Aguero ran through the streets of the red zone at full speed to catch up with Navia, remembering the president’s order to have an eye on her. “She seems reasonable. The president might have the wrong idea of her… I’m going to watch her, but I want to help too.” As he expected, Navia didn’t wait for him as he saw the busted doors to the storage house.
“You finally arrived…” The crispy voice echoed between the walls of the empty building. Danavan Slot didn’t leave the chair, but his hands were slightly shivering; each breath brought him more shivers. He was practically shaking without a second to rest.
“Who are you?” Asked Aguero, slightly lifting his hands up and looking around the room for any kind of trap.
“I’m the only one here. As for who I am… You could say I am an enemy of Belver Markiz, maybe even his whole sick family…” Davnavan began coughing, finally spitting a bit of blood out of his mouth. “I don’t have much time left, so I thought I would help you with getting him.” Danavan moved his sleeve to check the watch on his wrist. “If you’re looking for the fierce woman, she should be at his mansion already, and Belver might be close to death…”
“Why did you help her?” Something was odd about the whole situation for Aguero. He couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but the man was suspicious and at the same time honest.
“I don’t care if Belver dies or gets hurt, if he suffers, then I am fulfilled, but there is a second reason. Beneath his mansion is a ‘cage’ as he calls it. Prioson for the slaves he likes to torture. My brother is there… I don’t know if he is alive or not… But I want to save him. So if you would be so kind and bust the gates open for me?” That devious smile Danavan had on his face didn’t leave him; he knew that Belver was suffering right now, and he couldn’t stop smiling because of that fact.
“You’re crazy…” Whispered Aguero, slowly backing toward the exit.
“That’s true, but he is the reason I am that way…” Answered Danavan, unsure if the elite guard heard him, but it wasn’t his intention for him to hear it; it was more of a statement to himself.
“And he is gone… I was hoping to drug him like the woman… If it works out, Belver will be dead.” The potion given to Navia not only revealed a path to the vault but also slowly poisoned her mind to make her even more aggressive. Danavan did that to make sure the man would suffer. “If he doesn’t open the gates for me, I’ll take the path from beneath.” Danavan stood up and slowly walked toward the ladder to the underground tunnels.
He walked the same path Navia did to reach the bunker. The devious smile came back as he saw the dead guards and a trail of blood leading to the vault. “The lioness is not enough to describe her. Even a lion wouldn’t make such a massacre. A devil, maybe?” Entering the vault, he looked around, taking a look at each damage, being surprised by a long carved line on the wall where the map of the zone used to be. His eyes slowly moved to the corner where he saw unconscious Matilda.
“She left you with a nasty wound…” Whispered Danavan as he kneeled in front of the baroness. Her left arm was cut off from her body. “I don’t want our leader to die… This should help.” Danavan took out a syringe with yellow liquid and he inserted it into her shoulder. The bleeding slowed down, and he wrapped the wound using part of the map.
He spared no more time on Matilda and left the room, whispering, “That wasn’t part of the plan. Sorry.” Danavan felt bad about what had happened to Matilda, unsure if she would survive, but he stopped caring as he saw two shoes on the floor. Upon taking a closer look, he began laughing. “Belver… You lost something more than a mere pair of shoes? Didn’t you?” He then followed the trail of two bloody lines, knowing very well where they were leading, and he only imagined how much he must have suffered; it brought him joy.
***
As they reached the mansion, Belver’s eyes were dry, only sobs leaving his mouth. The man was pale as he was bleeding out. His whole body was cold, yet his wound felt so hot, unpleasantly hot like hell touching his wound, reminding him where he is going.
Opening the hidden door, Navia arrived at the basement of the mansion that Markiz called “Cage”. The stench of blood was present throughout the tunnels as Belver was bleeding out, but this was much worse. Mixture of iron blood scent and sickening smell of rot. Besides Belver, someone was crying in there. Navia walked forward and in each cell saw a chair, chains near the wall, and even metal beds. All stained with blood.
A naked man was tied up to the bed, most of his wounds had healed, leaving only scars, but his nose was missing bits of flesh and skin, as well as his ears. The man had no nails and barely any hair on his head. He was breathing, but it seemed like he was already dead. Not responding to anything, not even Navia dragging the barely living man who tortured him. It was just a body without a soul.
Navia suddenly threw Markiz into the wall and pressed an arm to his throat; in the other hand, she had a knife. She moved the blade closer to the man’s eye and asked, “Did you touch her?” To his luck, he didn’t because that answer would make him lose his eyes.
“She was never… here… Upstairs…” The man barely mumbled as Navia didn’t stop pressing an arm against his throat. Once he answered, she continued to drag him, and with one kick, she destroyed the steel doors. Belver didn’t have time to rest as each time he hit a step, he was reminded of his wounded legs. They haven’t walked for long, yet it feels like eternal suffering.
At the top was another door which Navia cut open with a dark blood sword. Sunlight was visible in the room behind the entrance. The corridor was white with a green carpet. Navia looked both ways and noticed stairs to her left. Suddenly, two guards appeared from both sides as the two of them heard the noise of breaking doors.
“Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing here?” Shouted the guard near the stairs. The man took out a machete and began to slowly move toward Navia.
The guard behind her reacted differently as the first thing he saw was the injured body of Belver Markiz, his boss. “Boss?” He asked, his voice trembling as he saw two missing feet. The green carpet was slowly turning red as blood began to soak in. The man then looked behind Navia as he heard a loud splash. The white wall and ceiling were sprayed with blood. Then the man heard a loud thud. Looking down, he saw the head of the guard rolling on the ground. He wanted to run, but the fear paralyzed him. His life would be spared as Navia had no interest in the man.
Walking up the stairs, Navia could hear two girls talking, and she recognized the voice. Mirabell was close, right behind the doors. As she opened them, she saw two girls sitting on the ground by a coffee table. Both of them were talking with hot tea at the table. Navia barely recognized the girl as her hair was brushed and clean. Instead of her dirty and oversized clothes, she had a nice dark green dress that looked well with her auburn hair.
Both girls looked toward the door as Navia dropped, now lifeless, body to the ground. She was so quick that Mira barely saw her moving. Navia embraced the girl and whispered, “You’re safe now…”
Instead of returning the hug, Mira pushed Navia away, tears and fear in her eyes. Mira looked at her savior, but the image became corrupted by now standing in front of her, Navia in dark armor, blood of the people she killed on her face. Face didn’t bother by the fact that she spilled so much blood.
The girl who sat with Mira ran to the lifeless body of Belver with a cry, shouting, “Dad! DAD!?” She shook the body, listened for the heartbeat, but the man was dead.
Mirabell looked back and forth at crying Charlotte and unbothered by the dead man, Navia. “You’re… A monster…” Those words slipped out of Mira’s mouth. Navia flinched and took a step back, turning around, he took a close look at the girl crying over the dead body.
It reached her that she was the one who killed him, but her mind was in conflict. “But he wanted to hurt us before we were separated! He wanted to torture us! I killed a bad person! A monster!” Navia shook her head with closed eyes to not show the tears in her eyes. “I did it to protect you… To save you…” Navia muttered as she grabbed her head with both of her hands.
“You killed a person! Not a monster!” Shouted Mira as she ran past Navia. She hugged Charlotte to comfort her, sharing the pain of losing a family, a pain she understood very well.
There was something in Navia’s mind since waking up from the dead, it constantly reminded her that it's there. Whatever it was, it played with her mind, dragging it in another direction than she would usually take. This plague was magnified by Danavan’s special potion. That thing now had its own voice and shared the control, making Navia mad. “You’re just a child… You know nothing about this world…” The sturdy armor she once had seemed to melt, but it still held to her body. “You don’t understand it yet, but what I’ve done was necessary to save you… And I will save you…” Navia suddenly dashed toward the girl, her liquid blood splattering on the ground with each step.
With a gust of warm wind, she suddenly stopped. Beside her stood Aguero with a disappointed frown. He was holding her forearm and stopping her from reaching the girl. “Navia… You’re under arrest for murder with particular brutality and attempted abduction of a child… Please do not resist.” Said Aguero as he didn’t look Navia in the eyes, feeling ashamed that he had to do this, but it was his duty.
“I thought you were different…” Navia sharply answered, making Aguero finally look at her. That’s when he noticed an attack coming his way. The gauntlet barely held its form, but Navia threw a punch.
Aguero jumped back to avoid the attack and observed Navia closely, taking notice of her changes in power. “I felt something was wrong once I got here… Did she hide her true power from me? Or did she have to do something to push her power to the limits? Whatever she did, it seems unstable.” Thought Aguero as he watched the dark armor melt and drip down to the ground, just to come back and change its shape back, being constantly broken and repaired. “Navia! Surrender before things go too far!” Seeing no signs of Navia pulling back, he began sidesteping, a line of fire following his feet, then his hands. “I’m sorry that things have to go this way.”