Into Dust: The Industry City Trilogy - Book One

by Marlee P. Louis

  And then I screamed.

  There were too many hands on me to count, too many bodies pressing in as they carried me, frantically twisting and kicking, down the access road. Once they started, my screams didn’t stop, the terror of my situation pouring out of me. They gave up trying to silence me after the second hand came away bleeding. I forgot in those moments I was supposed to be causing a distraction. I forgot everything but the horror of fingers and the smell of unwashed bodies all grappling for a hold while I strained and fought against them. Deep in my mind was the memory of putting myself into this situation, of my role in it. I was bait. All of that, however, was hidden beneath an avalanche of instinct which told me to get free, to get away.

  To run.

  There was no running, though—not from this. Somehow, I’d always known that. Still, I kept screaming. The fear broke through my walls and flooded through me—owning me, stripping me down to the barest of fragments, until I was nothing but a trapped animal crying out my pain. They brought me to an unmarked door on the side of an outbuilding. Only then, when the crowd around me paused, did I bother registering my surroundings: overhead, the water tower loomed, and a chill ran through me when I saw they’d carried me much farther down the road than I’d realized. There were buildings all around, framing a large open area and connected by fragments of old pavement walkways. Everything that had once held life—grass, bushes, trees—was dead. The factory was huge. Alex could be anywhere. Gina, too.

  There came the creak of a heavy door opening and I caught a glimpse into the pitch-black interior of the room beyond. I forgot how to scream then, my energy going instead to a last-ditch effort to break free of their hands. I kicked out blindly, feeling the hard connect of my heel against flesh just before a hand swung in my direction, catching me fully across the face. Lights exploded behind my eyes and I tasted blood, the blow stunning me just long enough for them to throw me, unresisting, through the door and onto the gritty floor, slamming it behind me.

  For a long time, I lay motionless, waiting for the blaze of pain along the side of my face to subside, listening to the rumble of talking outside the door fade away. I didn’t know if I’d been the distraction we’d needed, but it certainly seemed like everyone within hearing distance had come out to see what was going on. I just hoped it had been enough.

  Finally, there was silence, though I still didn’t move. Instead, I listened, straining for any sound that might tell me if they’d left a guard outside the door, waiting for a shift of gravel underfoot or the clearing of a throat. There was nothing, although the realization of that was far less comforting than I would have thought—they left me alone. That meant they didn’t think I could escape.

  When I did move, it was to sit up slowly on the concrete floor. After my fight to end up here, my body was wrung out and empty. I ached all over, and I had no doubt I’d pulled every muscle trying to break free of them. My hands raised first to my face, gingerly exploring the split in my lip and a hard lump where my head had hit the floor. It hurt, but I was only grateful after being dragged the whole way that it wasn’t worse. I’d expected so much worse. I expected to be dead.

  I looked around then, but there wasn’t anything to see, save for the faintest outline of light around the door, serving only to selfishly mark its existence without allowing the light to penetrate the room. I moved towards it, pressing my back against the metal to stare into the blank space before me. I wondered if Ethan had checked the tracking on my phone yet. I’d had it off since this morning, and he’d probably given up trying to use it by now.

  I sunk down into my jacket, trying to find the feeling of safety that had always been there before, but there was nothing. The cold air seeped through the material and the ground was damp against my jeans. I couldn’t continue sitting there, motionless, but the blackness around me was pressing in, paralyzing me with the unknown. The thought of Gina somewhere in the factory was what got me moving again, though, and the hope that this insane plan of ours might actually work. I felt around the floor until my fingers found a small rock, then threw it into the space before me. It hit a wall and tumbled to the floor not too far away from where I sat, but it was still lost in the dark. Another rock, thrown at an angle—another wall and tumble to the ground. I knew I should search for a way out or something I might be able to use as a weapon, but I was still reluctant to leave my spot against the door, no matter how empty the room seemed. There was light where I was sitting, and the light was safe.

  I felt around for another rock, going on my hands and knees this time to find the biggest chunk of broken concrete I could before settling back against the door again, slightly twisted to press my ear against the metal, listening intently. I sat like that, frozen and wide eyed as I strained for sound over the pounding of my own heart and the ragged edge of my breathing, until I was certain there was no one around the door. Then, using my rock, I began rapping lightly on the door, methodically tapping out the secret signal code Gina and I had put in place: Jingle Bells.

  Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I stayed huddled against the door, away from the dark, my eyes fixed on the strip of light while I tapped. I tapped three renditions of the song, then paused to listen before tapping out three more. I stayed there until the strip of light began to fade as the sun passed by the door, and my tapping grew a bit more frantic, bits of concrete breaking off in my hand with the sudden force I put behind them. Once the light strip started to go, it did not linger, until there was only the faintest glow of hope left to focus on as continued to tap. I could feel the darkness pressing in and the wrap of it, cold and cunning, around my ankles, taking hold.

  “Avery.” The voice was close, my name coming in a rushed whisper.

  I froze. I hadn’t heard anyone coming. “Gina?”

  “They’re everywhere.” Her voice was soft, muffled through the door. “I can’t stay.”

  “No!” I scrambled to my feet, shaking the handle of the door. “Get me out!”

  “Be quiet,” she hissed. “I don’t know how to break this door open, and I haven’t found Alex yet. I need you to wait.”

  “Gina.” I tried to keep my voice even despite my growing panic. This wasn’t part of the plan. She was supposed to get me out, I was supposed to go with her. “Gina, please. You have to get me out of here.”

  “I will, I promise.” I could hear the doubt in her voice even through the door. “As soon as it’s dark.”

  I heard the grit of broken pavement beneath her feet that faded away, and I covered my mouth with both hands to keep in the scream, my eyes wide on the strip of light—standing like that until the shadows took over, and the light blinked out, and all that was left was darkness.

  I think I would have started screaming, eventually. Maybe that was all it really took to brainwash people into a cult—lock them away without light, throw them into solitary confinement and let insanity take them. The darkness would be glad to take them then, cracked open empty shells to be filled back up. Broken pieces will believe anything when they’re offered a chance to be whole.

  The fear was pressing in at me. I stood, waiting for Gina. Waiting for anything. There were occasional scurrying sounds from behind me. Mice, I guessed, or rats. I’d stomped my feet each time and the noise had stopped, only to start again a short while later. I had no idea what time it was, or how long I’d been in the room. I only knew that the light around the door was completely gone, and I was alone.

  I wondered if this was the same darkness that Carter felt. The same blank canvas of terrifying possibility. If he was as lost as I was. I tried to reach out to him in my mind, concentrating until my head began to hurt, imagining the sound of his voice outside, come to save me. We had a plan to get Alex and London, but there was no plan for Carter. I had no idea how to reach him, I only knew that I wanted him back.

  The tears came slowly, but once they started I couldn’t stop, and I dropped to my knees on the hard ground. Slowly I stripped off my jacket, balling it up in
my arms and burying my face into it.

  “Carter. Please.” I spoke into it, my lips moving against the rough material, choking back a sob. I was shaking, fear and panic threatening the small grasp I had left on my sanity. “Please fight,” I whispered. “Please help me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  * * *

  I heard the crunch of gravel outside and stood quickly, my jacket balled up and clutched to my chest. There was nothing to do but wait and see who it might be, and while I hoped it was Gina, I was at the point where almost anyone would be welcome if they got me out of the room. That feeling quickly faded, however, with the scrape of a key in the lock and the hard push of the door opening, revealing a moonlit exterior and three shadowed figures crowded around the entrance.

  “It’s time.”

  I didn’t need to see Girly-voice to recognize him, and my fingers tightened on my jacket, finding myself backing away from the door even if it meant stepping into the void behind me. “I want to talk to Lucus,” I told them.

  “Oh, don’t worry.” Girly-voice stepped into the room, his lanky form silhouetted by the faint light coming in from behind, “Lucus has been preparing himself for you.”

  There was something so off about his words that a slow terror filled me, and I stumbled backwards into the cell, uncaring now of what it might hold, until I came up hard against a wall of what felt like rough paper bags, stacked together. I pushed at them, my hands running over the surface blindly in search of an opening, but there was no give to it. Behind me I heard the crunch of their footsteps on the floor, coming closer, and I darted along the makeshift barrier until I found the solid wood of a wall.

  “Don’t make this harder on yourself than it needs to be,” Girly-voice said from somewhere to my right, his tone bored. Another man stepped through the doorway, hesitating before moving to the opposite side of the room from where I crouched, the void swallowing him after only a few steps. “Turn on the light,” Girly-voice sounded closer than he had been a moment before.

  “Didn’t bring it,” came the answering grunt. “Never had one run before.”

  “Yes well, Lucus wants her tonight, not in three days.” Girly-voice snapped, his words sending a chill shuddering through me. Three days. That’s how long they would have left me trapped. Three fucking days.

  I edged along the wall, feeling my way carefully while listening to their shuffled footsteps moving slowly closer to where I was. A man still stood in the open doorway, his leg bent against the door to keep it from closing. I was inching nearer to him when the scrape of a footfall right next to me caused me to gasp, and a hand shot out, fingers closing onto the jacket still bunched in my arms.

  “Gotcha,” came the grunt, and I stumbled back, my hands clutching at my jacket. He ripped it from me, and I heard it hit the ground.

  “No,” I cried, trying to dart past him towards it, and his arm came around my waist, lifting me nearly off my feet before I was slammed back against his chest, pinned there no matter how I fought.

  “No!” Girly-voice mocked, coming up beside us in the dark. I bared my teeth, trying to lash out at him, but the hold around me grew tighter, crushing my middle and cutting off my breath. It didn’t let up as he carried me outside with me while I frantically tried to work my hands between his arms and my ribs so that I could breathe.

  “Please,” I gasped, and his hold on me relaxed the tinniest bit—just enough for me to draw air. The door to the building slammed behind us and I twisted, trying to commit to memory where I’d left my jacket behind. It wasn’t easy; in the dark, all the buildings looked the same. There was a dead, splintered tree outside of the one they’d just pulled me from, however, and I locked onto that as I was hauled across a courtyard towards another building. This one was larger than the rest, looming above us as we came closer—at least four-stories of imposing brick, with monstrous wooden double doors set into the front. There was something odd about it, and as we neared I realized that the entire building was covered in the scrawled words and symbols that had been painted on my car and in the apartment next door, the same red spray paint bleeding down to stain the ground below.

  That wasn’t the only thing wrong with the scene before me, however, though in the dark it took me a moment to realize what I was seeing. The ground outside the doors was littered with strange misshapen lumps—people, I realized, as my captor began to weave his way through them. Some were sitting cross legged, others slumped over in heaps in the dirt. The men with me didn’t seem to register them as anything more than objects in their path, and several times I heard a groan of pain as someone was kicked out of the way. All of them, however, were facing the painted building, their eyes open and gleaming dully in the faint light. A single access door was set into the brick beside the massive double doors, guarded by two men with machine guns in their hands. I had stopped struggling by the time we reached it, my energy focused on trying to draw breath around the vice grip locked around my middle. The guards nodded to Girly-voice and opened the door with a rusted creak, revealing a dimly lit corridor beyond. A hoarse cry came up from one of the figures on the ground, which was echoed by another—ragged pleas of desperation coming from all around us when I was carried through the door and into the building. I didn’t have breath left to scream for Gina, though I knew she was still out there somewhere. I could only hope that she’d seen where I’d gone and that somehow, she’d still come back to save me.

  The door slammed behind us, cutting out all sound from outside with a dull ringing that resonated off the dirty brick walls of the narrow hallway. Through the tears blurring my eyes, it seemed as if the corridor stretched on forever, the massive shoulders of the man carrying me nearly brushing the walls as he walked, ignoring my feeble attempts to escape him. Girly-voice lead the way, and I stared weakly past him as another door appeared at the far end of the hall. This door was also painted red, the entire surface covered in the signature color of the Templars, and I instinctively knew it was the last door—the final door to my destination. A door I was not meant to return through alive. Unlike the other, it opened soundlessly on well-oiled hinges, and I caught a glimpse of the vast, yawning space beyond before the panic took hold of me again, blinding me to everything but the possibility of escape, the pain seared through my body as I fought uselessly against the arms pinning me, the man carrying me oblivious to the rake of my nails on his skin or the hammering of my heels against his legs. Then we were through, the door swinging closed behind us with the click of a lock falling into place.

  Trapped. I was trapped. That point was driven home by the sudden release of the arms around me, and I fell heavily onto the concrete, gasping for air. My ribs were agony and my lungs burned with every shallow breath, fighting the urge to throw up with the knowledge that I’d probably shatter into a million pieces if I did. There was a shift of the booted feet around me, the men drawing away to leave me slumped on the floor, alone.

  It wasn’t until I could draw a full breath that I was able to process my surroundings, blinking the tears from my eyes before raising my head cautiously to look around. I was in a huge open warehouse, the enormous double-doors framed at the far end. Narrow metal posts were set into the cracked and stained concrete, reaching up towards a ceiling nearly lost in shadow high above. Lights flickered on the walls, and I realized that fires had been lit throughout the room, flames rising from metal barrels that blanketed the air with a stifling heat. It was empty, save for a cluster of piled rugs in the very middle, circled around a single high-backed black chair. A man sat in the chair, sprawled lazily across the polished leather as if seated on a throne, and on his lap, her expression vacant on her battered and bruised face, was London.

  I tried to struggle to my feet, and the man lifted a finger. I heard the step of boots against the ground before one was planted on my back, shoving me back down onto the floor. My ribs screamed in protest and I struggled to free myself before realizing I was wasting my energy—if I wanted to get out of this, I was
going to have to play along. I let myself go limp, unresisting against the pressure on my back, and after a moment the foot lifted, allowing me to breathe again. I could feel him hovering beside me, waiting to see if I would stay down. When I didn’t move, I heard the footsteps retreat again, and I waited, not daring to raise my head again, unsure of what would happen next.

  “Welcome, Miss North.”

  My fingers curled against the ground. North. I remembered Ethan’s warning that the Templars owned the jail, but I’d assumed he’d meant the inmates. The fact that this man knew my name told me it went much deeper than that; Lucus must have had informants on the force, as well. For the briefest moment, I thought of Ethan, of how he’d blackmailed me into joining the Templars, but I dismissed it immediately. Ethan had saved me when I’d run from them, hidden me away when he knew they were looking for me. If there were dirty cops in Industry City, I knew in my heart he wasn’t one of them.

  Trembling, I looked towards the chair and the man sitting there, a feeling of disbelief flooding through me. He was shockingly handsome, and I stared openly at him, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. His skin was pale, but it suited him, bringing a stark contrast to the long black hair flowing past his shoulders, framing the strong rise of his forehead, high cheekbones and perfect, straight nose. His eyes were a light blue, startlingly bright beneath the dark arch of his brows, and his mouth, curved up at the corners, was mocking and inviting all at once with the hint of a smile. There seemed nothing dangerous or cruel about him, and yet, with London’s battered, fragile form laid limply across his lap, there was nothing kind or safe, either. He was an exquisite mixture of light and dark, his slender form wrapped in a thick black robe despite the heat, his bare feet stretched lazily before him. Every part of me ached with fear and pain, but I pushed it aside, gathering what courage I had left to speak.