Beautiful But Deadly

TWENTY-FOUR

Genesis's POV

"Did you know that the national anthem of Ukraine is called, 'The glory and the freedom of Ukraine has not yet perished'?"

"Nope. Did you know that a single human being's DNA contains as much information as fifty novels?"

"Didn't have a clue. Did you know it's illegal to bring a copy of "Robinson Crusoe" into the micro-nation of Elleore. The punishment is 11 minutes and 17 seconds in prison."

"That'll really teach them. Did you know holding a vibrator against a person's throat relaxes the vocal muscles, thereby improving their voice quality."

"I'm slightly concerned and intrigued over how you know this but okay. Did you know that the film Jaws is based on a Peter Benchley novel? When he couldn't think of a title, his father suggested 'What's That Noshin' On Ma Leg'."

I threw my head back and laughed heartily as everyone around us groaned in despair and annoyance. Jake and I had been passing back facts between us for the past hour now and I think we were starting to get on everyone's nerves.

However, I didn't think we were the main cause of the slowly growing apprehension over the past hour we had taken residence in the abandoned building we were supposed to meet Mr. and Mrs. Kingston in less than half an hour.

Axel had received the call from Leah Kingston pretty soon after we left, in fact, she had called within twenty-four hours to set up a meeting place. I had suggested this old abandoned building for several reasons:

A) It was abandoned so no one would here the inevitable screams and gunshots that would be ringing into the late afternoon and early evening.

B) I knew the place well. I had used this old warehouse of sorts to conduct plenty of business before including the deal with Aidon Keaton, a gang leader that rivalled Caspian Adler himself,  a couple of years ago. Axel had also used this place to get information out of people when he needed to too.

C)It was on equal ground. Nobody technically owned the property so it as a comfortable place for the Kingston's to come and 'rescue' their son.

Yesterday both Axel and I had come to scope the place out again and make sure that there were no loose ends we needed to tie up. Axel had found the blueprints of the facility online and we used them to show Thorn and his minions where the exits, entrances and access points were.

The five of us had studied the building and the plans so much that we knew it like the back of our hands. Everything from where the advantage points were to how many cracks lines the walls. We did our job thoroughly.

The lone structure stood, reaching the sky...it had been left disregarded with no one near it. Over time the bricks had weakened, the paint wore off and layers of dust coated over it. The building surely looked aged.

It had been abandoned but was taken over by pigeons fluttering in the rooms and nesting by the windows, spiders building webs and bats sheltered here for the night.

Stepping into the old factory building was like stepping into a whole other world. It was like venturing onto a set of old train tracks and following them as far as they'd take you, ignoring the grass peeking up between the slats and the bits where the metal was rusted and broken. The building seemed to shudder in the wind and sway as the rain attacked it.

The building was empty, but for a few obsolete pieces of rusted factory equipment, pieces that seemed perfectly at home within the building's vine-covered walls. Just as it had been outside, the inside looked like something out of a dystopian movie, the corrugated walls as rusted and useless as the equipment they housed. Beams stretched high overhead, and rain dripped down through cracks in the ceiling.