CHAPTER 10: CONCRETE AND SCREAMS - PART 1
The abandoned industrial complex crouched against the Virginia skyline like a concrete cancer, all rusted girders and shattered windows that reflected moonlight in jagged fragments. Razor wire crowned chain-link fences that surrounded buildings designed more for containment than manufacturing. Security cameras swept predetermined arcs with mechanical precision, their red recording lights blinking like malevolent eyes.
Alen crouched behind a cluster of abandoned shipping containers, studying the facility through binoculars while his teammates prepared for infiltration. The place reeked of industrial decay and something else—fear, maybe, or the lingering psychic residue of prolonged suffering.
This is it, he thought, watching guards patrol between buildings with military precision. Dr. Veronica Greasley is somewhere in that complex, and with her, my second soul coin.
"Security wards are extensive," he whispered to the others. "Magical detection grids, alarm systems tied to supernatural presence, probably some kind of containment field around the perimeter."
"Can you siphon them?" Hope asked, her voice barely audible in the pre-dawn darkness.
Alen extended his supernatural senses, feeling for the magical signatures that would mark active enchantments. The wards were sophisticated—layered protections designed to detect, contain, and neutralize supernatural threats. Expensive. Professional. Exactly what he'd expect from a corporation that made its money torturing magical beings.
"Give me five minutes," he said, focusing on the nearest ward anchor.
The siphoning was delicate work. Too fast, and the magical drain would trigger alarms. Too slow, and dawn would arrive before they'd neutralized the facility's defenses. Alen reached out with surgical precision, drawing power from the detection grid one component at a time.
The magic flowed into him like poisoned honey—functional but tainted with malevolent purpose. These weren't protective wards designed to keep intruders out. They were hunting snares designed to identify and catalog supernatural abilities for future exploitation.
They've been studying everyone who comes near this place, he realized with growing disgust. Building profiles, identifying targets, planning future kidnappings.
One by one, the ward anchors went dark. The magical detection grid collapsed silently, leaving gaping holes in the facility's supernatural defenses. Guards continued their patrols, unaware that their primary security system had just been neutralized by a teenage siphoner with impossible range.
"Show-off," Hope whispered, but there was admiration in her voice.
"Clear path to the main building," Alen reported. "Still have to deal with mundane security, but the magical protections are down."
They moved through the shadows like ghosts, four teenagers carrying enough supernatural power to level city blocks but choosing stealth over spectacle. Josie and Lizzie flanked them with matching expressions of grim determination, while Hope radiated the controlled violence of a predator approaching prey.
The main building's service entrance yielded to Lizzie's lock-picking spell—a minor bit of mischief magic that had probably gotten her in trouble countless times at school. Inside, emergency lighting painted everything in shades of red and black, and the air carried the antiseptic smell of medical facilities mixed with something organic and wrong.
Basement level, Alen thought, remembering the facility blueprints he'd studied. If they're keeping prisoners, that's where they'd be.
The stairwell descending into the building's depths felt like a descent into hell itself. Each floor they passed revealed glimpses of laboratories and examination rooms that belonged in nightmares rather than reality. Surgical equipment designed for non-human anatomy. Restraint systems calibrated for supernatural strength. Charts documenting pain thresholds across different species.
And finally, at the bottom, the holding cells.
The sight hit them like a physical blow. Row upon row of reinforced chambers, each containing a supernatural being in various states of deterioration. A young werewolf—maybe thirteen years old—chained to the wall with silver manacles that had burned permanent brands into his wrists. A vampire so desiccated that her skin looked like parchment, veins blackened from prolonged vervain exposure. A witch whose magical signature flickered weakly, as if something had been systematically burning out her power.
Josie made a small, sick sound and doubled over, vomiting against the concrete wall. Lizzie's hands shook with barely contained rage, sparks of magical energy dancing between her fingers. Hope's eyes flashed gold, her tribrid nature responding to the scent of suffering with predatory fury.
"I'm going to kill them," Hope whispered, her voice carrying harmonics that belonged to creatures far more dangerous than teenage girls. "I'm going to kill them all."
Alen felt something cold and implacable settle in his chest—not rage, but a calculation colder than fury and infinitely more dangerous.
"Yes," he thought, the resurrection coin pulsing against his leg. "You are. But I'm going to do worse than kill them. I'm going to unmake them entirely."
He reached out with his siphoning ability, drawing power from the containment spells that kept the prisoners locked in their cells. The magic flowed into him—layer upon layer of binding enchantments designed to neutralize supernatural abilities and prevent escape.
With surgical precision, Alen redirected that stolen power back into the containment systems, but inverted. Instead of binding the prisoners, the magic now worked to free them.
Locks clicked open in sequence. Chains fell away from wrists and ankles. Containment fields collapsed like soap bubbles, leaving the prisoners free for the first time in weeks or months.
They stared at their rescuers with expressions caught between hope and terror—beings so broken by prolonged torture that freedom felt like another form of cruelty.
"We're here to help," Josie said softly, approaching the werewolf boy with empty hands and gentle words. "We're going to get you out of here."
The boy flinched away from her touch, silver burns making even kind contact agonizing. But his eyes showed recognition—perhaps the first hint of trust he'd felt since his capture.
These are the people Dr. Greasley turned into research subjects, Alen thought, fury building like pressure behind a dam. Children. Teenagers. People someone loved and worried about and is still hoping will come home.
Alarms began blaring throughout the facility.
"Company's coming," Hope said grimly, her enhanced hearing picking up the sound of boots on concrete and tactical equipment being deployed. "How many can we evacuate before they lockdown the building?"
Before Alen could answer, the stairwell filled with armed figures—Triad operatives in tactical gear, carrying weapons specifically designed for supernatural threats. Wooden bullets for vampires. Vervain grenades for witches. Silver-coated restraints for werewolves. Everything needed to capture or kill magical beings with professional efficiency.
"Surrender immediately," the lead operative called out. "You're trespassing on private property and interfering with legitimate research operations."
Legitimate research, Alen thought, his vision tinging red around the edges. They're calling torture and kidnapping 'legitimate research.'
"Counter-offer," he said, stepping forward with his hands spread wide. "You drop your weapons and walk away, and I'll let you live long enough to face trial."
The operative laughed—a short, harsh sound devoid of humor. "Four kids against twenty trained soldiers. I like our odds."
Alen siphoned power from the magical detention collars scattered throughout the holding area, drawing strength from devices designed to neutralize supernatural abilities. The irony was fitting—their own weapons turned against them.
With that stolen power, he crafted something that shouldn't exist.
Chains of pure force erupted from his hands—not physical restraints, but constructs of concentrated magical energy that wrapped around weapons and limbs with the strength of steel cables. Six guards found their firearms yanked away by invisible hands, while others discovered their tactical gear fused to the concrete walls.
Hope shifted partially, her tribrid nature manifesting in elongated canines and strengthened muscles. She moved through the disoriented guards like a dancer through statues, claws tearing through body armor with supernatural ease.
Josie and Lizzie combined their magic with the seamless coordination of twins who'd been practicing combat spells since childhood. Ice spread across the floor beneath the guards' feet while fire danced between their weapons, melting ammunition and rendering assault rifles into expensive paperweights.
And through it all, Alen stood at the center of the chaos and spoke a single word with absolute authority.
"KNEEL!"
Ten operatives collapsed immediately, their legs betraying them as reality bent to accommodate his command. The Word of Command burned through his throat like swallowed napalm, draining twenty percent of his magical reserves in an instant, but the effect was undeniable.
This is what power means, he thought, watching trained killers reduced to helpless prisoners by a single spoken word. This is what the Entity gave me—the ability to impose my will on reality itself.
The remaining guards retreated up the stairwell, shouting into radio communicators about supernatural assets and containment protocols. But the damage was done. The facility's security had been shattered by four teenagers with more power than anyone had expected.
"Get the prisoners to the surface," Alen ordered, his voice rough from the command's aftereffects. "I'm going to find Dr. Greasley."
"Like hell you're going alone," Hope said, wiping blood from her claws with casual efficiency. "We stick together."
Before Alen could argue, a new voice echoed through the facility's intercom system—female, cultured, carrying the detached curiosity of someone observing a particularly interesting experiment.
"Impressive," Dr. Veronica Greasley said, her voice filling the concrete space with clinical fascination. "The Saltzman triplets and the Mikaelson girl. You'll make fascinating research subjects once we've recaptured you."
On the screens mounted throughout the holding area, Greasley's face appeared—a woman in her fifties with graying hair and eyes that held no warmth whatsoever. Behind her, Alen could see a laboratory filled with instruments that belonged in torture chambers rather than research facilities.
"Thirty seconds to facility self-destruct," Greasley continued with the casual tone of someone discussing the weather. "I'm afraid we can't allow you to leave with our research data. Or our test subjects. Corporate policy, you understand."
The screens went dark. Emergency lighting switched to amber, and a mechanical voice began counting down from thirty seconds.
"Move!" Hope shouted, already lifting the injured werewolf boy with supernatural strength. "Everyone out, now!"
They ran for the surface, carrying or supporting the liberated prisoners while the facility's self-destruct system ticked toward zero. Alen tried to siphon the bomb's magic, but the explosive was mechanical rather than magical—beyond his ability to neutralize.
Twenty seconds. Fifteen. Ten.
They burst through the service entrance just as the chemical plant erupted behind them, concrete and steel transformed into expanding fireballs that lit the Virginia sky like a second sunrise. The blast wave knocked them all flat, debris raining down around them as Dr. Greasley's helicopter disappeared into the distance.
She escaped, Alen thought, watching the aircraft fade into the pre-dawn darkness. The soul I came to harvest just slipped through my fingers.
But around him, seventeen supernatural teenagers sat breathing free air for the first time in weeks or months. Seventeen lives saved. Seventeen families who would see their children again.
Hope's hand found his shoulder, her grip warm and solid and infinitely comforting.
"You saved them," she said simply. "That's what matters."
For now, Alen accepted that truth. The soul harvest had failed, but the rescue had succeeded. Dr. Greasley was still alive, still free to continue her atrocities, but the prisoners she'd tortured were safe.
I'll find you, he promised silently, watching the helicopter's lights disappear beyond the horizon. I'll hunt you down, and when I do, your soul will power resurrection magic that brings back everyone you've killed.
The resurrection coin remained warm against his leg, patient and ready for the villain's soul that would transform it from potential into power.
The hunt had only just begun.
Author's Note / Promotion:
Your Reviews and Power Stones are the best way to show support. They help me know what you're enjoying and bring in new readers!
Can't wait for the next chapter of [The Originals/Legacies Im A Saltzman]?
You don't have to. Get instant access to more content by supporting me on Patreon. I have three options so you can pick how far ahead you want to be:
🪙 Silver Tier ($6): Read 10 chapters ahead of the public site.
👑 Gold Tier ($9): Get 15-20 chapters ahead of the public site.
💎 Platinum Tier ($15): The ultimate experience. Get new chapters the second I finish them (20+ chapters ahead!). No waiting for weekly drops, just pure, instant access.
Your support helps me write more .
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/fanficwriter1