“So what’ll it take?” he asked quickly. “You going to stay here and face the music that comes with Thomas? Or are you more interested in living?”
Jack took several staggering steps back, but kept his eyes on Pete’s. And they were… surprisingly calm. Surprisingly intelligent.
A whole lot more rational than Pete had expected them to be, if he was being honest with himself.
“What are you talking about?” he asked quickly.
“We’re talking about leaving,” Pete replied. “But we’re going to need someone to help us do it. And Marie, here, has taken a liking to you because you tried to save her. She votes we take you with us, maybe save your life. What do you say? Would you rather stay here with Thomas and his band of merry men—and their guns?”
Jack bit his lip and thought about it for a grand total of ten seconds.
“Thomas is going to kill me if I stay,” he said—which wasn’t actually an answer at all.
“You’re right,” Pete replied simply. Because he was pretty sure Thomas would, in fact, shoot Jack right in the face. “Especially if he gets here and finds that you’ve let us escape. Again.”
Jack swallowed heavily, his eyes going panicked for a moment. Then he seemed to regain control of himself, and nodded. “I’ll come with you.”
Pete dropped the gun back down to his side and gave the other man a return nod. “Terrific. Because we’ve got to get out of here before Thomas arrives—and before the rest of the town wakes up. These freaks have already killed too many people for my liking, and I don’t want to be next on the list. Let’s figure out how the hell we’re going to get out of these cells, and then get the hell out of this village before they figure out what we’re up to.”
He swung away from Jack and started making for the door of their cell, his mind already turning to the lock—and how he was going to get it open.
Chapter 3
Here, though, was where they were going to have the problem. Because a gun was all well and good, but when it came to breaking out of a prison cell, keys would have been a whole lot better.
“Don’t suppose you have any of those keys on you still?” Pete asked Jack quickly, pressing his face against the bars of their cage as he tried to see what the other side looked like.
It didn’t work. Of course. Because it would have been too easy for him to get to see the other side. And on the list of things his life had given him lately, “easy” was pretty far down. Hell, as far as he could tell, he was probably making up for some really shitty karma that he’d collected in another life.
He really hated that previous version of his soul, for putting him through this. Because it never should have gone this badly.
He’d just been following the rules, helping his team clean up after an earthquake in Anchorage. Minding his own business. Doing a good job, even though he didn’t have the first clue about what was going on with the world that they were suddenly having earthquakes once a week in Anchorage.
When the order had come in to escort cult leader David Clyde to Mueller Max, several hours from Anchorage, he hadn’t complained. There had been a plan. Get the prisoner, get him to the prison, and then turn around and get back to Anchorage in time for the plane that would take them back to the continental US—and home, and a much-needed vacation.
Finding out that the prison in question, though, had been run by a lunatic who specialized in torturing his prisoners? That had been an unforeseen difficulty. Being trapped in that prison when some sort of weather event had taken out all the electricity, fried the grid like a tomato, and left them all without tech?
That had been the start of his nightmare.
Since then, it had been one thing after another. Prisoners trying to kill him and torture the warden for his evils. A nightmarish trek through the snow—only to find themselves holed up in a cabin with a doctor who collected and sold organs from presumably live-at-the-time patients. And then this village, which had seemed like such a godsend when they found it, with its food and beds and hot water, had instead turned out to be just another trap for his tired soul.
Seriously, he was really over the whole thing. He just wanted to get the hell out of here, get to Anchorage, and hope society was still functioning in the city where he’d grown up.
God, he hoped it was. He really wanted to have a beer and some hot soup and check out in front of a TV for at least 48 hours. Let his brain—and his body—turn off for a while. He was tired of running. Tired of killing. Tired of people thinking he was someone he definitely wasn’t.
But to do that, he had to get the hell out of this prison cell. Out of this village.
And to do that, he needed to figure out how he was going to get the lock on this door undone.
“Dammit,” he muttered, trying once more—and failing—at getting an eye through the bars so he could see what lay on the outside of the door.
At that moment, Marie showed up at his side. “What are you trying to do?” She frowned and pressed her own forehead against the door, mimicking him.
“I’ve got a gun, but no key,” he said quietly, ever mindful of the door on the other side of the room—which had a bad habit of letting enemies in when he wasn’t expecting them. “I need to know whether the gun is going to do any good.”
“Course it will,” Jack said, appearing at the bars of his own cell, his face almost too eager. His voice almost pathetic in its excitement. “Those locks aren’t very solid. We didn’t have good iron when we made the cells, so we just embedded padlocks in the spots where we needed them.”
Pete cocked his head and stared at the other man.
“What kind of padlocks?”
“Plastic ones,” Jack said quickly. “We were in a hurry to get these done, and we didn’t figure anyone would ever know about it. I mean, you get a cell and you assume it’s made out of the strongest stuff on earth. You don’t exactly test it. So why would it matter?”
“Hold on,” Marie responded. “How the hell could you put plastic inside hot iron? Wouldn’t it melt?”
Jack just shrugged. “That part wasn’t my problem. I was working on the welding, not the actual building. I only heard them talking about the locks.”
Pete almost laughed. Jack, like so many of the men he’d known, was just smart enough to retain information—and stupid enough to let his mouth run away with him when it came to passing that information on to other people.
And that didn’t matter at all. Because stupid or intentional, Jack had just given him exactly what he needed: a way out of this cell.
“Jack, you might be part of the craziest cult I’ve ever run into, but you’re a good man,” he said quickly.
He took three steps back from the bars of the door and stared at them, trying to figure out how he was going to do this. And, like always, Marie joined him immediately. With her questions.
“So what are you thinking?” she asked, leaning toward him so she could get the same point of view he was using.
Pete groaned, reminded himself that the girl was only trying to help, and then reminded himself that she’d already saved his bacon more than once.
In fact, the girl was an incredibly good shot. She’d proved that much in the woods outside of the ranger’s cabin, where she’d taken down the deer that he’d missed.
Of course, that didn’t mean he was going to give her the first shot at taking out that lock.
“Trying to figure out the best way to get this done,” he said sharply, already taking the three steps back toward the door.
He glanced out the window, and lectured himself for it. Dark was dark, and seeing that it was still dark out there wasn’t going to tell him anything new. The fact was that they needed to get this done as quickly as possible, and that was all there was to it.
Hilda and Merle must have made it to Thomas’ house already, and was probably in the midst of telling him what had happened, making it all sound as dramatic and dangerous as possible. Sure, there was a chance that Thomas was
on the other end of town with the rest of the villagers, stacking dead bodies up for a bonfire or whatever they did with the dead here. It could have taken them longer to get to him.
But Pete couldn’t count on that.
He had no idea how long it would be before Thomas showed up. They didn’t have time to fuck around with Marie’s questions or Jack’s incomplete memory of how the doors may or may not have been made. He was just going to have to take Jack’s word for the locks being plastic embedded in iron, rather than iron all the way through.
“The thing is,” he told Marie quickly, “if those locks are plastic on the inside rather than sold iron, they’ll split right through the middle if we can get a bullet through them. I just have to get the gun through the bars and turn it back so…”
He put his hand up to the bars and tried to push it through… only to very quickly realize that it wasn’t going to work. His knuckles were way too big—and there was no way he’d get it through with the gun grasped in his fingers.
But he had to. This was the only way it was going to work.
He twisted his hand to the right and left, desperately searching for a way to slide it through. When that didn’t work, he pulled his hand up in front of his face and licked his knuckles, running his tongue quickly over them.
Then he tried to slide his hand through again, this time with the lubrication of the saliva.
Still no luck.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“What, exactly, are you hoping is going to happen, there?” Marie asked, concern evident in his voice. “Because it’s not looking like you’re having much luck.”
This time, Pete decided just to use sheer force, pushing his hand against the bars with everything he could muster until it felt like his bones might actually break.
His hand still wasn’t fitting. And his gut told him that they were running out of time.
“I have to get my hand out there with the gun if we’re going to shoot the lock,” he said, frustrated.
“Oh, God,” Marie snapped. She shoved him out of the way, looked at him like he was the stupidest man she’d ever met, and then slid her hand right through the bars.
Once it was out there she gave him her version of jazz fingers—and a look that confirmed that he was an idiot.
“You need a hand outside of the bars, you’ve got it,” she said. “Now what?”
Pete ground his teeth, trying to think through the tension that was building in his mind. They had to get out of here, stat.
But did he really trust her with a gun? Especially one that was going to be pointed back toward him?
Yes, he realized immediately, he did. He’d seen her shoot before, and he knew how accurate she was. He also knew that she knew this was the only way out of here.
He was just going to have to let go of the control for a moment.
He handed her the gun and watched her slide it through the bars from one hand to the other, then grasp it like a pro.
This girl would never cease to amaze him. He just hoped she could pull this off without killing herself—or him.
“Now turn it toward the lock,” he said. “Make sure the gun’s pointed away from you. Away from me. But toward the lock. And…”
It could backfire, he knew. It might not matter that the gun was pointed away from them. The bullet could hit iron and ricochet off it right into his forehead.
This might be the end of the game for him. But at least he’d have died trying to escape.
At least he wouldn’t have given up.
She didn’t tell him before she pulled the trigger. He didn’t even see it happen. Just heard the explosion of sound that meant a gun had been fired in a confined space.
He jumped—and then saw the door swinging open, a triumphant grin on Marie’s face as she looked over her shoulder at him and grabbed for his hand. Seconds later, they were through the door and out into the open—and Jack was shouting at them.
“Don’t leave me in here! You promised you’d take me with you!”
All the heroic firmness was gone, and the guy was freaking begging them to take him. Even if Pete had been second-guessing his decision to take the guy (he hadn’t), that would have turned him.
The man was panicking at the thought that they were going to leave him to the wolves.
Pete grabbed the gun from Marie, pointed it at the door to Jack’s cell, and pulled the trigger.
“I told you I’d take you, and I don’t go back on my word,” he said quickly. “Now, let’s get the hell out of here. They’ll have heard those gunshots, and I’m not in the mood to explain to them what they were all about.”
He turned and ran for the door, his gun already up and ready to shoot out another lock before anyone got there with a key.
Chapter 4
They got to the door that led out into the street unmolested, and Jack, seemingly without putting a single thought into the action, threw the door open and rushed right out into the dark night air.
Pete gave himself one-third of a second to think again about how stupid the man was—and seriously question whether he actually wanted to take the guy with them or not—before his hand darted out after the idiot and jerked him backward.
Jack flew back into him like he’d just been shoved by a giant, and Pete staggered back against the wall. Marie’s shoulder up against his steadied him, though, and he shot her a grateful look.
The woman, at least, had figured out that they needed to be careful. She hadn’t gone rushing out into the street like she could have. She’d put her back up against the wall of the jail instead, her hands up in fists in front of her like she was getting ready to go into some old-time boxing match.
“Where the hell did you think you were going?” he snarled at Jack, taking in the man’s wide eyes and pale coloring.
God, taking this guy along for the ride was looking like a worse and worse idea the longer he thought about it.
Instead of saying so, though, he turned to Marie and gave her a look that he trusted spoke volumes. “And you. You thinking someone’s going to show up to fight you or something?”
No, it wasn’t fair, especially when he’d just been thinking about how proud he was of her. But he had aggression to spare, and she was, unfortunately, an easy target.
She gave him an equally jaded look. “Would you be surprised if they did? I figured it’s better to at least be prepared. Now, what the hell are we doing and when can I get my gun back? I’m starting to feel naked without it.”
Pete pushed the thought of Marie naked to the side before his brain got a chance to think too much about it and settled on the bigger problem.
Namely, that they didn’t have much of a plan from here on out. Getting out of the cells had been their biggest and most immediate hurdle. And now that that was done…
He turned to the street, his eyes scanning the immediate area and trying to give his brain ideas. It was pitch black out there now—and would be even darker once they got away from the village and its store of electricity—and it was so fucking cold that he was already starting to lose feeling in his nose. Perfect escaping cover, if you thought that darkness was more important than staying warm enough to stay alive.
If you wanted to stay alive, though…
“We’ll never make it on foot,” he said quickly. “Too damn cold out here. So that means the idea with the horses is out.”
“They’ve probably got the barn under surveillance at this point anyhow,” Marie added. “Since that’s where they found us the first time.”
He cast a side eye at her. “Surveillance? What are you, a spy, now?”
She didn’t bother to answer him. Not that he blamed her. Her tendency to make jokes in the middle of incredibly intense situations seemed to be rubbing off on him—and it was something that he needed to control. Immediately.
He wasn’t the sort of man who made jokes when they were facing life-threatening situations. He was the sort of man who took in a situation and fucking dealt wi
th it. And speaking of which…
“We’ve got to get out of town,” he confirmed. “Immediately. The question is, how are we going to do it?”
“Hold on,” Marie snapped. “There’s no getting out of town immediately without our packs.”
Pete opened his mouth, ready to tell her exactly where she could shove the damn packs, but then snapped it shut.
She was right, he realized. The packs held water, rations, all stuff essential for their survival when they were back in uncivilized territory. The last time he’d seen them, they were in the same house where they’d been staying.
“Thomas’ house,” Marie said, as if she was actually listening in on his thoughts as he had them.
“Thomas’ house. Where there will be food,” Pete said, continuing the thought for her.
“And is so close to the house with all the guns,” she continued, her voice colored by a smile.
“I’m betting Thomas also has some stuff in his house other than just guns,” Pete said quickly. “Not that guns aren’t important. But maps, coats, maybe a tent…”
“Thomas has a basement,” Jack said, suddenly deciding to join the conversation. “And he keeps all the surplus from the town down there. Always said it would be safer if he knew exactly where it was.” He paused and tipped his head, though, as if he’d just remembered something. “Always seemed kind of fishy to me though, you know? We have warehouses for that sort of thing. Why would he think he needed to keep separate backup?”
Pete once again revised his opinion of having brought Jack with him, and spontaneously gave him a nickname.
The Mouth.
He brought a firm hand down on Jack’s shoulder, making the other man jump. “And that is exactly the kind of thing we’re bringing you for,” he said.
Jack smiled shyly. “I’ve been here since the start. Helped put up the first house. Been here longer than Thomas himself, come to think of it.”
Stone Cold Fear | Book 3 | Ice Burn Page 2
