Her voice was unmistakable.
Hervoice.
There was a woman in this place.
Alive.
I heard scrambling. But more than that, I heard the sound of chains. They dragged along what sounded like a hardened surface, and when I swept my flashlight over toward the sound, I found a cage.
A cage with a woman hunched over in it with her ankle shackled to the ground.
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” I said as I held my other hand up in a mocking sort of surrender.
She scrambled to the back of the cage, her wild eyes, wide and bright. “Who are you? I don’t know who you are.”
I crossed the threshold into the hidden room, only to watch her smash herself against the back of that cage. She whimpered and turned her head, much the same sound I heard before while standing out in the hallway. And when she turned, I saw that blood matted her hair to the back of her head.
“We have a doctor with us,” I said, trying to get her to turn back to face me. “He can help you.”
She slowly peeked her eyes toward me. “We?”
I nodded as I took a step closer to the cage. “Me and my crew.”
She swallowed hard. “Crew?”
I nodded again as I crouched in front of the cage. “Yeah. We’re gonna get you out of here, okay?”
She just whimpered and cowered away from me.
I wanted to yell out for one of the guys, but we were down to the wire. Any loud sound we made risked being heard by someone. Especially since we were in the last few minutes before we had to head out.
So I did the only thing I knew to do.
“Stand back,” I said as I gripped the end of the flashlight in my mouth.
The woman cried softly, and I couldn’t blame her. If she had blood matting her hair to the back of her head, there was no telling what kind of other injuries she had going for her. I moved my head around, which moved the beam of light around, and I noticed that the bars of her cage were pretty rusted out.
I reached out and ran my hand down one of the rusty bars, only to see the rust flaking off and falling to the ground.
Perfect.
I cracked my knuckles and rolled my head. I stretched my arms up to the sky and bent down to touch my toes. I made sure every single part of me was as limber as I could possibly get it.
I grabbed the rusted bars and pulled.
“Oh my God,” the woman said breathlessly before another whimper fell from her lips.
“Just… give me… a second,” I grunted.
My body shook. My hands cried out for relief. But I knew I could pull these bars apart. Just enough to get her out, anyway. I didn’t want to shoot the lock of the cage, because that would definitely draw attention, and I didn’t bring my lockpicking shit with me, so I couldn’t do it that way.
So brute force it was.
“Coooome… ooooon,” I growled out.
The woman tucked herself into a ball in the corner as the bars finally gave way. They creaked and groaned like a dragon breathing fire, and I swore everyone within a ten-mile radius fucking heard me. But eventually, the bars bowed. The rust flaked off and the pathetic, untreated metal gave way, and it was enough for me to reach my arm and my shoulder in so that I could hold out my hand.
“Let me take you away from this,” I said as I wiggled my fingers.
