In the dim recesses of the vacant, echoing warehouse, a door —a hint of silver gleaming in the gloom—leads deeper into the facility, which must cover tens of thousands of square feet. Once we're in there, all bets are off.
Shit.
The knife digs into my back, loosening a trickle of blood down my spine. "Walk. No sounds."
I should have known he'd have a better plan than…Whatever I thought he was going to do with six guys against my entire quiver of Arrows. The poor henchmen were nothing but a distraction.
I have to admire his cunning, even as it fucks things up.
I stagger into the shadows, the folded metal chair banging against my calves and heels at each step. Each time my foot hits the ground, my wounds jolt and scream in protest. I have no choice but to bear it in silence, however—Pugli wants me as bait and as a shield, but he'll drive that knife in just to make a point if he has to.
I'm just going to have to trust my arrows to find me and save me.
I hope Brys is somewhere safe, but if I've learned anything about her in our brief time together, it's that she never does what you'd expect. Which means she's likely out there with the guys, finding a way to be a part of this shitshow.
We reach the door, and Pugli leans past me and yanks it open. Behind us, the henchmen fire in short bursts, the reports overlapping and echoing and dopplering until it sounds like there’s a hundred men out there instead of three.
I don't expect them to last long, but it'll be long enough for Pugli to get away with me.
I'm not even bleeding anymore, so it's not like I can leave a trail for them to follow.
Pugli shoves me through the door and lets it close behind us—quietly. We’re plunged into darkness—my other senses take over for a moment. I hear dripping somewhere, louder now, a steadyplink…plink…plink…; something scuttles underfoot, and I don't want to know what it was; I smell mold and rot and damp and mildew and dust and age. Things crunch underfoot with each step, and some of those things may have been moving when I stepped on them.
"Where is it?" I hear Pugli hiss to himself behind me, and then he curses in French. "Ah. There it is."
A spear of white light lances through the darkness, illuminating a narrow, seemingly endless tunnel writhing with pipes overhead. At each junction, the pipes leak, drip-drip-dripping onto the pitted concrete floor below.
The crunching underfoot is a carpet of dead insects, scuttling spiders of all sizes swarming in dozens, rats the size of chihuahuas bolting this way and that, and pausing to sit, hunched, and stare at us with beady, glowing eyes. Also, bones. Lots and lots of bones. Something uses this hallway as a depository for its kills. The rats? A snake? The spiders? A pack of feral cats?
When Pugli's beam flicks to life, the various living things vanish in an audible clatter of clicks and scuttling scrapes and angered chittering.
"Well, this is horrifying," I slur, dizzy and sluggish. "As far as first dates go, Robby-Bobby-Boy, this is not your best work."
There's a long pause, and then the knife-point pricks deeper, hitting bone with a sharp pang. "What on earth is wrong with you? Did you hit your head?" Pugli sounds legitimately puzzled.
"Aww, Robby-Bobby-Boy is concerned."
My head swims. My mouth seems to be operating on its own. Can blood loss make you loony? Or do I mean loopy? Loony or loopy? Loompy. Loonpy? I don't know.
"I was shot, Robert.Shot." I sound strange. It's hard to make my legs work. I'm so tired. "I did not hit my head. I don't think."
"Walk."
"Poke me too hard in that spot, Robby-Bobby, and you might paralyze me." My brain wobbles. "That would be bad."
"What?"
"What?"
"You said something, but it wasn't English."
"Isaidthat would be bad. Please do not paralyze me."
"That isn't what you said. It sounded like Czech."
Oh.
"Hmmm. Interesting." I shuffle forward, and he points the flashlight—one of those one-billion lumen super flashlights that can shine on the moon from earth—past me, which only serves to illuminate the crawling, scuttling horrors ahead.
