Blood Queen Reborn

Chapter 141: In A Holding Cell

Layla raced through the halls,mind churning through people to possibly contact, subconsciously pushing past any students her way. As she ran, the wounds on her arms and legs finished healing.

’Do I contact Pure? Get them to send an agent to take Erin out of here?’ She shook her head, ’No, I can’t. They wouldn’t be able to get to her in time. What about a teacher?’

She stopped in her tracks, looking around in all directions.

Layla rubbed her temples, ’Come on, think! What teacher could get Erin out of there? Leo? Del? Hayley? Faye? Would they even believe a student over other adults?’

Thinking about all the potential options, all the different ways to approach them, and more was giving her a headache.

Then... her stomach growled.

Instantly, Layla whined, kissing her teeth, ’This is the worst time for this!’

Thoughts of eating raw animal meat and human flesh flooded her mind, and she was reminded of who she talked to yesterday.

"Fex!" Layla accidentally said out loud, which got a few stray students to turn towards her.

"Uh! Just looking for my friend!" she quickly said with an awkward smile.

With a person in mind, Layla sprinted towards the boy’s dorm, hoping to find him.

The thought process was thinking that Fex was a vampire, judging from her own knowledge, and what Erin had told her, Fex should be able to use an influence skill to convince the military wasn’t part of Pure.

Counting the numbers on the dorm rooms, Layla kept thinking ’Come on, please be there!’

Once she was up to Fex’s room, Layla rapidly knocked it, and started impatiently jogging in place.

"It’s an emergency!" She called out, to no response.

While waiting, she sent him a message on her watch just in case.

’He must be asleep, I don’t have time for this!’ Layla thought, ’Maybe I could try to find him—? Wait— Logan! He’s good at finding people, I think.’

With a new person to find, Layla ran upstairs.

—

Erin was doing her best to keep her calm, but after repeating the same questions as before, this time just de-energized, Duke remained furious.

"Why isn’t she revealing herself to be part of Pure!" Duke nearly yelled.

"It could simply be that she’s not one of their agents—"

Duke had flung his hand towards Erin, "How else would you explain why she doesn’t have an ability?"

Nathan stared at Duke, a dawning look of realization on him.

"You’re only pushing so hard on this because this is a personal matter to you, isn’t it? Why else would you drive hard the point that she is from Pure, despite all evidence to the contrary?"

Suddenly, Duke’s face dropped, but only for a moment.

"Am I not supposed to enforce the safety of the school? Clearly, there is something going on here."

"And I do agree it’s suspicious," Nathan began, "but you are clearly biased here. I declare this interrogation to be put on hold until further notice."

Duke stared at Nathan, clearly angry, but kept his mouth shut. It was already looking pretty bad on Duke’s end.

Hearing this brought a glimmer of hope in Erin, but she couldn’t focus on it for long as a hooded man suddenly appeared, and grabbed her before teleporting out.

In a second, Erin found herself in a well lit, chrome colored, modern looking room. The strange thing, however, was that the room didn’t have any doors. There was a ventilation shaft, but it was too small for a head to fit through, much less a whole person.

"You’re temporarily placed here until further notice," The hooded man said, before teleporting away.

With the man gone, Erin was alone, but not fully as she was still capable of messaging Quinn, or talking to the system.

’What is this place?’ Erin wondered.

Looking around, the room was pretty bare. It had a chair, a table, as well as an uncovered toilet and sink. At the same time, Erin was contemplating if there was a potential way for her to escape here. Just in case, she even sent some messages to Quinn.

"Wow, they really don’t spare any expense, huh?" The system sarcastically muttered.

’If you don’t have a way to help me, then shut up,’ Erin thought back.

"Well, if you’re going to act that way, I guess I will."

Erin cringed a little. The system was the only other person she could talk to right now, and here she was pushing it away.

’...I,’ Erin gulped ’... I take it back. You can keep talking.’

The system didn’t respond immediately, seemingly surprised, "... Someone should check hell because I believe it froze over."

Erin raised both an eyebrow, and lowered the ends of her lips, ’What is that supposed to mean?!’

"That is besides the point. This room appears to be small, and is made to specifically hold people temporarily, otherwise there would be a bed here."

’Or it could be a form of torture,’ Erin interjected.

"But something that makes me curious is the ventilation. This kind of thing wouldn’t be implemented in a normal building, unless it was massive, or underground. If this is meant to be a type of holding cell, then why build a ventilation shaft?"

’Maybe because there aren’t any doors,’ Erin scoffed.

"Possibly, but to have no other way to enter besides someone with a teleportation ability does pose a risk. In engineering, it’s generally a good tip not to have a single point of failure. If all of your teleporters are busy elsewhere, then how will you access the people inside of this room? Assuming the people in the military aren’t dumb, there has to be a physical door out."

Erin looked at the walls, and the ceiling, then the floor. There wasn’t anything immediately obvious, but she did have a skill that should be able to help.

Inspecting the room, it listed the objects inside of the room like normal. The chair was listed as a ’chair made out of steel’ and likewise for the table. However, when she inspected the walls, it was listed as concrete.

"Now that’s peculiar. If you had an earth ability, breaking out would be easy, and the military did give many of its students the earth ability. Similarly, if this building were on the surface, it wouldn’t take much for an earth user, or even a strength user to punch their way out."

With all the details that the system was pointing out, Erin was beginning to suspect that she was truly underground.

’But underground the school is the—!’

Just then, the hooded man teleported in the room, holding a meager plate of food.

"Under the law, we are obligated to feed anyone we hold for interrogation,’ The man stated, then placed the plate on the table.

"Wait!" Erin called out, "Where am I? Is this really the.... The dungeon?!"

The man paused, eyeing Erin.

"Where else would you be?"