Expired Game (Last Chance County Book 5)

by Lisa Phillips

  Her sister and Dean didn’t look super surprised by this. But Jess couldn’t believe it. They were just going to stand here while water rushed in?

  That didn’t sound like a good idea at all.

  Thirty-two

  Ted looked over at his brother. He was about to say something when another alarm sounded. This one was different from those that had gone before. It was a continuous beep. The kind you resented at six in the morning on a Monday after a busy weekend.

  Dean gave him a long look and then nodded. Ted was glad his brother was on the same page. He was counting on his older sibling’s trained skills to get them out of this.

  Through the airlock door, Ted heard a thunderous clang as metal hit metal. Heavy and at high speed.

  Everyone braced. Ted said, “Put your back to the wall and grab something to hold onto.”

  Jess hugged the wall beside him. She grasped a pipe with both hands. “For the benefit of the whole class, maybe you could explain to us what’s going to happen in this demonstration.”

  Ted figured she was scared enough to want to know what they were about to face. He just hoped there was time enough to explain the whole thing.

  “The exterior door just blew open. Whether it was sabotage, or for some other reason, I won’t know until we get out there. So right now, beyond that door, there is nothing but lake water. And probably some fish.”

  The metal door groaned as water pressure built up on the other side. The airlock’s interior door wasn’t built to withstand the weight of the lake pushing against it. This far under the surface, it could probably hold for a minute or two, and then it would buckle.

  He continued, “In a minute, the contents of the lake will come rushing through that door.”

  “And that’s our only way out?” Ellie asked.

  “Yes.”

  Jess said, “You’d think they would build a back door in a place like this. Enclosed underwater.”

  “We have to assume that anyone watching has their eyes on the back door.” Though he figured they would have their eyes on both, he also figured they wouldn’t expect the four of them to emerge from the front. “If they are even watching. Which they might not be. They could be convinced that we’re trapped and will drown, so maybe they’ve left already.”

  “If they did, they’re probably right.” Jess rolled her eyes. She was about to say something else when the bulkhead door began to groan. “What kind of a place is this, anyway? Underwater facility. Holding cells. Probably some kind of reconditioning thing, like they were going to do with Kaylee.”

  She was scared and using humor to combat it.

  “And just like her,” Ted said to her. “We’re going to get out of here.”

  “She was rescued.” Apparently, Jess was still mad that she hadn’t been included in the operation. But she’d been on shift in Last Chance that night. “We have to get ourselves out.”

  He nodded. “We will.”

  Ted had one eye on the bulkhead as he continued, “In a minute, that will crash open, and a wall of water will come rushing in.”

  “You said that already.”

  He pinned Jess with a stare. “As soon as this place fills up, we’re going to have to swim out of here and up to the surface of the lake. Are you ready for that?”

  She opened her mouth to respond when, at that moment, the hallway exploded.

  The rush of cold water hit Ted like a brick wall. He gasped for breath, unable to suck in air as the water shoved them all sideways. He managed to hang onto his pipe. Until the force pushed his feet out from under him.

  He was swept to the side on the surface and heard one of the women yelp. He didn’t know which one. As the water battered him, and he tried to hold on, Ted tracked the level as it rose up the wall.

  Past halfway up, just above the light switch, all the electronics flickered and went dark.

  He yelled, “Everybody holding on?”

  “We’re good,” Dean said.

  “I’m okay.” Jess’s voice was full of all that fear he’d seen on her face—more than he had ever heard from her before. She was holding on, but from the sounds of it, it was getting difficult to maintain her composure.

  He prayed then. It was the only way to say he’d done everything he could to get them the best outcome. Not that it was a checklist, but more that he didn’t want to leave one single inch that could lead to failure. He wanted to know he’d covered all his bases.

  And that included asking God to help them.

  Ted gritted his teeth against the freezing temperature of the water. He took a couple of big breaths and shouted, “Time to swim.”

  He didn’t waste even a second, just took another breath the way Dean had taught him the SEALs did to hold their breath longer underwater. And then he went under.

  The current was intense, but it got easier the more he swam. His eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness. He could barely see more than a foot or so in front of him. Mostly he only got his bearings when something swirled at him, and he had to bat it away. Debris and other objects. Things that had been laying around. Even a fish.

  Someone’s body collided with his, and he realized Dean and Ellie were passing him. Powered by his brother’s strong legs.

  Ted looked around for Jess but didn’t see her in the murky water. God, please help us all get out.

  He swept his arms through the icy liquid and kicked his legs. He glided forward from the force until his whole body jerked, stopped from going any further. His foot had snagged on something.

  Air bubbles escaped from his nose in a rush.

  He looked down at his foot, but couldn’t make out what he was tangled in. It was way too dark down here. Maybe in the daytime he would have been able to see. But right now, all the light was from the moon and stars that shone overhead.

  Down at the bottom of the lake, there was barely any light.

  Ted curled up his body and reached down to his foot. It felt like twine. Maybe wire or some kind of net. He wasn’t sure if that was better than having been caught by a bad guy. Either way, if he waited too long before he managed to get out, he would meet the same end.

  More bubbles escaped his nose.

  His lungs screamed in his chest, and his head swam as his oxygen levels depleted. Ted understood the mechanics of what was happening to him. But even as his mind tried to logically explain the science behind spending too long underwater with no air, part of him screamed and raged against it. As though determined to believe that the impossible could be true.

  Forget about having a growth mindset. If he was about to die, what good was thinking positively? Especially when he wasn’t going to make it to the surface.

  Ted kicked and thrashed in the water. His actions stirred up silt from the bottom so that his vision grew even more clouded. He grasped at the netting, or whatever it was holding him fast. But try as he might, he just could not wiggle his foot free. He was completely tangled up and stuck.

  His strength floated away. His arms and legs grew heavy, and he could no longer move them as he’d been able to. A numbness descended over him. The last few bubbles of air left in his lungs released from his mouth.

  Ted floated, overcome with cold and a sense of nothingness. Not peace, more like an absence of anything. Just a single, quiet flicker inside him. Not quite a flame; it held no heat.

  Help me.

  Dean barreled into him, grasping Ted with his arms. His brother felt down Ted’s legs. A second later, he was free. But Ted had no strength left to swim.

  Dean hauled his limp body up toward the surface. Instead of making it out of the water on his own, he had to rely on the strength of his brother and his brother’s love for him. The fact his brother would never allow him to drown on his own, alone in the dark and cold.

  They broke the surface, and Dean tugged Ted toward him, one arm around Ted’s back and the other one lifting his head. “You need to breathe. Because I don’t want to give you mouth-to-mouth. You’re not nearly as cute
as Ellie.”

  Ted wanted to laugh, but he didn’t have the strength.

  He managed to suck in some air and then coughed out water, hacking and gagging on it as his body continued to expel the lake water and take in precious air.

  “There you are.” Dean patted his cheek, as though that would get Ted to breathe more.

  “Stop hitting me.”

  His brother chuckled. Ted could only groan since he didn’t have the strength to speak.

  Dean hauled him like a lifeguard toward the shore, while all Ted could do was blink up at the stars and try to make some sense out of what had just happened. His brain could hardly keep track. But eventually he managed to piece together Stephen Hilden and the facility. The one Ted had designed for isolation and underwater reeducation.

  If it was blown up so no one could ever go in there again, that would be fine by Ted.

  Give or take several arrests and probably a lengthy hospital stay for several of them. His wrist that had been injured a day or so ago had no feeling left in it. Dangling in the water, pretty much useless.

  “Ellie.” Dean’s breath left his mouth in a rush.

  Ted managed to twist his torso, but trying to look at what his brother was seeing didn’t net him any results.

  Seconds later, he could finally feel the ground underneath his feet. Ted tried to stand, but his legs didn’t want to hold his weight.

  Dean dragged him to the shore and set him down with his feet still in the water and upper body on the sand. All Ted could do was lay there.

  Two men ran past his vision, up on the grass. Or the path. He couldn’t really tell. Ted tried to warn his brother, but all that emerged from his mouth was a breathy moan.

  “Hey!” His brother’s yell rang out across the expanse of the lake.

  Ted realized that Dean needed help. He managed to get his hands, or at least one of them, to shift underneath his shoulder. With his forehead braced on the sand, he lifted up enough to raise his head off the ground and see what was in front of him.

  One man held Ellie, his arms around her, lifting her so that her feet were off the ground.

  As Ted watched, Dean punched the guy in the head. A gun went off. These were the men who had brought them to West. The ones who had given them over to be put in that underwater facility. Or maybe they’d even been the ones who swam them down there and shut them inside.

  From this distance, he couldn’t tell if their clothes were wet. And given Dean had just tackled a man holding Ellie to the ground, this probably wasn’t the right time to figure that out.

  A woman screamed. “Ellie, run!”

  Jess.

  Ted found her at the tree line, being dragged away by another man.

  Ellie started to run while Dean fought the man on the ground. Ted could do nothing but lay there completely helpless. Unable to even summon the strength to get his legs under him.

  The man holding Jess hit her over the head.

  She slumped in his arms, and he dragged her away.

  Thirty-three

  There was nothing else Jess could do but go limp. After all, he had hit her over the head. What would come next, except her being knocked out? Too bad for her she was still fully conscious. And now with an even more massive headache that made her feel as if her skull had split open.

  At least she didn’t have to expend extra energy on walking. Her clothes dripped, heavy from the water that soaked through to her skin. An extra ten pounds of weight, even after she’d kicked off her shoes before she broke the surface of the lake.

  Jess had been concentrating on making sure Ellie got to the shore as well, after Dean went back for Ted. She hadn’t even noticed the two men approach. The same guys that turned them over to Stephen Hilden, and who probably were responsible for putting them down in that facility.

  Jess could hardly believe it had been under the water. Now it was destroyed and completely waterlogged—both terrifying and actually kind of cool if she could admit that to her terrorized self. More denial to keep from thinking about the awful situation she was in yet again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Was this never going to end? Lord, I need Your peace. Please.

  The man hauled her away. Once he had put some distance in, Jess would’ve had enough time to figure out what she would do about it. Before he killed her. Or put her in a car. Whatever his plan was.

  But instead, she’d yelled for her sister to run. It was all she could do. Plead for her to get away. It wasn’t the only thing that mattered, but Ellie’s survival was seriously more important to her than her own.

  Now she had to focus on saving herself.

  When the man shifted her weight in his arms, Jess let out a low moan. She wasn’t sure if it sounded real or not. Who could tell? At least the man didn’t seem to be worried she might be faking her current physical state.

  She blinked and focused on the ground. It was difficult, given how hard she’d been hit over the head. Plus, the swim. And the tension, and the staple. She probably should’ve tried to pass out. That would likely feel better than this. But it wouldn’t fix her problem of yet more gunmen running loose around Last Chance.

  Nor would it help her get Hilden in cuffs.

  She moaned again, tracking their progress along the ground. They were headed down a path by the lake. To the parking lot? Where he would do...what, exactly?

  Jess wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Their plan to murder the four of them in that facility had failed. Why not just kill them the moment they surfaced, instead of now abducting her—and trying to abduct Ellie—for some other inexplicable reason? She had to figure out what he was doing so she could stop it.

  Just as soon as she figured out how.

  All the while…wondering if Ted was even still alive.

  Had Dean saved him? She didn’t even know why he hadn’t surfaced with the rest of them. The swim had been tough, and she’d realized they were at the far end of the lake where the water was deepest. Maybe it wasn’t so strange that no one had ever discovered the facility. It wasn’t like people went diving over here, what with nothing there to search for. No one swam at this end.

  How wrong everyone had been.

  Not just about the lake, but also about the fire chief.

  Frustration gave her a surge of energy. She tensed her muscles a split second before planting her feet and elbowing the guy behind her. He grunted and let go, enough she could reach down and grasp a branch on the ground beside the path.

  She spun, swinging the branch as she rotated her body toward the man. She used every bit of strength she had to slam the branch into the man’s head.

  Except that she misjudged his height and ended up hitting his shoulder. The branch splintered under the force of the blow, shattering. With the last pieces, she managed to clip the side of his head at least.

  Her head thundered, and she gagged back bile.

  He roared at her attack, and Jess scrambled to figure out what she was going to do next. Then he reached for his gun. She settled on simply tackling him the way she had done many times during the Thanksgiving pickup football games with the other cops. Never mind that she had sprained her wrist once. They had still won, hadn’t they?

  Besides, it was pretty much her signature move at this point.

  The man’s back struck the ground, and she managed to get her weight on his to pin him down. She slammed the hand holding the gun down on the gravel path, trying to get him to let go of it. The familiar movements helped her to focus despite the pain…everywhere. Not just her head.

  His grip was iron tight, and she wasn’t going to be able to keep this up much longer. One of them was soaking wet, injured and exhausted, and the other one was a gunman.

  Finally, he managed to let go. She reached for the gun, but he used the momentary distraction to flip her onto her back.

  Jess grunted as her head bounced off the gravel. But she didn’t lose her grip on the gun. The man punched her in the side of the head. Je
ss barely managed to absorb the blow, wrenching her neck in the process. She gritted her teeth and swung as hard as she could with the gun.

  She couldn’t knock him off of her.

  The man started to reach for her neck. Jess pressed the gun into his ribs, her finger on the trigger. “Back off. Down on the ground, hands behind your head.”

  He chuckled as he continued reaching for her neck. The second he began to squeeze down, his intent very clear, Jess pulled the trigger.

  The blast muffled against his clothing and flesh. But she knew what’d happened when his whole body jerked, and he slumped down on top of her.

  Before his weight fully settled on top of her, Jess shoved him to the side, breathing hard. Just trying to process the fact she had taken this man’s life. As long as she had been a cop carrying a gun, Jess had never killed anyone. She had only pulled her weapon a few times, never actually using it on another person.

  She stared up at the night sky and took a few gulping breaths before she flung herself over to search the man’s body. If she couldn’t get a phone, there wasn’t much else she could do without getting into a car and driving away from the lake.

  They had to get help. And if they were going to leave, the four of them needed to do it together.

  She sat up. The man’s phone was in the front hip pocket of his pants. She couldn’t see the lake now. They’d walked too far away from it and around the corner. Once she got the phone out, Jess would be able to find the others and figure out a plan to get them away from here.

  The phone used facial recognition, so she held it to the bad guy’s face to access it. Then she changed the security settings, so it wouldn’t require his image again. She also deleted the passcode.

  Then she made a phone call as she stood up to walk back toward the lake. Ugh. Walking hurt a lot.

  She held the phone to her ear and listened to it ring, wincing as even the tone hurt her ears. Her legs each felt like one-hundred-pound weights. The fact she was completely soaked didn’t exactly help either. She was freezing, her teeth chattering so much that when Conroy picked up the phone, she had to fight to get the words out.