Fuck.
I cantasteit.
The air is so much lighter out here. Wind whistles wildly down an eternal blackness in front of me. Dimmed spotlights scatter above the tunnel, shrinking in size the further down it goes until it feels like my escape is screaming at me.
Yet I’m met with another obstacle.
A mesh security fence angles around me like a dog cage, the door to freedom sealed as I yank manically on its padlock.
The rattling of the chains echoes into the nothingness, mocking me. “No. No. No,” I quiver. This can’t be it. I can’t have made it this far to be stopped by a fucking padlock.
My head tilts upwards, the lights straining my eyes. It’s about twenty feet, but it has no cover over the top.
My hands scramble as I climb my way up, palms slick with sweat and losing my footing each time I dig it into a bar that runs along the centre of the mesh structure.
I need to slow down and concentrate.
When I eventually manage to get to the top and throw my leg over, a gust of wind almost sends me toppling over.
The jagged ends of the barbed wire sticking out the sides of the bar along the top slice into my hands, red liquid sliding down the pristine metal as I leave evidence that I was ever here.
If I die, at least they’ll know who did it.
That is, if they ever find me.
I only manage to get down a few feet before my boot slips, fingernails dragging down the mesh, and I land on my ankle, yelping as it twists, meeting the ground.
The adrenaline is too high in my system; the pain doesn’t fully register as the realisation slams into me. Saint’s voice is as loud as it’s ever been, as if he’s standing right beside me.
The only time you run from me is when I’m chasing you.
My heavy breaths turn to clouds as I puff, staring down the tunnel, and determination bolts me forward. “I’m running to you, Saint.”
25
Saint
a grave mistake - ice nine kills
Reginacomesthroughinmy earpiece. “Sending you what I found.” Whilst Rex, Dawson and I split up to direct Ultio to each of the three locations, Regina got busy studying the coastal home.
My phone lights up with her text, and I instantly open it. “Got it.” She took a screenshot of the maps. Right at the coast is a banked road, the undeniable markings cutting off from the pebbled cove cut into the cliff’s edge.
Bastards.
It’s unseeing to the naked eye because the greenery swallows the rest, so fucking obvious now I’m looking at it, yet it’s hidden well.
Just like everything surrounding these fucks.
It’s the only evidence Conrad’s allowed. I can’t get a digital view of his home; as soon as you zoom in, it’s automatically blurred.
It took a couple of hours to get here, having to unload a couple miles out from the area, making our way on foot through the forest.
Rex has taken the manor, and Dawson took the Harriston home.
We’re spread too far apart to communicate with each other, and Regina is our overlord to pass information to each other as she remains at the Pit.
She’ll tell me if they locate the tunnels, and we’ll make sure they’re not standing when we leave.
