As she spoke, a pair of heavy footsteps thundered up from somewhere below the house. Two more Minions, racing up from the cellar. The door off the hallway crashed open as they stormed out. Renata swung around and nailed each one dead center in the head, stopping them in their tracks.
Dylan let out a little whoop of triumph as the house went silent once again.
And then ... the faintest sounds of voices coming from the cellar deep below.
Female voices.
More than a dozen different voices, all of them screaming and shouting, calling out to whoever could hear them.
"Holy shit," Alex murmured.
Dylan's eyes went wide. "You don't think--"
"Let's go find out," Renata said. She turned to Jenna. "Will you be all right up here?"
Jenna nodded. "Yeah, I'm good. I can hold her until you get back. Just go."
In the momentary inattention, Sister Grace fidgeted on the little sofa, digging around in her sweater pocket. Jenna looked back at her, just in time to see her stuff something small into her mouth. She swallowed quickly, gulping the object down. The tendons in her throat constricted. Her mouth started spewing thick white foam.
"Oh, shit!" Jenna cried. "She's poisoning herself!"
"She's dead. Forget the bitch," Renata said. "Down here with us, Jenna!"
She turned away from the Minion, letting the convulsing body fall to the floor. Together she and the other women raced down the old stone steps that led into the dimly lit, enormous cellar, which looked to be carved out of the craggy rocks of the peninsula itself.
Deeper and deeper they went, the cries for help growing louder.
"We hear you!" Dylan called back to the terrified women. "It's okay, we've found you!"
Jenna was not prepared for what awaited them as the cellar widened out ahead of them. Hollowed into the stone was a large cell, covered by an iron grid. Inside were upward of twenty women--filthy, unkempt, dressed in tattered laboratory gowns. Some of them were heavy with child. Others were waif thin and wan. They looked like the worst prisoners of war, neglected and forgotten, most of their faces drawn and expressionless.
They stared at their rescuers, some of them mute, some weeping quietly, while others sobbed openly in great, chest-racking heaves.
"Oh, Jesus," someone whispered, maybe even Jenna herself.
"Let's get them out of here," Renata said, her voice wooden. "Look for a key somewhere that fits this goddamned grate."
Dylan and Alex began searching the dark space. Jenna walked toward the far corner, peering into the deep shadows that seemed to continue on forever into the cavelike hollows of the old cellar. In her peripheral vision, she caught the slight hand movements of one of the captives. She was trying to get Jenna's attention, gesturing covertly toward the lightless tunnel that stretched farther into the darkness of the place.
Trying to warn her.
Jenna heard the nearly imperceptible scuff of a footstep coming out of the dark. She turned her head--just in time to see a flash of metal, a rushing movement. Then she felt the sudden body slam of another Minion, barreling out at her and knocking her nearly off her feet.
"Jenna!" Alex shouted. "Renata, help her!"
The gun blast echoed like cannon fire in the enclosed cellar. The captive females screamed and shrank back away from the sound.
"It's all right," Jenna called out. "He's dead. Everything's going to be fine."
She shoved the lifeless heap off her and crawled out from beneath him. Something metallic jangled as the Minion rolled onto his back and expelled his last breath.
"I think I found the key," she said, bending over him to remove the ring of several keys from his pants pocket.
She ran over to the cell and began searching for the one that would fit the padlock on the grate. The Minion's blood soaked her coat and palms, but she didn't care. All that mattered was getting the captive Breedmates out of this place.
The lock sprang loose on the second try.
"Oh, thank God," Dylan gasped. "Come on, everyone. You're safe now."