Noah yanks on the lock again. “You know, I bet if we can find a heavy object, I can smash the lock.”
“What if he isn’t down there, though?” I ask. “Maybe we should check the rest of the house.”
Noah glances around the living room behind us and then at the front door. “I guess we can?—
“Help!” A man yells from the other side of the door.
His voice sounds far away, though, like he’s in a basement.
Noah and I glance at each other, then we both take off to search the house for a heavy object. I end up finding an axe near the fireplace and pick it up.
By the time I return to the door, Noah is there with a shovel in his hand. But when he notices what I have, he drops it.
“Yours is better.” He steps aside.
I hand him my phone. “Shine the light on the door.”
He does, and then I raise the axe above my head and swing it down. It makes a ton of noise and doesn’t break the lock, but I keep going until I finally give up and hack the door open.
It takes forever, but I finally make a big enough hole for Noah and I to squeeze through. A stairway is on the other side that leads to a murky basement that has a single light on.
Noah draws the collar of his jacket over his nose. “It smells like shit.”
“I know,” I agree with the axe still clutched in my hand. “I don’t think…” I trail off as we reach the bottom of the stairway.
Sitting on an old dingy mattress is a man who resembles Grey except he’s clearly been starved. He’s also chained to the wall, and a bucket is beside the mattress. I’m guessing that’s where the shit smell is wafting from.
“Help me,” the man pleads as he kneels up on the mattress.
His face is smudged with dirt, and his hands are bleeding, as if he tried to slip them out of the cuffs.
Noah stops just short of him and eyes him over. “What’s your name?”
“It’s Sylas. My brother locked me down here like a month ago.” He glances between the two of us, then cowers back. “You’re James Averson’s son.”
“I am, but you don’t need to be afraid of me,” I promise him as I carefully set the axe down, the blade clanking against the cement floor. “I hate my father.”
He assesses us distrustfully. “Why are you here?”
“We came to rescue you.” Noah lowers the hood of his jacket. “We’re friends of Maddy’s.”
Sylas’s eyes widen as he sits up straighter. “My daughter? You know my daughter? Is she okay?”
“We think so, but we need to get to her soon. My father has her, and your brother helped him get ahold of her,’ I explain as I glance around, searching for an object that will get him out of the cuffs.
But what hell can break through metal?
“My brother is a traitor,” he spits venomously. “He put me here so he could convince Maddy that he’s her father.”
“We know.” A loud crash from outside sends a jolt of fear through me. I tensely glance at the stairway behind me, expecting someone to appear at the top of it. But no one ever does, so I turn back around, more than ready to get out of here. “We need to get you out of here. Do either of you know how to break metal cuffs?”
“I can pick the lock if you can get me something sharp and small,” Sylas says, surprising me since the guy is a Royal and Royals usually don’t know how to pick locks.
Noah and I ransack the basement for an object small and sharp enough to pick a lock and end up finding a small, thin pin from off an old water heater. Sylas picks the lock in a minute, and then we hurry out of the house.
We decide to take the bus back instead of calling for a car to cover our tracks. While we’re waiting for the bus, Sylas tells us that his brother has had him locked in a basement for a while, and that one of Grey’s guards shows up every few days to bring him water and food. He’s starving, exhausted, and on the verge of passing out. I’m concerned that people on the bus will be suspicious of him, but when we get on it, no one even blinks an eye at us.
We take a seat at the back, and Sylas rests his head against the window. “I need to get a new phone so I can call Maddy’s mother. She needs to know about Maddy being in danger. Andthen I’m going to get Maddy away from all of these messed up men that want to use her for her bloodline. Fuck, I wish no one had ever found out about her…” His eyelids lower as he starts to doze off.
