The persistent thump thump thump of my fists on the door blasted my ears. I was surprised everyone in the place wasn’t screaming at me to quiet down. But having someone yell at me and possibly bark threats would be a step up from them outright ignoring me.
“Can anyone hear me?” I shouted again. I’d been wailing on that door for several minutes, though it felt closer to an hour. Faltering, I drew in a deep breath and listened carefully for the hint of footsteps, the jingle of keys. I couldn’t see a thing, but I knew Rafe waited nearby, chain held tightly in his hands, ready to trip up whoever opened that door.
First, I had to lure them into the room.
“Please!” I cried again. “I need some help in here!”
Footsteps sounded on the other side. I bolted away, the darkness whirling around me, and sat in what I hoped was the middle of the room so Rafe would have enough slack in the chain. The welts on my ass burned, but there was no time to change position. Someone pushed a key into the lock, and I held my breath, trying to calm my trembling limbs. This had to work. God, please, let this work.
The door burst open, and someone stood in the entrance, their tall build a silhouette against the bright backdrop of the tunnel. “Whaddya bitching for?” His beam tore through the blackness and lit me up like a spotlight.
“I’m bleeding,” I said, leaning back on my elbows and spreading my thighs. “I need a tampon.” I bit my lip, which probably came across as coy to him, but I was really trying to mask my fear. This plan was screwed if I couldn’t get him into the room.
The guy took a step inside and shone the light between my legs. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
I spread my legs further, hoping to keep his attention. “Can I get a tampon? Please?”
He took another step toward me, the beam of his flashlight casting over the bed, and I let out a sigh of relief.
“I asked you a question, bitch. Where’s the guy?”
“On the shitter.”
He swerved the light to the other end of the room, where the unoccupied bucket sat, and let out a curse under his breath.
Rafe’s shadow moved from behind the door, and he flung the chain over the guy’s head, bringing him down with a bone-jarring thud. The flashlight dropped to the ground and went out. I fisted my hands as the pull of the chain on my neck tightened. A scuffle broke out, and grunts and groans ensued. A bundle of shadows wrestled.
“Rafe?” What would I do if he didn’t answer? What would I do if this didn’t work? What had we done? They could kill him. This was stupid. So stupid.
“Rafe!” I said in a loud whisper.
One of the shadows rose and yanked on the chain, propelling me across the ground. I grabbed at it with ineffectual hands, barely rising to my feet, and dug my toes into the dirt. Fear constricted my throat with each step forward. Strong hands grabbed my shoulders, and that’s when I recognized the heavy breathing. Rafe’s breathing.
I slumped against him, close to losing it, and his arms wound around me for a moment.
“Gotta get moving, baby.” He let me go, and a few seconds later, the flashlight switched on. He aimed it at the prone form of the guy who’d opened the door. He didn’t look like he was waking up any time soon.
“If he doesn’t have a key for that thing…” Rafe said, shining the beam at the choker around my neck. “There’s no way in hell I’m leaving you here.” He bent and patted down the guy’s body, paying special attention to his pockets, and withdrew a set of keys.
I shuffled my feet, my pulse skittering too fast, as Rafe started his way through the bundle. “Hurry.”
“Just breathe,” he said on his fourth or fifth try. “We’re getting out of this fucking room, I promise.” He pushed in another key and turned it, and this time, the chain fell free of the choker.
Rafe grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”
“You didn’t find a gun on him?”
“No.”
Stepping into the hall was blinding. After spending days in total darkness, the light seared my eyes. I glanced up and down the tunnel, in disbelief that it was actually empty. Clinging to Rafe’s hand, I followed him down the passage toward the office, acutely aware that we were naked, and that at any given moment someone could discover us and send our hope for survival crashing through the ground.
“Maybe we should go the other way,” I whispered, a tremor taking my voice hostage.
“The office is this way. I’m hoping to find a gun in that room.” His fingers flexed around mine.
We approached the last door just as another opened somewhere down the tunnel. I held my breath as Rafe tried the knob and turned it without resistance. We scurried inside, and the flashlight lit up the office in weak illumination. Rafe made a beeline for the interior steel door Lucas had come through on my first night here.
“There’s a fucking keypad.” He leaned his forehead against the steel with a loud sigh. “Fuck!” He turned, and I felt the weight of his stare through the darkness. “How well did you know Lucas? Any guesses at the code?”
Biting my lip, my gaze veered toward the ceiling, trying to remember anything of significance. “His birthday is October twenty-eighth.”
“What about the year?” He turned back to the keypad and punched in some numbers. “I doubt he’d use his birthdate though.”
“He was born in 1969.”
“Of course the bastard was. Fuck, Alex. He’s old enough to be your father.”
“I was desperate and…stupid.” Shaking my head, I rounded the desk and began pulling drawers open. “Shine that thing over here.”
He joined me and aimed the light into the drawers, but they were mostly empty, only housing stray pens, paper, and sticky notes. The filing cabinets underneath the poster-sized photos of the blonde were locked with no key in sight. Even the desk’s surface was free of clutter. No phone, no computer, not even a letter opener we could use as a weapon.
This room was a shell of an office. A sham, much like its owner. No wonder the door hadn’t been locked. The paintings, the shelves with art and antiques, the humongous desk—they were all props to give off an intimidating vibe to whoever set foot in this room.
Rafe met my eyes, and even in the dim light, I detected the heart-wrenching defeat in them. It only lasted a moment, but it was enough to tell me that he was losing hope, giving in to the bleakness of our situation.
“Okay,” he said, backing away from the desk. He turned around and aimed the light at the shelves. “The guy I took down will wake up soon, we can’t call out for help, and there’s Jack shit in here to use as a…
He swerved the beam, stopping on the whips, paddles, and restraints. As he shot across the space, I headed in the direction of the heavy-looking vase on the other shelf.
It didn’t weigh as much as I’d hoped, but it was better than nothing. Or was it? I eyed the bulky ceramic piece and wondered how much strength it would take to knock someone out with it.
Rafe pulled out a set of handcuffs with a sigh. “How long would you guess the tunnel is?”
“Long, at least thirty minutes to reach this end.”
“Damn,” he said with a sigh.
“There’s nothing but forest out there, Rafe. We walked quite a ways before entering the tunnel.”
“We’ll worry about out there once we get out there.”
But his tone wasn’t one of hope. He didn’t think our chances of reaching the other end were good, and if this door was anything to go by, we’d probably find another keypad at the other exit too.
“Can we fight our way out of here?” I asked. “What about the other hostages? Maybe we can free them and fight our way out as a group.”
“We don’t know how many there are, or the extent of their injuries.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to leave anyone behind, but you’re my only concern right now. I’m getting you out, then we can get help for the rest.”
We both glanced toward the door. First, we needed to make it down that tunnel.
Rafe took the vase from my shaking hands and placed it on the shelf. “I can do more damage with the flashlight. Hold on to these though,” he said, holding the cuffs out to me. “They might come in handy.”
I nodded with a hard swallow, and we both sent a longing look at the door with the damn keypad blocking our escape.
“Stay close, baby.”
“Always.”
He reached for the knob, but the quiet thump of footsteps echoed from the tunnel, growing louder, closer, and Rafe switched off the flashlight. His fingers folded around mine, and he pushed me behind him as we moved to the side.
The door opened, and I held my breath, my pulse throbbing in my ears. A stream of light flooded the space between the door and the jamb, and a slim, shadowy figure filled the entrance. A hand reached out and flipped on the overhead light.
Rafe launched at the guy with the speed of a rattler, the flashlight cracking against the other man’s skull in three swift strikes. He wrestled him into a choke hold, the muscles in his arm bulging as he applied pressure to the guy’s throat. They slammed into the wall, and the flashlight dropped to the floor.
Jax stormed inside, his dark eyes swerving between Rafe and me, then he yanked me in front of him and pressed a gun to my head. The handcuffs slipped from my trembling fingers and clattered to the ground.