Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 376. Tables and Cages

"What the hell is that? Gang markings or something?" I asked, looking around; most of the buildings on this street had them.

I had never been in this part of the city before, not even in good times or anything, so I can’t say if it always looked that messed up, but the bloody symbols had surely been made recently.

"Mhmm, seems like it. There." Henry pointed at a house that looked relatively good compared to the others, with an intact gate in front of it.

From our spot, we could see a few intact windows as well, and it was one of the few buildings that had no markings on it, at least from what we could see since there was a high fence around it.

The building was two stories high, and through the iron fence that had been haphazardly covered by some opaque netting, we could see a few scrapped cars.

I could hear voices from inside the building but couldn’t make out what they were saying, just that there were many male voices.

"If there is a gang occupying a street, wouldn’t that be something the military would clean up at night like the staff sergeant said or whenever?" I had a bad feeling that urged me to go inside—which probably meant I shouldn’t go inside.

"...maybe the gang has a use for them. Do you hear that?" He tilted his head slightly, and I did the same.

There were a few screeches, sounding feral and strangely deep.

"Let’s take a look." I turned to Henry and considered what I could possibly do to make him less conspicuous.

I contemplated conjuring up a little plaster for his mole, then putting the mask on him, and pulling his sunglasses down from his head.

However, even then... he would still be too recognizable... no choice there; we had to go with a full-cover mask.

"Are you enchanted?" Henry gave me a million-dollar smile, looking sideways down at me while he still had his arm around my neck.

"Shut it." Thinking of the times I had been in those fun stores that had games, merchandise, and full-face masks, I conjured up two scary clown masks this time.

"Want to go scare them?" I asked him with a grin.

"Fine with me, but if you let them injure you, this place will disappear from the face of the earth."

"Yeah, yeah. So dramatic." I stepped in front of him and, after he bent down obediently, put the mask on him.

Mhm, not bad.

If someone came into my house with that on, I would piss myself before I even had the chance to freak out.

I wanted to put my own mask on, but Henry snatched it from my hands and pulled my sunglasses down to put them away before putting the mask on me tenderly; in the end, he even booped the scary clown mask’s nose with his finger.

And... he mouthed the word ’cute.’

"Want to repeat that?" I asked annoyedly.

"Ehem... nothing. So, we just storm the gang hideout?" Henry cleared his throat, but I found him grinning sillily as he tried to change the subject.

"Mhm... sure. No, we’ll sneak in; if I see something I don’t like, I’ll give you a sign. Just get rid of any cameras if you see them."

"Roger."

We walked up to the fence and jumped over it.

Landing in the front yard, which wasn’t very large and only contained about four scrapped cars and some other trash, we sneaked up to the front door.

I could hear the people inside better now.

There were approximately forty or so... all guys, although there were a few moans from girls throughout the building as a few gangfuckers were clearly busy having a good time.

A few TVs were running inside as well.

The rest were grouped in cliques, some talking about cars, girls, or other gangs, or cursing people out.

Just how I imagined textbook gang topics—no philosophical discussions or anything—but to be fair, I don’t talk about Plato with my friends either.

The feral screeching, however, didn’t come from inside the house but from the side of the building.

I motioned for Henry to follow me, and we left the door to go to the side.

Nobody was on the side of the building, and there were no feral things attacking us, but we found an opening in the ground. Something like a door that you could pull up to find a staircase underneath.

I wanted to open the rusty square, but Henry beat me to it.

The animalistic sounds became louder after the door was opened, and we saw a staircase that led into the darkness.

Naturally for us, darkness wasn’t an obstacle; on the contrary, and given that it would probably have been better to come back at night, but oh well, we are already here after we spotted this place by accident, so...

I wanted to go in first, but again, Henry beat me to it, so I walked behind him and closed the door we had opened so as not to alert anyone to our presence down there.

We went down the stony steps and landed in a big cold cellar room.

When I stepped out of Henry’s shadow, I saw rows of old tables; on and under them were cages.

My first time seeing a rat that was alive.

The dark ones were clearly easier to look at; well, at least I thought so before I went closer to a cage.

That thing clashed against its heavy cage bars, its mouth wide open, clearly wanting to attack me.

"What the hell..." Looking at that thing, I was grossed out.

Its teeth were multi-rowed; they weren’t that needlessly sharp, just a mouthful of ’normal’ teeth.

No tongue as well as far as I could see, the ears short and pushed back, and the eyes and grotesque pupils similar to the pink ones as well, just covering more of the whites of their eyes and not as small.

The body was muscular, but again, more petite than the cat-like thing.

The snout was pointed, and the obvious rat tail was on them as well. Gross as fuck.

"Why leave them alive? To experiment on them or train them?" I mumbled, and Henry pulled me back to him.

"Yeah, they are trying to train them." He murmured while pointing at a few dog snacks and an electric collar on the table.

"That sounds like a fucking dumb idea." I patted Henry’s arm around me until he let go to look through the rows of cages on and under the tables.

When one table row ended, I turned to the left to look at the end of the next row, and that was when I found a cage, a bit bigger than the rats, and naturally so, because there was a naked woman around twenty inside.

"Holy fuck." I cursed and looked at the dirty woman inside the cage, who stared right back at me.

"Who are you?" Henry, behind me, asked her, sounding annoyed as hell, but she neither moved nor answered, just looked at us stubbornly, gripping her bars as she cowered in the little cell under the fucking table.

"What the fuck...fucking shit, are you kidding me?" I bent down and broke the little lock of the cell door before opening it.

She let go of the bars but didn’t come out.

I sighed and wanted to run my hand over my face but met the clown’s mask. Well, we didn’t make a good impression on her looking like creepy clowns, but I didn’t care; I was relieved that we had them on and she wouldn’t be able to recognize us, even though it was too dark for her to see that much anyway.

"Run away now or wait for us to finish...whatever happened to you is over now." I looked around and found a dirty blanket on the floor, and I handed it to her.

"Here, it’s a blanket."

She didn’t take it, just hugged herself.

I didn’t want to be confronted with shit like this anymore; it wasn’t enough for me to turn my back on someone caged, but I wasn’t pleased about this either.

Because this had just become a rescue mission.

"I am not happy—this is the sign. We’ll have to clean up the building." I quietly said to Henry while staring down at the unmoving girl. She still looked at us, ignoring the blanket in front of her and the open cage door.

"I thought you’d say that." Henry chuckled, but he wasn’t amused.

I walked past the woman in the cage, having the urge to call the police and ambulances rather than go do the dirty work ourselves, but we wouldn’t reach anyone; this was clearly stated online.

I grabbed Henry’s wrist and pulled him down the row that led us back to the stairs, where further rats tried to attack us in their cages.

We found another woman in the next row that led us into the room again; this one was unconscious.

Or not?

I broke the lock and opened the door before I felt for her pulse.

"Dead." I pronounced before chuckling as I started to get fucking furious.

"I can’t fucking believe this shit." I said, leaving the door to her cage wide open nevertheless.

"I know..." Henry hummed and pulled me up.

We continued going up and down the fucking room because the cages had thick bars, and with multiple of them overlapped, it was impossible to completely see everything in the fucking big room.

Another two girls in cages under the table, both naked, around twenty, skinny, and dirty.

We found them next to each other. Both didn’t talk and didn’t leave their cage after I broke the locks.

I looked at both of them while crouched down.

"We’ll kill everyone inside the building besides the women; tell me if there is someone you want to save."

The girl on the left started to sob uncontrollably, while the other didn’t react at all.

I looked around and saw nothing to put on her, besides more fucking dirty blankets.

"Give me that." I said to Henry while pointing at a rat cage not far away with one on top of it.

Henry obeyed and threw the blankets in front of the cages of the girls while pulling me up and to him.

"Blankets." He commented dryly for the girls to hear, again showing that he wasn’t happy; I could also feel that through his possessive grip on me, but hey, no one in this cellar is happy right now.

"Sven...a fourteen-year-old boy...he only does errands...he is Black and has earrings. Don’t...don’t let him die; he was nice." The sobbing girl finally spat out hoarsely.

"The fat woman with tattoos, her daughter also with tattoos around the neck. Kill them, please." She begged.

"Got it. Either wait for us to finish or try to flee now." I told her the same, but she just shook her head, not coming out of that FUCKING CAGE.

"Okay. We’ll come back for you then. I promise." I turned to look at Henry and, for whatever reason, received a fucking scare because of the mask that I had forgotten about for a second.

There were no more girls in these twenty or so rows, just more black rats; no pink ones here.

"Fuck, let’s go." I wanted to kill the rats already, then touch them to add them to my repertoire, but we had to go clean up first.

"Don’t do anything; I will kill them." Henry said urgently as we walked up the stairs again.

"No, you are still recuperating. We’ll use guns." I told him as I opened the ceiling door for him to step out first.

"They’ll hear gunfire, and the corpses will be left. I feel perfectly fine again." He insisted and took over the door when he was outside so I could go up comfortably before closing it.

"Not weak anymore?" I grinned.

His eyes behind the mask bent with mirth.

"Nope. Though the answer will probably change when I want you to take care of me at home." He laughed.

We walked to the door and looked at each other as we got mentally prepared for storming the place.

"Pff. As if I am not always taking care of each of your whims either way." I laughed as I conjured up a gun in one hand and tear gas in the other.

Henry chuckled in satisfaction, as he had apparently heard what he wanted to hear, before he opened the door at my sign swiftly, breaking it in the process because it had been locked from the inside.