He glanced at me, eyes dull “it’s…fine.” He mumbled “a cold.”
I nodded slowly, licking my lips “yeah.”
Dean slammed the sledgehammer into the rocks particularly hard, causing a chunk of it to crumble down.
Theo shivered from beside me.
“You sure you’re okay?” I asked quietly, doubting it.
“It’s chilly in here.” He replied defensively.
I grunted, half considering offering my jacket; before I could, he scrambled to his feet, dodging past the others to ride through a loud coughing fit. I winced, following him and resting a hand onhis heaving back “they’ll catch us right away if we go in with you sounding like that.” I remarked, trying to play off my concern.
He rubbed his chest, shaking his head as he sucked in a deep breath “yeah.” He laughed, but there weren’t any traces of actual amusement “that would be shit.”
“Hmm.” I hummed in agreement “we’d make a terrible rescue party.”
“We would.”
He looked up at me, meeting my gaze through his dark eyelashes with his icy blue orbs. They were glassy from how hard he’d coughed.
“You feeling alright?” I whispered “seriously.”
“Tired.” He shrugged dismissively but fisted the sleeve of my jacket “do you, uh…think…I could borrow your bed when we get back?” He requested sheepishly.
My heart skipped a beat, from both the question and how shy he’d sounded as he’d asked it, and IknewI had a stupid dopey expression on my face when I replied “sure. I can kick Jack out.”
He smiled back bashfully, glancing past me at the others before whispering “I’d kiss you if I could. Let you fuck me against this stupid stone wall.”
My dick immediately responded to the comment and I internally cursed it, muttering a “me too,” whilst praying my little problem wasn’t visible.
A loud bang echoed around us, a shout from Dean followed “we’re in!”
Our heads snapped towards the hole he’d managed to create in the rock and the mess that sat beneath it.
Todd helped us climb up one by one, grabbing us by the bottom of our legs and hoisting us up so we could push ourselves out.
I shuddered at where we’d surfaced: it was an underground prison or dungeon, built from rough, yellow-brown stone with arched ceilings and thick pillars. Iron-barred cell doors were setinto the stone walls, and a stone staircase raised on our right, leading upward.
Just as Todd staggered to his feet, having been pulled up by the conjoined force of Alex and Nico leaning over the edge, an ear splitting scream pierced the air around us, appearing to come from up the stairs.
We all froze.
Another one followed, equally as loud, equally as agonised.
“We need to follow that scream.” Dean muttered, face pale.
"You want to dowhat?”Theo hissed “right, because there’s still a slim chance my hair won’t turn white and I won’t spend the rest of my life locked in a padded room cackling uncontrollably.”
I rolled my eyes at him “you areunbelievable.The whole point of this is freeing the prisoners. As long as we shut the hell up they won’t find us.”
“Actually, theymightfind us, and then I might have a heart attack and die. Actually, I think I might be about to have one already, I can feel it,” he muttered, grabbing his chest with a worried look in his eyes.
I felt a twinge of unease at that, concern for him creeping up once more.
Dean just shook his head “we’re here for Stryker, you doofus. He needs us.That.”He pointed “was Stryker.”
I winced. I didn’t know him inside out enough to be able recognise his scream, but I could tell from the distress painted onto Dean’s face that he wasn’t kidding.
