room to the left. If there’s no electricity, she won’t have a view. Go right. The upstairs area circles almost all the way around the arena, so you’ll be able to trap them. The only way out is down the stairs and through the tunnel.”
The van slowed to a stop, and Shepherd turned it off before shifting in his seat. “Suit up, everyone. I brought an extra bag of weapons. Stunners, stakes, and a few guns.”
Gem wrung her hands. “If we trap those people, they’ll have to cooperate.”
Wyatt found another network connection. “Ever tried to corner a feral cat?”
“I don’t want to hear your cat story again,” Shepherd bit out. “If there are people down there, we can’t let them know how many of us there are. Make them think we got Regulators topside.”
Blue got up and joined Niko. “Looks like we’ve got a lot of stairs, amigo. You wanna just follow my light trail? Once we’re inside, the layout is simple.”
Niko drew a black hood over his head. “Hand me three stunners and two stakes.”
Blue opened the duffel bag and began passing out weapons like candy. They were all sheathed and attached to harnesses or clips. Since Green Door was a Breed club, weapons were permissible, but everyone still did their best to conceal them beneath their cloaks. Shepherd had an arsenal inside his modified leather jacket.
Wyatt pulled up screenshots of Audrey and Pablo. Then he held up the laptop like a teacher showing his students a picture book. “Take a good look. These are your primary targets. Audrey’s a Sensor, so that shouldn’t be hard. The short guy’s a Mage. If any of you turn into ghosties, don’t you dare follow my ass home. I don’t have time to deal with your afterlife drama.”
Shepherd opened his door. “Let’s roll.”
Everyone piled out of the van except Viktor, who hopped behind the wheel. Wyatt climbed into the passenger seat, and they sped away from the club.
He looked at the video and saw Raven standing in front of a cage. Inside, Wyatt could make out the shape of a man, but the image was grainy and dark. Inventors in the Breed world had made huge advances in technology, allowing Wyatt to get his hands on a video camera that worked virtually anywhere. Now that they had enough evidence, they could take down this organization. All Keystone had to do was capture the ringleaders and stay alive.
Wyatt closed the lid on his laptop to preserve the battery. “They’re holding people against their will. Do you realize how long I’ve been trying to crack this case? I’ve been hearing rumors about organized death matches for years, but I’ve never been able to get a scrap of evidence. This is it, Viktor. The big one.”
“They shouldn’t have left bodies in the open.”
“Even so, leaving a few corpses lying around wouldn’t guarantee we would have found out about their secret death matches. Pure luck. This stuff is so covert that I’ve heard about people who went missing after asking too many questions.”
Viktor reached in his pocket and handed over his phone. “Call Christian. I want him here. Give him the address to the gallery.”
“Isn’t he on a job?”
“Not anymore.”
Chapter 28
The moment Audrey shut the door, locking me in the arena, I knew I was screwed. How would Keystone find me all the way down here? I’d told Wyatt everything about the facility, but neither Pablo nor Audrey had hinted to a secret chamber. I’d thought that slide was taking me straight to hell. And as I stared up at the masked faces looking down at me, I began to wonder if I’d gone there after all.
The spectators stood shoulder to shoulder in black robes. Some of the masks were solid white and looked like a mold of someone’s face. Others were silver, gold, and a few shaped like animal faces. It was unclear if this group knew each other, but they definitely wanted to hide their identities from the fighters.
Despite the cool air, sweat trickled down the back of my neck. I noticed things I hadn’t earlier, like the blunt end of the club on the wall had bloodstains from those it had bludgeoned. And a white tooth was wedged inside a crack in the floor. The crowd murmured as they got their first look at me. Had they been there all along, hiding in the shadows, and I hadn’t noticed? Probably. I remembered how the air felt charged when I first came in, like