put it past him to destroy everything.

Haydennodded. “Youcan stay outside if you want.Youdon’t have to do this.”

Iappreciated the offer, butIwasn’t standing out in the hallway by myself.Ididn’t care if the tunnel complex was empty; the place gave me the creeps.Thesooner we got out, the better.Ifwe went through the bags together, we could leave faster.

Itook my bag off my back and set it beside the door, thenIgot to work.Haydenstarted at one side of the room, andItook the other.

“Lookfor wallets, identification, phones, that sort of thing.Anythingwe can use to identify who this stuff belongs to,”Haydensaid.

“Itfeels wrong to go through their stuff,”Isaid asIdumped out a bag.