He looks back at me, his jaw clenched, and damn it, that jaw could cut glass.
“Fucking hell,” he mutters before turning his giant ass around in the small space and working his way back.
“Right here,” I tell him, pointing toward the small ventilation holes.
He leans down toward the holes and cautiously watches the surveillance feed below, and I’ve never seen anybody more focused. “Looks like the guards are just as blind as we are,” he muses. “Completely locked out of C-block.”
“Are there other ways in? Like discreet walkways between the other blocks that divert from the main corridors.”
“Plenty of them, but they’re too risky to take while blind. They won’t do it, not until they have overwhelming numbers, so until then, we keep moving.”
He goes to continue the way he was going before pausing and looking back down at the security feed. “This way,” he says, taking a sharp turn to the left.
I follow behind, my body still trembling, but with Stone being my only chance at coming out of this alive, I keep it moving. We crawl through the small space until my knees start to bleed, only stopping when we come to another manhole. The only difference is that this one has a red X marking the spot, almost as though someone has already marked an escape.
Stone slowly lifts the edge of the manhole covering, peering down into the space below before finally moving the whole lid and dropping through it. I peer down below, trying to figure out how the hell to get down there, when he looks back up at me, those dark eyes filled with the kind of authority that makes my stomach squirm. “Stay here. Put the cover back, and don’t fucking move.”
“What? But . . . Where are you going?”
He doesn’t respond, just glances around the small utilities closet he’s landed himself in before glaring back up at me. “Cover on. Now.”
Fuck.
Grabbing the heavy manhole cover, I shift it back into position, trying to line it up just right when Stone reaches up and takes the weight of the cover, setting it back into place. “Keep quiet,” he reminds me. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I hear him move around the utilities closet below before the familiar thud of a closing door sails up to me, telling me that for the first time since all of this shit started, I’m finally alone. Only now, without Stone, anxiety is creeping up on me and locking me in a chokehold.
I lay down in the cramped space, resting my aching knees as I stare up at the darkened ceiling. He’ll be back. After all, why would he risk leaving me here? He won’t get his grand opportunity to impale me on a tree if he doesn’t. All I’ve got to do is keep quiet, then Stone will figure out a way for us both to get out of here. Hopefully somewhere directly in front of where the guards are stationed so that I don’t risk losing my life when he inevitably goes on the run.
I concentrate on just breathing, trying to calm my nerves and figure out an impossible gameplan, when I glance up ahead and notice the slightest bit of light shining up into the crawlspace.
Is that another vent?
Unable to help myself, I get back to my knees and keep crawling, cringing with every painful movement that tears at my skin until I finally reach the vent and peer into the prison below.
Shock rocks through me, finding the main housing cells of C-block, and I suck in a breath as I take it all in. It’s one thing to see the conference room and the asshole prisoners in chains being escorted by armed guards, but to see the actual cells that these men spend the majority of their lives in is eye-opening.
It’s horrendous.
As far as prisons go, I can only assume that this one is pretty good. It’s clean, and apart from this crawl space, it smells clean. The cells seem somewhat generous compared to those that I’ve seen in movies, and it’s not as dark as I assumed it would be.
Every cell has a window, letting in natural light, and comes complete with a single bed, one lonely pillow, a small shelf, and bathroom amenities. It could be worse, I suppose.
There are a few lingering prisoners walking through the area below, and I find myself mesmerized, watching these men go about their day. That is, until Stone steps into view, though with that size, he’s more than hard to ignore.
I suck in a breath, tracking his every step as he walks into one of the small cells and grabs a book off the shelf. He thumbs through the pages until finding some kind of small, white papers inside. He holds them up, focusing on one for a moment before shoving them into his pocket and walking out of the cell.
Then, just as quickly as he appeared below, he moves out of sight, surely making his way back to me and leaving me as curious as ever. What was on those papers? And more so, why the hell are they so important that he had to risk going back for them?
Blowing out my cheeks, I painstakingly turn my ass around and head back toward the man when a voice cuts through the alarms behind me.
“Well, well. What do we have here?” someone says through the darkness. “A pretty woman locked in a crawlspace all by herself. Shit, it must be my lucky day.”
Horror blasts through my chest, and I scramble to get away, but where the hell am I supposed to go where he won’t find me? It’s not as though I can scream for help or drop down into the utilities closet only to be faced with another hoard of wicked men.
My knees slam down against the uneven ground, the pain from earlier completely forgotten as I frantically try to scramble away. My hand comes down on something squishy, and I put the fear of the unknown aside as I do everything I can to get away.
“Aw, come on, now, pretty girl. Where are you going in such a rush?” he rumbles with a laugh, his voice even closer than before. “I haven’t even had a chance to play yet.”
