Chapter 158: In the Shadows of Midnight 2

Micah’s POV

The girl’s nails scraped against the floor, her screams echoing off the bunker walls with a level of raw, agonizing terror that tore straight through my soul.

Nobody moved. Nobody stood up. Dozens of young men and women sat completely paralyzed in the dark, staring at the floor, silently thanking God that it wasn’t them.

I clenched my hands into tight, shaking fists, my fingernails digging so deeply into my palms that they broke the skin.

Tears of rage burned my eyes.

I hated this. I hated feeling this utterly, completely useless.

A part of me wanted to leap to my feet, tackle that guard, and tear his eyes out. But the cold, rational part of my brain held me down. I had no weapon. I had no strength. If I jumped in, I wouldn’t save her… I would just get myself beaten half to death or thrown into that room with her.

I shook my head violently against the darkness, biting my bottom lip until it bled, choking on my own shame as her desperate screams were dragged out into the hallway.

SLAM.

The heavy iron door slammed shut.

Her muffled cries faded down the long concrete corridor until the silence returned.

CLACK.

The mechanical switch sounded again.

The overhead fluorescent lights flickered once, twice, and then flooded the bunker in harsh, blinding white light.

Around the room, students slowly lifted their heads, blinking against the glare, letting out long, trembling exhales of relief. They were alive. They had survived another midnight selection.

I pushed myself upright, leaning heavily against the concrete wall, letting out a ragged groan. My entire body felt bruised, my ribs aching from the sheer tension that had locked my muscles.

I turned to Sunny, who was still trembling beside me, wiping tears from her cheeks.

“Why did they turn the lights off, Sunny?” I asked, my voice laced with bitter anger. “Why don’t they just keep the power on?”

Sunny swallowed hard, hugging her knees to her chest.

“So nobody can see their faces,” Sunny whispered, her voice hollow and defeated. “About a week ago, during the first week of abductions, a collegiate boxer was dragged out and assaulted by two of the guards. When the boss came back the next morning, the boy had bruises all over him. The boy pointed directly at the two men who did it.”

Sunny looked up at me, her blue eyes dark with memory.

“The boss didn’t even argue with them,” Sunny said. “He pulled out a handgun, shot both guards right in the head in front of everyone, and had their bodies burned in the furnace. He said discipline was mandatory. He said damaging the merchandise before the political ransom was paid was treason against the syndicate.”

A cold smirk tugged at the corner of my lips despite the horror.

That was Bernard. Ruthless, precise, and obsessed with perfection.

“So now,” Sunny continued quietly, “they turn the main breaker off before they come in. They choose someone in the dark. That way, nobody can ever identify which guard did it, and the boss can’t execute them.”

“Cowards,” I hissed under my breath, my chest rising and falling with pure disgust. “Miserable, disgusting cowards.”

I turned my head toward the heavy blast doors, my eyes narrowing into cold slits.

“They think they’re safe in the dark,” I muttered, my voice steadying with sudden, fierce confidence. “They think they can do whatever they want. Just wait until Noah and Damon get here.”

Sunny blinked at me, her brow furrowing with desperate doubt. “Micah, do you really think they can find this place? It’s buried underground. There are dozens of armed men—”

BANG!

The heavy iron door was violently kicked open!

The loud crash made everyone in the room jump in terror.

The girl who had been dragged away minutes ago was brutally hurled through the doorway. She hit the dirt floor with a hard, sickening thud, landing on her side, sobbing hysterically into her arms. Her clothes were torn, her hair a tangled mess, but she had only been gone for a few minutes.

Before anyone could move to help her, three guards rushed through the doorway behind her.

They weren’t laughing. They weren’t holding whiskey bottles.

Their faces were pale as ash, sweat dripping down their foreheads, pure, unadulterated panic radiating off their bodies.

One of them slammed the heavy iron door shut, throwing all three industrial steel bolts into place with frantic, trembling hands.

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!

The other two guards reached down to their tactical vests, violently racking the slides of their submachine guns and drawing heavy semi-automatic pistols from their holsters.

The guard stationed inside the bunker ran over, his eyes wide with shock.

“What the hell is going on?!” the interior guard demanded, pointing at the sobbing girl on the floor. “Why did you bring her back so fast?! I haven’t even had my turn yet. What happened out there?!”

The guard locking the door whipped around, his voice cracking in a high-pitched, terrified screech that echoed off every wall of the bunker.

“We’re under attack!” he screamed, his hands shaking so violently he almost dropped his rifle. “The exterior perimeter was wiped out in thirty seconds! The security gates are down! The vehicles in the hangar are on fire! All hands on deck! Every single man to the blast doors right fucking now!”

The words hit the room like a bomb.

The kidnapped students gasped, scrambling backward against the walls in a fresh wave of panic.

I slowly pushed myself up from the cold concrete floor, rising to my full height.

My heart hammered against my ribs, not with fear, but with a wild, roaring inferno of adrenaline.

The exterior wiped out in thirty seconds.

Vehicles burning in the hangar.

No police tactical team moved with that kind of terrifying, lethal speed. No government SWAT team bypassed surveillance grids like that.

Only two people in this entire city possessed that level of raw, unhinged violence.

A slow, vicious smile pulled at the corners of my lips. My eyes widened, a breathless laugh escaping my chest as I looked toward the barricaded doors.

I leaned down to Sunny and whispered:

“They are here.”