Angel Academy

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

"lead the way" I finished, deciding that I didn't really have much of a choice as I gestured to the path ahead.

Sebastian gave me a small smile and then stretched his limps, causing a few of them to click unnaturally before he took off at a more comfortable jog. I figured that his insanely quick healing capabilities meant that he was a hybrid of more than just a werewolf, I actually found myself wondering what other gifts he possessed, was he like me?

"Just down here" he commentated, breaking me out of my thoughts as he ran swiftly down a flight of spiral staircases.

The stairs led to a dark narrow hallway with various gloomy, uninviting doors positioned along both sides, the stone walls were less crumbled in this section of the hallway, exposing that it must have been maintained to contain the prisoners within its small dingy cells effectively.

"Chase?" I called hopefully as we walked slowly past various doors.

I had just closed my fist around the second doors black, chipped handle when Sebastian stopped me.

"Lucifer has many prisoners here, we don't want to open the wrong door," he warned me seriously.

I removed my hand from the handle and walked a few paces towards the end of the hallway.

"Chase!" I called louder this time.

I stopped walking and used my enhanced senses in an effort to pay closer attention to my surroundings. I could hear the small pitter of water as it fell from somewhere above us and splattered onto the patchy floor, I could smell the cold night air as small gusts of wind travelled down the staircase and surrounded me chillingly, but when I really focused, I could hear faint breathing as somebody sucked in air painfully and wheezed it back out in a neverending cycle, and I could smell a repulsive metallic smell mixed with dirt and stone.

"Shade?" called a fading whisper.

As soon as the voice that I recognised as Chase's reached my ears a thousand more muddled whispers flooded out from under each door and filled the previously still air, I shook my head in sudden confusion and stared around hopelessly for a second before I closed my eyes and regained my focus, closing in on the first voice... Chase's voice, and after a while, I was finally able to zone out and focus on his voice alone.

"I-is t-that really you?" it spoke again in disbelief.

I followed the voice in complete silence and concentration until I could hear his struggled breathing and troubled heartbeat, but I also noticed that his heartbeat was not the only one in the room, there was another one which was beating much slower and calmer than his.

I opened my eyes to see a chipped, black painted door before me with a small silver handle on its left side, I looked up at Sebastian who smiled down at me approvingly as I closed my left hand around the handle and pushed the door open, It groaned slightly but opened easily enough to reveal a darkened room with a small window in the far corner.

"I'll keep watch" whispered Sebastian as I advanced further into the room.

I didn't bother replying and looked across the room to see a dark figure in the barely recognisable form of Chase slumped down against the wall, with thick metal chains holding him up. Upon seeing me he pulled on the chains to get to his feet and stared at me with dull watery eyes.

"Y-you came for me?" he asked sceptically.

"Of course we did" I replied soothingly. "but Emrick has taken Aurora," I told him honestly as I approached the wall that he was chained to.

"Of course he has, this was his plan after all" coughed Chase in disgust.

I broke him free of the chains and he immediately fell to the floor with an agonising groan.