Chapter 149*
Angelina’s POV
Sixty seconds passed. Then two minutes. Then I heard them. Footsteps. Multiple people. Moving efficiently through the training area.
“All targets down,” a male voice said. Professional. Clipped. “Confirm dispersal was complete.”
“Confirmed, another voice responded. “Aerosol coverage at one hundred percent. All candidates are unconscious.”
“Good. Begin collection. Teams alpha and bravo take the north section. Teams charlie and delta take south. We have a fifteen-minute window
before the compound realizes something’s wrong.”
More footsteps. Spreading out. Moving quickly.
I felt hands grab me. Rough but not brutal. Checking my pulse. Lifting my eyelid briefly to check pupil response.
“This one’s out cold,” the person said. “Same as the others.”
They lifted me. Two people. One grabbed my shoulders. One grabbed my legs. Carried me toward the parking area.
I kept my body completely limp. Dead weight. Let my head hang back naturally.
Through my barely-open eyes, I saw the sky. Blue with scattered clouds. Then the interior of a vehicle. Large truck or van. They laid me down
on the floor.
More bodies were loaded in after me. I counted by the sounds. Six. Seven. Bight people in this vehicle.
The doors closed. Engine started. The drive was smooth at first. Paved roads. Then rougher. Dirt or gravel.
After what felt like maybe forty minutes, we stopped.
The doors opened. Hands grabbed me again. Lifted me out. Fresh air. Different smells. Trees. Earth. We were somewhere more remote now.
They carried me down. Steps. Underground. The temperature dropped. The air got damper.
A door opened. They set me down on cold concrete floor. Then footsteps walking away. Door closing. Lock engaging.
Silence. I waited. Counted to one hundred. Then slowly, carefully, opened my eyes.
I was in a cell. Small. Maybe eight feet by eight feet. Concrete walls. Metal door with a small window. Single light bulb hanging from the
ceiling.
Standard detention cell. Basic but functional.
I sat up slowly. Quietly. Looked around.
Through the small window in the door, I could see a hallway. Other cells a ross the way. All the doors were closed.
This was an underground facility. Purpose-built for holding people. The construction was old but solid. Probably built decades ago.
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Chapter 149 *
I stood up. Walked to the door. Looked through the window.
The hallway was empty. Concrete floor. Fluorescent lights. Probably thirty feet long. Eight cells visible from here. Four on each side.
I listened carefully. Could hear voices. Coming from the left end of the hallway. Male voices. At least three different people. Speaking in low
tones.
Then I heard something else from the cells nearby. Someone was waking up.
“Where… where am I?” The voice was female. Scared.
Then another voice. Different cell. “What the hell? What is this place?”
More people waking up. The sounds spreading through the detention area.
Panic was starting. I could hear it building. People realizing they weren’t where they should be. That something had gone very wrong.
“Let me out! Someone let me out!”
“This isn’t part of the test! This can’t be part of the test!”
“Where are the instructors? Felix! FELIX!”
The voices got louder. More desperate.
I heard someone kicking their door. The metal rang with each impact.
“Get me out of here! Get me OUT!”
That voice I recognized. Saffron. She was in a cell somewhere to my left. Maybe three cells down.
“This is a mistake! We’re military candidates! You can’t hold us here!”
Her panic was escalating fast. “Please! Someone please help us! We didn’t do anything wrong!”
Other candidates joined in. Shouting. Screaming. Begging.
The noise level was incredible. Everyone panicking at once. No coordination. Just pure fear.
Then a male voice cut through the chaos. “Everyone shut up for a second! Just shut up and think!”
The screaming died down slightly. People wanted to hear.
“The instructor mentioned interrogation resistance training. Remember? He said we’d be tested on psychological pressure. Maybe this is part of
it.”
Someone else responded. “You think they’d actually kidnap us for a training exercise?”
“Why not? The military does extreme scenario training. Maybe they’re testing how we react to a real kidnapping situation.”
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Chapter 149 *
A woman’s voice joined in. “That actually makes sense. Everything about day has been unconventional. The live ammunition test. That mysterious instructor. Felix warning us about him.”
“See? This could be the interrogation test. They want to see how we handle being detained by what seems like a hostile force.”
More voices chimed in. People grasping onto this theory. Wanting it to be true.
“Oh thank god. I thought we were actually kidnapped.”
“So we just need to resist interrogation like they told us? Not give up information?”
“Yeah. Yeah that’s probably it. This is just really intense training.
But then another voice spoke up. “But what if it’s not training? What if someone actually infiltrated the selection? Like a terrorist
organization?”
The hopeful mood shattered immediately.
“I’ve done this selection four times,” Saffron chimed in. Her voice was strained but trying to sound authoritative. “Four times. And nothing like
this has ever happened. This isn’t part of the test.
“What do you mean?” someone asked.
“I mean we’ve been kidnapped. Actually kidnapped. This is real.”
Silence. Then everyone started talking at once.
“That’s impossible!”
“How could someone kidnap an entire military selection group?”
“Where are the instructors? Where’s Felix?*
‘Oh god. Oh god we’re going to die.”
The panic was spreading. Feeding on itself. Getting worse.
The metal door at the end of the hallway opened.
Five figures walked in. All wearing black tactical gear. Ski masks covering their faces.
They were dragging someone between them. A man. His head hung forward. Barely conscious.
His shirt was torn. I could see bruises forming on his exposed skin. Blood rickled from the corner of his mouth.
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