Escaping Madness: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Live Free Or Die Book 3)

by Hayley Lawson

  Ryder and the others descended the stairs to Level Five. This was another floor on which the men lived, the one Ryder had lived on with Terrier.

  Carter pushed open the door a little and stepped back, gagging. “What the fuck is that?” he choked. “It smells like a box of smashed assholes in there!” He covered his nose and mouth with a sleeve and led them into the level.

  It was a place which none of them wanted to be near. We need some fucking lights, Ryder thought. The inky darkness of the bunker and the smell of death all around them was making the bunker even eerier, something Ryder hadn’t thought possible. We just need to get through this level, and then we’re at Level Six.

  Ryder heard a click of a gun and raised her hand, hoping the others would be able to see it. She grabbed Carter, pulling him back, and the door slowly closed behind them. “There are generals on this floor,” Ryder whispered.

  Carter’s voice was muffled through his sleeve. “I thought the generals lived on Level…Three. Didn’t we just take care of them all?”

  “They do, but Afana may have sent some of them down if there was a Mad breakout, so there could be Mad and generals.” Ryder shrugged. “Fuck, there could be Mad generals, for all I know.”

  Clint stepped forward. “Sounds like the kind of fight I like.”

  Ryder drew an arrow from her quiver and nocked it, then motioned toward the level with her bow. “Be my guest.”

  They were momentarily blinded when the lights flickered back to life. The advisors on Level One had turned them back on. Everyone shielded their eyes, their night vision destroyed by the harsh glare.

  Ryder blinked the pain away, and when she opened her eyes, she was met by the barrels of the generals’ weapons. Shit.

  Her bow was already raised, so she shifted to aim at the general in front of her, and the others did the same. The standoff was tense. The numbers were even, and the weapons were pretty well matched. Ryder knew all the generals. The one in front of her was one of the slimier jerks, General Finn. Ryder looked around for General Murray, the highest-ranking general. He wasn’t there. Maybe he’d finally gotten what was coming to him.

  Ryder peered through the glass floor when movement caught her eye. It was Terrier, and he was grinning up at her. Beside him was General Murray. That greasy flea on a rat’s back! What the hell is he doing down there? And why hasn’t Terrier killed him?

  They were standing together like friends, for fuck’s sake! General Murray had put most of them in the bunker, and now the bastard was standing with them? Ryder shook it off. She couldn’t let herself be distracted, not when she was so close to her goal. She had to focus on the task at hand, which was getting rid of the assholes in front of her.

  That split-second lapse had cost Ryder the advantage, and the generals opened fire on the Merry Men. Ryder and the others dived out of the way. She hit the floor and rolled to her feet, then scanned the others. No one had been hit, thankfully. She’d have to deal with General Murray later.

  The Merry Men didn’t have much to use as cover other than the tables and chairs in the middle of the Level Five common area, but then they weren’t planning on staying there very long.

  Ryder bobbed up and loosed an arrow, and the fight was on. The generals had no combat skills to speak of. They’d been trained to rely on their guns to keep order. Ryder knew this and made a game of aiming for the generals’ gun hands. The light caught Willard’s knife as it flew through the air and landed in the throat of one of the generals. “Nice shot!” Ryder called. “A few more of them and we’ll be golden.”

  Ryder retrieved her arrows as she worked her way around the common area. Each one she pulled from a dead general she sent off again to make another dead general. She was finally getting her revenge on the fuckers who’d kidnapped her when she was a kid. They aren’t going to do it to anyone else, Ryder thought.

  “Kill them. Kill all of them!” Ryder yelled, not that the Merry Men needed the order. They were doing a fine job without her instruction.

  General Finn had escaped Ryder’s arrows so far. “Get that fucking bitch!” he screamed, red-faced. His bleeding hand was shaking with so much rage he was unable to keep his gun straight. He fired and missed, shooting one of the other generals by mistake.

  Ryder grinned. “Nice, Finn. If I’d known you would do the job for me, I wouldn’t have bothered coming back to this shithole.”

  General Finn’s face turned purple. “You shouldn’t even be up here! Get back down to Level Six with the other whores!” He pulled the trigger four times in quick succession. “Or you can die!”

  Shit! Ryder dropped and rolled out of the way of the oncoming bullets. Three flew over her head, but one left a hot line and a trickle of blood on her arm. She’d had worse. Her adrenaline was high, and she wasn’t going to let a little scrape stop her.

  The Merry Men weren’t going to take that.

  Vicky swung her shovel and General Finn collapsed unconscious to the floor, bleeding profusely from the gash across his face. They turned their attention back to mopping up the nearby generals. Vicky used her shovel to block the bullets fired at her, then swung it to impact with the closest general’s head. There was a crunch when it connected with his skull, and the force lifted him off his feet and onto the floor, never to get up again.

  Graham yelled, “Watch your back, Vicky!”

  Another general had turned to shoot her. Graham sent his axe spinning through the air to land in the general’s shoulder. It embedded itself deep into the muscle, and only stopped when it got wedged in his bone. The thought of the pain made Ryder wince, but he’d deserved it.

  They all deserved it.

  The general stumbled sideways and reached up to pull out the axe, but before he could get his hand on it Vicky’s shovel met his face with a sickening crunch.

  Vicky kicked the general on his way down and smiled gratefully at Graham.

  The Merry Men drove the rapidly-dwindling group of generals back. Ryder and the others with knives were making quick work of killing them. Ryder knew that soon the generals would be out of bullets. They just needed to last that long.

  Carter danced in a circle with a tall, thin general and they traded blows, Carter getting his licks in. Another general moved to flank Carter, but she stopped that shit right in its tracks with a well-placed arrow to the eye. Ryder elbowed a passing general in the face as she crossed to assist her friend.

  Carter didn’t need her help, landing a sweet right hook that broke the general’s jaw. Ryder didn’t want to be left out. She ran over and winked at Carter as she swung a foot up into the general’s crotch, then moved past the two of them to take out the generals she’d chosen as her next targets. Carter’s general didn’t know what had hit him, but he did once Ryder’s boot connected with his junk. He dropped to his knees, whimpering in pain.

  Carter came over and gave Ryder a fist-bump. “Nice moves.”

  She accepted the gesture with a grin. “Thank you. I was going to say the same to you.”

  Graham sighed dramatically. “You two are breaking my heart. Why can’t you just settle down, Carter?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Maybe the three of us could settle down together sometime…”

  Ryder snickered and rolled her eyes. “Honestly, of all the times and places to reignite the bromance.”

  The fight was pretty much over. The few remaining generals held up their hands and surrendered, not so tough when they ran out of bullets. The Merry Men got to work tying the generals up.

  “Sorry, you two aren’t my type,” Ryder told Graham and Carter as she bound the general’s hands behind his back with his own shirt.

  Both men clutched their hearts and Carter went the extra mile for dramatic effect as usual. “Say it isn’t so, Ryder. What can I do to earn your love?”

  The generals looked at Ryder and her friends as they continued their banter.

  Vicky snickered. “Ryder goes for the fluffy type.”

  Ryder rolled her eyes.
“Keep your eyes on them. I’ll get the door and free everyone on Level Six. Nice work, guys.” Ryder smiled as she walked down the stairs to the door and pulled on it, but the door it wouldn’t open.

  “Carter, give us a hand.” Ryder’s request was greeted by a round of applause from Carter as he headed toward her.

  It was firmly locked.

  Ryder tried it again, then went back up to Level Five. “Shit. Massimo might know how to open the door. He knows all the technology stuff.” Carter nodded, and Ryder looked at the glass ceiling. There was activity on Level Four—a few generals who must have been down the tunnels when they passed through the level. And there were Mad.

  Ryder turned to her team. “Willard and Koda, can you find Massimo and tell him that we can’t get into Level Six? We need him to get the door open. Be careful, there are Mad and generals on that level.”

  “Got you,” Willard replied. Koda just nodded. The two men ran for the stairs to find Massimo.

  General Finn had regained consciousness. He struggled to his feet and glared at Willard and Koda, missing the gravity of the generals’ situation completely. “Stop them!” he screamed.

  The other generals looked at Ryder and her friends, not sure what to do. They were weaponless and now outnumbered.

  Ryder’s lip curled, and she shook her head at Finn in disgust. “It’s over. Stop ordering them to do Afana’s dirty work.”

  “It’s not his dirty work. It’s to keep our civilization alive. It’s great work, not dirty work!” General Finn spoke with such passion Ryder knew that he truly believed every word of what he’d just said.

  Clint laid a stunning haymaker across the general’s jaw. General Finn was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  “Damn...” Rang out from both groups.

  Clint rolled his shoulders. “Time for you young ones to learn a lesson from an old-timer. That’s how you knock out an ass-licking skeleton like that motherfucker.”

  “I think I’ve got a semi-on.” Carter grinned smugly.

  Ryder smirked. “You get semi-ons at the oddest times. Do you need Graham to give you a hand, or you good to get on with the job?”

  Carter looked down at his bulge, then winked at Ryder. “What do you think? Door first.”

  20

  Terrier spotted Ryder looking at him through the glass ceiling.

  She’s fucking done it! Terrier thought. She’d come back to the bunker to rescue everyone.

  He felt relief wash over him, but they weren’t out of the woods yet. Terrier had a lot of hope that Ryder and the people she’d brought with her would get them out of there, since they’d already made it through five levels. He had worried that if Ryder did return, the generals would kill her before she ever reached him.

  Instead, she’d fought off the Mad and the generals. He’d always known that Ryder could face anything that was thrown at her and come out on top.

  Terrier pumped his fist in the air. “We’re waiting for you, Ryder!” he shouted. “You’ve got this!”

  Ryder glanced at the level above where they’d left Massimo and Fluffy, along with a pack of Mad and Afana. Ryder hoped they were okay. It was really hard to see anything with all the blood smeared across the glass. They had to be all right.

  She looked back down at Terrier, who had a huge grin on his face. He pumped the air with a fist and shouted something she couldn’t hear. Ryder grinned back mirroring his gesture. “I’m coming for you all, Terrier! Hang on just a bit longer!”

  Time to set her friends free.

  Koda led the way back up the stairs to find Massimo, with Willard close behind him. The two men climbed the stairs two at a time, trying frantically to stay out of the Mad’s reach. The men made it back to Level Four, where they’d left Massimo and Fluffy to kill Afana.

  Koda nodded at Willard. Willard had his knives up and ready to throw as Koda opened the door.

  Koda opened it a fraction and peeked into the level, but the door was flung open before Koda could release his grip. He was pulled into Level Four and the arms of the waiting Mad. The Mad were no longer waiting for fresh flesh to sink their teeth into, their meal had arrived.

  The Mad flung the door open and headed straight for Willard. Willard threw some of his knives but missed in his panic. Willard had nowhere to go except back down the stairs Level Five, where Ryder and the others were.

  Fear flooded Willard’s body. He didn’t want to turn into a Mad like Javier. The Mad was fast, and its arms were stretched out as it tried to grab Willard.

  Willard glanced over his shoulder as he ducked out of the way, and his feet betrayed him. They tangled on one another, and he went ass over teakettle down the stairs.

  “Mad! Mad!” Willard yelled it over and over as he crashed down the stairs and slammed into the closed door to Level Five.

  The Mad didn’t stop. It almost flew down the stairs as the need to bite into Willard took over.

  Willard screamed and tried to get hold of the door handle, but he couldn’t get a grip on it.

  The Mad landed on Willard, knocking the breath out him. This is where I’m going to die.

  The door to Level Five was flung open, dropping Willard and the Mad down the last few stairs and into Level Five. The Mad lunged in an attempt to bite Willard’s neck, but before it could a size-eight black boot connected with the Mad’s jaw and knocked it off Willard with force.

  Willard scrambled across the floor away from the Mad. His body was bruised and battered, but there was no way he was going to stay anywhere near the Mad. He had more knives ready for any other Mad.

  The generals on the level ran away from the Mad, since they were weaponless and scared.

  “Hey, dickhead,” Ryder yelled at the Mad. It and all the generals turned to look at Ryder. Ryder grinned. “Just the Mad dickhead for now,” she told the generals. “I’ll deal with you dickheads later.”.

  Ryder ran at the Mad, her spear blade activated and ready to strike it. She plunged the spear into the Mad’s overgrown gut and regretted it instantly. The Mad gripped the spear and swung around, and Ryder had to let go of it. The Mad came back at Ryder with her spear sticking out of its bloody guts.

  “Hey, I like that spear!” Ryder wanted it back.

  Carter was at Ryder’s side before she even had to ask, his axes up and ready to chop off the fat Mad’s head. “Are you going to let me kill this one?” Carter asked.

  Ryder shrugged and stepped to the side. “Be my guest.”

  Carter happily accepted and ran at the Mad. His first axe missed the Mad’s neck and sliced across its face. Carter’s next axe was ready, and this time he didn’t miss. He went for the throat, and blood sprayed out of the open wound, covering Carter.

  Carter tried to get away from the blood splatters, but the Mad wasn’t finished just yet. He still wanted to feed. Every time Carter moved, the Mad came after him.

  “Go the other way,” Ryder yelled, trying to help him get away from the blood fountain.

  Carter dodged again. “I’m trying. Will one of you two-tap him!”

  Ryder folded her arms and grinned. “I thought it was your kill. Come on, I want my spear back.”

  Carter was now running in circles. “As soon as it runs out of blood I’ll get it for you!” Carter bitched. “Surely this Mad will be out of blood soon?”

  Then again, it was one fat Mad, Ryder thought.

  “It’s yours now,” Carter said as he headed toward the gang. None of them wanted to be covered in the fat Mad’s blood, even though they already all had a fair amount of blood on them. They all looked like they’d taken a shower in blood instead of water.

  Byrant fired his gun at an oncoming Mad, and it dropped to the ground. A fountain of the Mad’s blood sprayed upwards toward Level Four.

  Ryder spun. “Where’s Koda?”

  “On Level Four,” Willard replied breathlessly. “Help him.”

  No one wasted any time. They sprinted up the stairs to Level Four to help Koda. Ryder sprinted
toward the Mad and went to pull the spear from his dead body.

  “Not so fast.” General Finn’s nasal voice came from behind them.

  Ryder whirled to see the general’s gun pointing straight at her head.

  Even through the blood-smeared ceiling, Terrier could see the situation unfolding above him. Ryder was on her own with the generals. He’d screamed up at her, trying to warn her that she was in danger. He’d waved his arms frantically, and everyone else on Level Six was doing the same, but she didn’t see.

  They’d all been so happy to see Ryder and the group of strangers. They’d had real hope for the first time that they were going to get off Level Six and out of the bunker to freedom. For Terrier, it was worse than that. Ryder had come back for Terrier as she’d promised, only to be captured again.

  “We’ve got to open the door! We need to help Ryder.” Terrier pleaded with everyone. They all looked at him skeptically. No one knew how to open the door other than Advisor George, and he was locked up. He glared at the door to the room where Advisor George was being kept. “I’ve got to get the answer out of him.” Terrier dashed over to the door.

  Peter blocked Terrier’s way. “I’m sorry, man. I can’t let you do that.” Peter held up his hands to show he wasn’t happy with the situation. The two giants stood eyeballing one another.

  “I have to. They’ll kill Ryder if we can’t get the door open.” The thought of anyone harming Ryder terrified Terrier, since he’d sworn to protect her. He wasn’t going to stand by and watch it happen, not to his Ryder. “Step aside, Peter,” Terrier ordered.

  “Terrier, you know you won’t be able to get any sense out of Advisor George. He’s Mad. The Mad don’t talk, they only groan for flesh. And if you open the door, he will escape and kill others. Do you think Ryder would want you to free a Mad for the sake of her life? I know she wouldn’t. You can’t risk the whole level for Ryder.”

  Terrier knew Peter was right, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear. He didn’t know what to do. When he looked at the glass ceiling again, the generals were all in front of her, and there was no one to protect her.