“You should calm yourself, Mr. Miller,” Chambers said mildly, seeming unruffled by Ashton’s attempted assault. “You are, I might remind you, at my mercy. You’ve already killed several of my men and attempted to have me killed. You’re lucky I haven’t had you shot on sight. Or worse.” He rested his hand on the desk, casually, and Zachariah blanched at the sight of the man’s fingertips, topped not by fingernails but by long, wicked black claws that looked incredibly sharp. Chambers tapped them on the desk rhythmically as Ashton was hauled back into his chair.
“What do you want from us?” Ashton asked, shrugging the hand off his shoulder.
“Information,” Chambers said. “About your employer, about your jobs, and about everything both you and your employer know about me and my operations. Your friend gave me some of what I required last time he paid me a visit, but unfortunately, we didn’t get to complete our discussion, thanks to your meddling.”
“You assume we actually know anything about you,” Ashton replied.
“Oh, I think you know more than you let on,” Chambers said. “And, at the very least, you’ll give me insight into how the Agency works.”
“What makes you think we’re going to do that?” Ashton demanded.
Chambers reached underneath his desk and withdrew a black Glock, raising it to point directly at Zachariah. Somehow, Zachariah called on his training and managed to stay still and not recoil from the pistol aimed at him. “I think you’re both going to be very amenable to telling me everything I want to know.”
Zachariah watched out of the corner of his eye as Ashton sighed and sat back in his seat, bringing his right hand up to rest casually against his mouth as he seemed to mull his options over. Zachariah breathed in deeply through his nose and tightened his hands around the arms of his chair, struggling to maintain his composure, barely able to look at those steel gray eyes that stared at him over the outstretched gun, waiting for Ashton’s answer so the gun’s owner would know whether or not to squeeze the trigger. One of the man’s black claws curved through the trigger guard, making the presence of the gun that much more ominous.
“Fine,” Ashton said, and Zachariah felt his lungs deflate with a mixture of relief and surprise at the other man’s admission. “What do you want to know?”
“Oh, you don’t think it’s going to be that easy, do you?” Chambers said with a cruel smirk on his face. He lowered the pistol, setting it on the desktop, the barrel still aimed in Zachariah’s general direction. “My boys and I have to have our fun first.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Ashton groaned. “You have the opportunity to ask me any question you want, and you’re more worried about having fun?”
Zachariah opened his mouth to put in his two cents—hoping to say something, anything to rid himself of the frozen deer feeling in his gut—but before he could make a sound, Chambers signaled with a clawed hand, and something struck Zachariah on the side of the head.
He plummeted into darkness, toppling out of his chair to the carpet with a thud.
Nineteen
When Ashton came to hours after his and Zachariah’s forced meeting with Chambers, he found he was shirtless, freezing cold, and bruised in more places than he cared to think about. The beating Chambers and his men had administered had been bad, even dancing on the line of brutal, but it hadn’t been the worst beating he’d ever endured. He’d definitely been through worse.
Thank God Zachariah hadn’t been there when he’d taken his beating. Considering everything the other man had been through, he’d probably have spilled his guts.
Ashton blinked himself more fully awake and took a second to assess his surroundings. That was when he realized he was hanging from chains by his wrists, the toes of his shoes barely touching the floor.
Oh, this is fucking ridiculous, he thought. Can they get any more cliché?
He was hanging in a mostly barren prefabricated warehouse of some type; tilting his head back, he saw that the chains had been secured to steel beams high above his head. The concrete floor below his feet was stained a deep, rusty red, as if someone had repeatedly spilled something on it. Blood, he recognized. This must have been one of the places Chambers’ cartel brought its prisoners. God only knew what they did to the poor bastards in there.
Ashton turned his head with some difficulty, looking past his bicep to see Zachariah in a similar predicament. Fortunately, he didn’t seem any worse physically—and, even better, he was awake.
“Hey, you’re conscious,” Zachariah commented. His voice sounded hoarse, disused. “You look terrible, though. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Ashton said nonchalantly. “Just hanging around.” As he spoke, he tried to get enough leverage to test the strength of the cuffs clamped around his wrists.
“I’m seriously kicking your ass for that absolutely horrible, ill-timed joke as soon as we get out of this.”
“And, what, make me look even worse?” Ashton asked.
There was a clang and the sound of a door slamming shut off to their left. Ashton craned his head around to see two men walking toward them, chatting casually, but the menace in their expressions—and the crowbars in their hands—were unmistakable. Ashton felt his stomach sinking with dread at the sight.
Oh hell, you’ve got to be kidding me.
A quick glance at Zachariah confirmed that he, too, had seen the crowbars and paled considerably, but his expression was surprisingly calm, considering he was about to face the beating of a lifetime. He looked prepared, like he’d already begun to develop a plan; Ashton took a cue from him and started assessing options for his own plan.
Really, the only options available involved his legs. But a person could do a lot with his legs; with the proper application of force, they could even be deadly weapons. He tongued the paperclip he’d stolen off Chambers’ desk, pinned as it was between his gum and cheek, and took reassurance from his presence, thankful he hadn’t accidentally swallowed it during his earlier beating. It was going to be his key out of here. As soon as he dispatched of the immediate threat to his and Zachariah’s existence in the cleanest, fastest way possible.
One of the men stopped in front of him, looking him up and down, as if trying to assess just how much of a threat Ashton posed to him. Ashton stared right back at him, doing his own assessment of the man. Mainly, he was looking for any outward signs that this man was one of the werewolves from Damon’s files, but there was nothing to indicate what this man was one way or another. He would just have to take his chances, especially in light of the crowbar the man held.
“I take it you two are here to question us?” Ashton said, keeping his voice as neutral as his current situation would allow. As he spoke, he curled his right hand around the chain above his head, hoping his shoulder and arm muscles weren’t about to fail him.
“Nope, we’re not here to question you yet,” the man said. He tapped the crowbar against the palm of his hand. “We’re here to tenderize you for our boss, so when he comes here to ask you a few things, he doesn’t have to get his hands dirty.”
Ashton really hated the man’s use of the word “tenderize.”
“What, asshole is too afraid to do some real work?” Zachariah spat out. “He didn’t seem to mind it last week.”
There was a smack as the man in front of Zachariah backhanded him. Zachariah’s head snapped to the side, but he didn’t make a sound as he swayed a few inches to the side.
Zachariah seemed unperturbed by the blow. Instead of objecting to the rough handling or even trying to strike back, he gave the man an almost maniacal grin. Ashton’s mind immediately went to the psych profile Zachariah had admitted to failing before forging a replacement, and his stomach dropped.
Great, he’s finally lost it, Ashton thought. A crazed Zachariah would be of zero use to him during all of this; if he had gone around the bend, he’d be nothing but a liability.
Ashton really, really hoped he was misinterpreting the other man’s expression.<
br />
The man in front of him was tapping his crowbar against his hand more vigorously than before, and Ashton tightened his fingers around the chain. He had to time this perfectly; otherwise, he’d end up having to fight off two men with both hands literally chained above his head, and considering the soreness already in his body, the last thing he needed was these bastards adding to it.
He cast another glance in Zachariah’s direction; to his surprise, Zachariah was looking back at him, an expression of calm assurance on his face. He gave Ashton a single slow nod, and Ashton returned it, even as he realized that not only did Zachariah have a plan, he was aware that Ashton probably had one, too, and he was acknowledging that he was ready when Ashton was.
Ashton took in a deep breath. There was no time like the present to get the ball rolling. Even as he grasped the chain even tighter and started to pull, he said, “Now, Zach!”
Ashton hauled on the chain, dragging himself clear off the floor. At the same time, he snapped a foot up in a sharp kick at the man in front of him. The toe of his shoe impacted with the underside of the man’s jaw. His head popped backward, and his neck broke with an audible crack. The body toppled backward, and his head collided with the concrete floor with the full weight of his body. If he hadn’t been dead before Ashton’s kick, the skull-crushing force of the impact with the concrete would have done the job.
Ashton didn’t wait to make sure the man was completely down. He was already twisting himself around, trying to face Zachariah, hoping he wasn’t about to find the other man hanging dead from his chains. To his surprise, not only was Zachariah still alive, but he was in the midst of a rather brutal fight with the man who’d menaced him and struck him. He’d dragged himself up higher than Ashton had thought would be possible considering he’d had zero traction, and he’d wrapped both of his legs around the man’s shoulders. The man’s head was pinned in a hard grip between his knees, and Zachariah grimaced as he struggled to hold onto the man. Ashton wondered why he didn’t just kill him, and then Zachariah did, twisting his body sharply and somehow managing to get enough leverage to keep the man still long enough to snap his neck with his knees. But rather than let the man go, he steered him over to a particular spot and slowly, almost gently, eased him to the floor. Then, as if it were the simplest thing in the world, Zachariah lowered himself down, standing on the dead man’s stomach as if it were a step stool.
“Problem solved,” Zachariah said, looking almost proud of himself.
“Yeah? Then how are you going to get out of those chains?” Ashton asked. Even as he voiced his question, he was already starting to haul himself up his own chains, hand over painstaking hand, until he’d reached a point where he could get to his own hands. The chain had formed a loop beneath him, and he slipped his right foot into it to anchor himself as he spit the paperclip he’d stolen from Chambers’ office into his hand. He started bending it into shape as he watched Zachariah out of the corner of his eye.
Zachariah still dangled from his cuffs, still stood on the body on the floor, but his feet were working at the man’s belt, and it took Ashton a second to figure out what Zachariah was after: the set of keys clipped to one of the man’s belt loops. With a yank, he snapped the clip off the loop until he had the keys pinned between his boots. Then he gave Ashton a bright, cheeky grin.
“Nice going,” Ashton complimented, talking around the paperclip as he used his teeth to adjust the shape of the clip for lockpicking. “But how are you going to get the keys from there to your hands?”
“Just watch,” Zachariah said. He scanned the room, twisting his head this way and that to make sure no one was coming, and Ashton mimicked the gesture. He didn’t see anyone, either, so as he slipped the tip of his bent paperclip into the handcuffs’ lock, he watched Zachariah, curious how he was going to negotiate his escape.
Zachariah had started to climb his chain similar to the way Ashton had, but when he’d only climbed several feet, he curled his legs up, pulling his knees toward his chest. His arms shook with effort as he held himself in place, then he leaned forward, tilting his head toward the ground. He dipped toward the concrete, and Ashton’s heart leaped in his chest as he imagined the other man plummeting downward and the chain catching him and dislocating both of his shoulders. But he didn’t fall. Instead, he twisted his body until it was upside down, held in place only by the strength of his arms, then he straightened his legs until he was doing a virtual handstand with his hands tucked in close near his waist. He balanced like that for several long heartbeats then adjusted the angle of his legs, took a deep breath, and let go of the chain with one hand. Then, with another slight adjustment, he let go of the keys. They dropped from between his feet into his free hand with a soft jingle.
Ashton had to admit he was impressed, he acknowledged as Zachariah started to lower himself back down in the same manner he’d gotten up there. Despite the tremor in his muscles from the effort, he didn’t seem ruffled by the exertion in the slightest. As his feet made contact with the dead body below him, he riffled through the keys, fumbling free a handcuff key and slipping it into the cuff’s lock. At the same time that Zachariah’s cuffs snapped loose, Ashton’s did the same, and he lowered himself, hand under hand, back to the floor.
“What’s our plan to get out of here?” Zachariah asked as Ashton rolled his shoulders and rubbed his wrists, trying to work the ache out of his joints.
“Who said we’re getting out of here?” he replied. He pointed across the warehouse to the door that their two attempted tormentors had entered through. “I want to know what’s on the other side of that.”
“Why?” Zachariah hissed. “We’re free. We need to get out of here while we can. Besides, you’ve had the shit beaten out of you!”
“I still have all my limbs, and I’m able to stand on both my feet,” Ashton said. “We have a mission to complete, and I’m still physically capable of completing it. So we’re moving.”
“Okay, but how?” Zachariah asked. “Because if that door isn’t locked, then you can color me surprised.”
Ashton scanned the wall the door was set into, first across and then up. When his eyes reached the top of the wall, he grinned. “This used to be one large room,” he told Zachariah. “It looks like that wall was put up later.” He pointed up. “See? It doesn’t go all the way to the rafters. So we go up and over. Can you climb?”
“If I have to,” Zachariah said, and that was all Ashton needed to hear. He crossed back to the chains they’d just recently abandoned and grasped his own, hauling himself up a few feet, even as Zachariah added, “Oh God, you’re kidding me.”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Ashton retorted. He climbed a few more feet and then added, “Get climbing before someone comes looking for those guys.” He nodded toward the dead men on the floor then focused his attention on the goal above him: the steel rafters that crisscrossed the building’s interior. Thankfully, Zachariah listened to him and started to climb his own chains, and they continued upward in silence, the only sound between them the soft tinkle of their chains rattling as they scaled them.
When Ashton reached the rafters high above the concrete floor, his shoulders and arms ached more than he cared to admit. It appeared that hanging from a chain by his wrists for an unknown amount of time before climbing twenty feet up said chain to the ceiling was almost too much for his body to handle. He’d never dream of admitting that to Zachariah, though; instead, he just straddled the rafter and sat on it, panting for breath as his body tried to catch up with his brain. Once he was sure he could move without falling over, Ashton boosted himself to his feet.
The entire ceiling area was covered in thick cobwebs that hung down from the ceiling above them like a shroud. Coupled with the fact that the light fixtures were below them, the rafters were dark as night, with barely any light to see the rafters beneath their feet. Ashton prayed that neither he nor Zachariah would misstep; one false move and they’d fall to certain death. He drew in a deep breath
, nearly getting a mouthful of cobwebs for his trouble, and straightened, twisting around enough to look back at Zachariah. The younger man was inching along the rafter, his expression mildly terrified and his skin pale.
“Remind me to kick your ass when we get out of this,” he hissed when he caught Ashton looking at him.
“What, you’re going to kick my ass when I’ve already been smacked around?” Ashton asked. He couldn’t help but smile at the threat, and he caught a hold of a thin pipe above his head for balance before looking back at the other man again.
“Yeah, sure,” Zachariah grumbled. He scowled as he looked down again, and if it were possible, he appeared to go even paler. “And when I’m done, I’m going to shoot you in the ass.”
“You’re scared of heights, aren’t you?” Ashton asked.
“‘Scared’ is such a strong word for it,” he replied defensively. “It’s more like ‘slightly more than vaguely uncomfortable with the idea.’”
Ashton snorted, but before he could say anything in response, the squeak of a door opening below drew his attention, and he clamped his mouth shut. He took a few more steps to duck into something more thoroughly shadowed, in a space between two of the light fixtures, and motioned for Zachariah to do the same. Then he crouched, his fingers curling around the rafter he stood on, and stayed as motionless as he could while he watched the activity below.
Four men had entered the warehouse through the same door the previous two men had used. They were laughing and joking as they entered, but they fell into silence the moment they realized their two prisoners were missing and their compatriots lay dead on the floor. One of the men let out a shout of alarm, and two rushed forward, kneeling beside the dead men and pressing fingers to arteries to check for pulses. The other two drew pistols from holsters underneath their jackets and split up, spreading out across the warehouse to search for the two missing prisoners.
Nightfall Page 20
