Chapter 8 Liaison
"I don't know..."
Celeste and Scarlett stood in the empty port square like two lost stray cats, looking around in a daze.
"Want to try that way?" Celeste pointed to an overgrown side road at the edge of the port.
"I guess that's all we've got." Scarlett grabbed a fistful of her hair in frustration.
"Not even a sign from the hospital to meet us. They don't actually expect us to swim to the island, do they?"
Scarlett grumbled as she walked.
Finally, at five fifty, they spotted a rusty metal sign at the end of the road.
It was jammed crookedly into the dirt, with the word "Gas" just barely readable on its surface.
There wasn't a soul anywhere around, let alone a hospital pickup bus.
"You sure this is the place?"
Scarlett swallowed and looked around nervously.
"That's what the email said..."
Celeste pulled out her phone — its screen cracked into a spiderweb pattern — and checked again.
"Damn it! Not even a contact person's name! What if some psycho hacker is playing a prank on us?" Scarlett kicked a pebble across the ground in anger. "We crawled under a bus to get here!"
The email had nothing but a time and a place. Not even a phone number.
Now they were standing in the cold wind like two idiots, waiting for a ghost that might not even exist.
A deep, roaring engine suddenly shattered the morning silence.
Two blinding headlights cut through the thick fog like blades, heading straight for them.
A massive black SUV — its body entirely black, its windows covered in dark anti-shatter film — came tearing down the road from the other end.
It slammed to a stop less than half a meter away from them.
The tires screamed against the pavement and kicked up a cloud of dust.
Celeste let out a startled shriek and instinctively ducked behind Scarlett, grabbing the back of her jacket with both hands.
The car door opened.
A long leg swung out, dressed in black tactical pants and heavy combat boots.
The man was at least six feet three, wearing a black tactical coat.
But it was his face that was truly unsettling.
It was a strikingly aggressive kind of handsome — sharp, deep-set features — but running from the corner of his left eye down to his jawline was a brutal scar.
He looked nothing like any hospital staff member. He looked like the top enforcer of some international crime syndicate, the kind who made bodies disappear.
His gaze swept over them like a radar, cold and flat.
When it landed on Celeste, still hiding behind Scarlett, it paused for half a second.
Celeste looked rough, to put it kindly.
After rolling around under a bus, her normally smooth hair was a complete mess, and there were two smudges of black grime across her pale face.
Her big innocent eyes — the kind that reminded you of a lop-eared rabbit — were wide with fear, her eyelids red, like she was one small push away from bursting into tears.
So fragile.
A flicker of something passed through Bruce Howard's eyes, too quick to catch.
A soft little thing like this, heading to a place that chews people up and spits out the bones?
She probably wouldn't even survive her first night of rounds before she broke down completely.
"Scarlett. Celeste."
"Y-yes, that's us." Scarlett stumbled over her words but forced herself to stand up straight. "You're the one the psychiatric hospital sent to pick us up?"
"My name is Bruce Howard. I'm your contact." He said it flatly, like tossing out a fact.
He walked to the back of the car, opened the trunk, and pulled out a black metal signal-blocking box, holding it out in front of them.
"Hand over all your communication devices. Phones, smartwatches, anything that can transmit a signal."
"What?" Scarlett's eyes went wide, her voice jumping up an octave. "The email said not to bring them, but it didn't say you'd confiscate them! What if we need to contact our families—"
Bruce's eyes snapped to Scarlett.
The words died in her throat. A wave of cold sweat rushed down her back.
She had a very strong feeling that if she said one more word, this man named Bruce would snap her neck without a second thought and toss her into the ocean.
"Hand them over, or leave right now." Bruce's voice carried the kind of weight that didn't leave room for argument.
Celeste quickly tugged at Scarlett's sleeve.
She caved fast.
Celeste obediently fished the cracked phone out of her pocket and placed it carefully into the metal box.
Scarlett clenched her jaw and dropped hers in too.
"Get in."
Bruce snapped the metal box shut and pulled open the rear door of the SUV.
They were stuck. If they walked away now, they'd be stranded at an unfamiliar port with no money — they couldn't even afford the bus ride home.
Celeste and Scarlett had no choice but to climb in.
The SUV started up again, pulling away from the Nightthicket abandoned gas station — not toward the city docks where passenger ferries ran, but straight into the most remote deep-water freight zone of Darktide Harbor.
Celeste watched the scenery outside grow more and more unfamiliar, her heart pounding like a drum.
This was not a normal route.
The car eventually stopped in front of a sixteen-foot electrified chain-link fence. Bright yellow warning signs hung across it: PRIVATE PROPERTY — TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT.
Two guards in black body armor, tactical helmets, and automatic rifles walked over.
Bruce rolled down his window and handed one of them a black metal badge.
The guard took one look at it, snapped to attention, gave a sharp salute, and hit the switch for the gate.
The heavy iron doors slid slowly open on both sides.
The SUV drove through.
Past a yard stacked with shipping containers, the sight that greeted them made both Celeste and Scarlett go completely cold.
What was docked at the pier was not any kind of passenger ferry. It was not a medical transport vessel.
It was an enormous steel beast, painted entirely in dark grey-black.
No windows anywhere on the hull — just thick metal armor plating.
On the deck, armed personnel were posted at every turn. Several massive military dogs prowled the deck, letting out low, rumbling growls.
Searchlights swept back and forth through the morning fog, flooding the whole area in harsh white light.
This was not a ship headed to a hospital.
This was a floating military fortress.
"That's... that's the ship here for us?"
Scarlett's voice was shaking. She gripped Celeste's hand so hard her nails nearly broke the skin.
Celeste had gone completely pale. Her palms were soaked with sweat. Even breathing felt hard.
What kind of psychiatric hospital was this?
What psychiatric hospital had tighter security than a classified military base?
Were they here to work as caregivers — or as prisoners? Had they just walked straight into a human trafficking operation?
