by AJ Wyatt
Trib was standing in the doorway when the mechanism hissed again, and the door rolled closed. She only had a second to choose, and she chose to jump backwards. Out of the room. The door closed with a boom and latched again. The whirring of the cylinders was the only sound echoing through the room.
“Trib!”
I ran to the door and pounded on it.
“Can you hear me? Trib!”
We were all locked in, and she was locked out. Alone.
"We have to get this door open," I said. "She's out there by herself. That hallway is straight and empty, she's a sitting duck, and she's unarmed. Fuck!"
Yuri examined the door. Magnus came over too and checked the edges, probing with his fingers. It was sealed, and the air in the room circulated mechanically. There were no gaps or edges of the door to get around.
“There is no panel on this side,” Yuri said. “Without access, we cannot hope to open it.”
"I don't think it can be pried either," Magnus said. "I could get one of the bunks loose, maybe… But would the metal be enough to pry this door?”
"It would not," Yuri said. "And we cannot sharpen it anyways on this smooth floor. It would take weeks, and we would die by then. Miss Trib may be in danger now, but it is us who is in danger the most over time."
“We’ll starve to death, you mean,” Vice added helpfully.
“The door could have shorted out,” Talon said. “Trib could be getting it open right now.”
I knew she wouldn't be. Trib was so sure the door would stay open. She would know that someone had control of it. Her first action would have been to run for the elevator. If there was a team already headed down, they'd have her. If not…
I slumped onto one of the bunks. The springs creaked. The mattress was barely a mattress.
“Spread out,” Talon said. “Find the vents. Find any weakness in these walls.”
“We aren’t getting out through these,” Vice said a moment later, pointing to a thin steel slit in the wall. No wonder the air hissed as it circulated. There was barely a whisper of space for it to come in.
I put my face in my hands and felt the world weighing on my shoulders. I’d let my best friend get into real danger. I’d always thought it would be me in the line of fire. I’d made sure of it. I could be standing over her grave in a few days, watching her casket be lowered into the ground, like Maria’s.
I saw clear as day the moment that Senator pinned the bronze star on my chest. She was a good Senator, and I liked her. I'd have voted for her. But when she called me a hero, it felt like a bitter disappointment. Self-hate like that can have a flavor, and I tasted it. She didn't know what an AK-47 would do to a human body. Maria got a silver star, posthumously of course. They'd given it to her grandmother.
And all because I couldn’t save her.
I got up and shot one of the cameras out.
Vice yelled something. I couldn't make it out.
Yuri rubbed at his ears, which I’m sure were ringing. I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of my blood racing. I walked to the other camera and stood there.
"Can you see me?" I asked whoever it was. "Can you hear me? I hope so. Because I will get out of this box. I’m going to hurt you.” Then I shot that camera too.
My heart wouldn’t stop.
“I have to get out of here,” I said. “I can’t stay in here.”
It felt like my heart would explode through my chest. Was I going to die in here like this? Of a fucking heart attack? How much harder could my heart pound before it stopped?
Magnus put his hand on my shoulder, and I jumped. If it weren't for my training, I'd have shot the floor. My finger hit the trigger guard instead. Thank the Marines for that. Magnus was saying something I couldn't make out. I couldn't hear anything. I could barely breathe. Had they turned off the air? Were they trying to suffocate us?
He reached down gently and took my pistol away. I let him.
Then Talon was there, his hand resting on my other shoulder. Vice found a place to rest his hand on my lower back. Yuri ran his fingers down the back of my neck in that way he knew would calm me. It always worked. Somewhere in the haze of my memories, my mother used to do it. It made me hear lullabies and feel the softness of a pillow taking me away to peaceful dreams.
The air caught in my lungs. A horrible, wrenching sound came from inside me, and I gasped.
“I can’t…” I managed. Tears rolled down my cheeks. “I can’t…”
“Breathe, Rayne,” Magnus whispered.
“I’m here,” Vice said.
“Deep breaths,” Yuri said, his fingers running all the way down my spine.
Talon put a hand on my belly, which was seizing up, and just held it there.
Air came to me slowly, and then more and more. The sound of the air circulation came back. My heart still raced, but I could hear again. I remembered the training that had been drilled into me. I forced myself to take deep breaths, counting down from ten. My stomach released and let my diaphragm move the air into my lungs. The tunnel vision that had been closing in on the edge of my eyes faded.
“Give us a little time,” Talon said quietly. “We will get that door open.”
“We will find the way, or we will make the way,” Yuri said.
“Isn’t that Alexander the Great?” Vice asked.
“No,” Yuri said. “Is just me. I said it just now.”
“A Yuri original,” Magnus said, grinning like a fox.
I laughed, even through the tears. Suddenly it was alright. The crippling fear had passed, and I let them crowd around me for a hug. Their four powerful bodies pressed into me, but it didn't feel claustrophobic. It felt like a wall of muscle between me and the world. It felt safe.
A girl could get used to this.
You'd have thought it was a Chippendale convention because the shirts came off. Magnus bent to grab one of the bunks and strained until his muscles bulged and veins throbbed in his neck. It was like he was trying to move a ten-ton truck, and then with a squeal, the metal gave way. Just enough to bend a little. He put himself into it again, growling like an animal until one leg and then another broke loose. Panting with effort, he leaned back and smiled at me.
Holy shit. What a powerhouse. He swayed a little unevenly on his feet, and I ran to steady him. He threw an arm around me and gave me a hug that nearly cracked a rib.
Vice and Talon went to work next, each taking one of the legs that had snapped loose and lifting, bending until the other two legs folded and snapped. The bunk crashed to the floor, free of its bolts.
“You’ve seen the original drawings?” Talon asked Vice.
“I have.”
“What’s up there?” He asked, pointing to the ceiling.
“That’s Maintenance 2. Mostly plumbing.”
“Where would you say the thinnest place in the ceiling is?”
“There,” Vice pointed. “It can’t be more than a foot thick.”
"A foot of concrete?" Yuri said. "This is doable now that we can break bunk apart. We each get a leg and go for it in shifts. If you're certain of placement."
“Vincent has a memory like you wouldn’t believe,” Talon said. “If he sees something once, he’ll remember it forever. He could tell you where the cold water and hot water pipes are. If he saw the schematics, he could tell you anything.”
“Hell,” Vice said, snapping his fingers. “Pipes. Where would the toilet drain? We’re below the municipal sewers. It has to go up.”
“When you flush, it has pump,” Yuri said, “like in prison.”
“Then it would connect with the sewer lines in Maintenance 2,” Vice said.
Talon smiled.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Magnus said. “What is important about this? I do not have to use the toilet. Do you?”
"No," Vice said. "That means there's a six-inch pipe in the ceiling, so somewhere near…here, there's two inches of concrete, a six-inch pipe, and another two inches of concrete. The pip
e makes it easier to break through."
“Alright,” Talon said, grabbing one leg of the bunk bed. “Let’s tear this thing apart and start busting our way out of here.”
The lights flickered and died, leaving us in pitch darkness. The boys all began talking at once.
“Quiet!” I yelled. “Yuri, the door.”
“I am already on it, but I cannot see shit, Your Highness.”
I got my cell out and hit the flashlight. It was about all it was good for this far underground. Oh, it also had a calculator.
Yuri and I trained our guns on the door. He must have expected exactly what I did, that the lights were killed because a team was coming in.
If it was the Wolfpack, we were finished.
12
The door didn't open. What the hell were they waiting for? A breach should happen immediately. Otherwise, the surprise was wasted. Now we were ready to kill the first few who tried to come in. That was bad leadership.
Unless…
“What if there is no team?” I whispered.
“What do you mean?” Yuri said.
"Like, what if there's just one person? They closed the door by remote and figured they had in here like rats in a trap. So we starve after a while. Then you guys get the bunk loose and plan to bust through the ceiling, and they cut the lights to make it harder. But maybe that was their last card to play?"
“I can see what you mean,” he said, grinning at me. “And you shoot the cameras already, which means…”
“There’s a mic on the camera that I missed.”
“Got it,” Vice and Talon said at the same time.
They both ran for opposite cameras and began ripping out wires.
“Done!” Vice said.
He came back with the wires in his hand like a trophy. Talon was done just after, and he'd snapped the entire camera off and smashed it.
After that, they all tore the bunk to pieces, Yuri using the butt of his pistol to get the bolts started, Magnus bending the steel where it was welded.
Talon and Vice took the first turns at the ceiling, climbing to the top of a nearby bunk to swing their metal bars up into the concrete. It was grueling work, but after half an hour, they'd chipped away nearly half an inch in the shape of a small crater.
The hole they were making was only wide enough to fit a grapefruit through, but it was a start.
Yuri and Magnus took over, Magnus smashing chunks of concrete loose and Yuri using the edge of his bar like a chisel, scraping gouges out of the concrete.
I was told in no uncertain terms that I was to cover the door, hold the cell phone light, and when mine died, I would switch to the next in line until we'd used them all.
"Are you sure?" I'd said. "If I took a turn, I'd be shirtless too."
That got a few grins, and I think it made them work harder.
It was challenging to keep my spirits up, knowing Trib was out there. And my "one asshole with a remote" theory was just a theory. And even one person could shoot a gun. But I knew worrying would do no good, and I tried to put it out of my mind. Now that we had a plan and a way forward, it was easier not to give in to the fear. It would feel like I was letting the team down and slowing us down too.
I wouldn't allow that.
Magnus broke through to the pipe, but both he and Yuri were doused pretty bad with the sewage. The smell was something I could have done without, but the air circulation was good. It actually cleared the stench pretty quickly.
Whoever our captor was, they apparently didn’t have a remote control to the A/C unit.
Talon and Vice took another turn, and now that they were into the pipe, they could leverage and snap more concrete loose. They got spattered pretty bad with sewage too, but not nearly as bad as Magnus.
They were all taking a break when I heard the tapping.
It was like a rhythm I knew. Like someone tapping a message on the door.
Tink-tink-tink.
I ran to the door and put my ear to it. It took a minute, but I made out the message.
“What is it?” Magnus asked.
“Don’t shoot,” I said.
I put my hand on the door and breathed a sigh of relief. The only person who could be on the other side was Trib. The message started to repeat, but I tapped with the butt of my pistol, and I sent her back an 88, the shorthand for love and kisses. She tapped out an LOL.
It took a few minutes for the door to open again. As soon as it did, Magnus was ready with what was left of the bunk. He jammed it in place.
Trib stared at them. Four shirtless men, covered in shit, wielding twisted metal pipes.
“What the fuck?” she said. “I was gone for like an hour.”
“We clearly can’t do without you,” Vice said.
“No kidding. One hour and you’re all Lord of the Flies. If I'd taken a little longer, you probably would have started eating each other."
“My appetite is gone,” Yuri said. “The smell is disgusting.”
“I could eat,” Magnus said. “I cannot lie.”
"Showers first," I said. "Yuri in front, we're moving out. Magnus is right. We need to come back with forensic tools. There has to be some evidence of why this room was built."
“We’re coming back with the police," Talon said. "Someone has tried to kill me twice, and this room isn't supposed to be here."
"That may not be a good idea," I said. "Don't forget, your name is all over this section. According to Osborne Energy's corporate servers, this room, and whatever goes on here, is your baby, Talon. So we need to be sure of what's going on before we bring in the big guns."
“Damn!” Talon fumed. “I’m tired of not being able to take some kind of action.”
“There is some action we can take right now,” Trib said. “The signal that overrode the door locks came from inside the building. What do you say we run them down?”
“You found them?” I asked.
"Uh-huh. What did you think I was doing for an hour?"
I threw my arms around her. “I was so worried about you!”
“Rayne…you’re choking me…”
I let her go, and the color slowly returned to her face.
"Standard procedure," she said. "After I found a hiding spot and made sure no one was coming for me, I got back in the system and started tearing it up looking for whoever was messing with Section 7. It took me a while, but I found them. They're on the 80th floor.”
Talon and Vice exchanged a glance.
“The Executive Offices,” Vice said.
“When you say tearing the system up, you're not referring to permanent damage, are you?" Talon asked suspiciously.
“We should hurry,” Trib answered, without really answering.
We rode the elevator up, and at my suggestion, we stopped a floor early to take the stairs. Less chance of being shot full of holes coming off the tiny elevator. Not that it mattered. The 80th floor was a ghost town. Whoever it was had long since vacated.
“Can you narrow it down to one office?” Talon asked.
“Why bother?” Vice said. “There’s only one person it could have been.”
“Blair?” Talon sounded a little wounded saying her name, and now I knew why. He had loved her, and she broke his heart. Something like that wasn’t easy to recover from under the best of circumstances. “I just don’t know,” he continued. “She and I may hate each other now, but it’s hard to imagine her trying to kill me.”
“With a multi-billion dollar fortune at stake?” Vice said. “How are you both jaded and naive at the same time?”
“Don’t act as if you never loved her yourself, Vincent,” Talon growled.
The two of them faced off, glaring daggers at each other.
“Gentlemen,” I said. “You smell like shit. If you want to wrestle this out, why not after a shower?”
“Maybe in mud pool,” Yuri said, “So we can all enjoy it?”
We found some towels in the men's room, the little white cotton ones that high-
end places had for drying your hands, and all the men did what they could to clean themselves before we got on the chopper.
The ride back took thirty minutes, and Trib and I both held our noses the entire time. The little helicopter had no A/C, and the hot air over Dallas was doing us no favors. Finally, we landed on the helipad, and even the wind blowing from the cow patties wasn't as rank as those boys. Before they could get inside, I stopped them cold.
“Uh uh. You are not going in like that. Your pants go in the fire pit, and you make a line right there where I can hose you.”
“I will not be hosed,” Talon said firmly.
But Yuri, never a man to shy away from nudity, was already peeling his jeans off. Of course, I'd already seen what he had to offer, and with something that size, it was no wonder he didn't care who saw. He had nothing to be embarrassed about. My eye caught a glimpse of silver that hadn't been there before, and Yuri grinned as he waited for his hosing down. He'd had a piercing added down there. A pretty big one.
A ring ran right through the head of his dick, and it was as thick as my little finger. The ring, that is. The dick was a lot thicker.
I couldn’t help wondering what that would feel like…
I sprayed him, and he shook it off. Swimming in Vladivostok conditioned him to the cold. A hose in Texas during the summer was practically a hot shower.
Magnus was next. His physique was impressively large, and he was…proportionate. Trib, whose back was turned to the whole proceedings and whose face was bright crimson, reached over and kindly pushed my gaping mouth closed for me. Yuri gave out a little whistle when he saw it, and Magnus gave him a playful punch on the arm.
Vice was next, and he gleefully stripped in front of Talon, sticking his tongue out at his brother.
“Just remember,” he told me. “We’re not identical everywhere.”
Talon tsked and took his jeans off, and sulkily threw them into the fire pit.
“I loved those jeans,” he said, folding his arms glumly.
Vice grinned. “I’ll buy you some new ones.”
They were practically identical, and they were both beautiful. Svelte bodies, like Olympic swimmers, and between their legs…very nice. Not huge, not small. Impressive, to be sure, but not crazy.
