Prologue #2
I heard the softest clapping sound, like skin on skin, and the hairs on the nape of my neck stood on end.
Someone was in this fucking house.
I eased the room door open to my left and swept my flashlight inside.
Nothing, though. Nothing but blood on the walls and a chair in the middle of the room.
I closed the door and threw open the other one to my right.
Again with the flashlight, but I didn’t see anything.
Nothing except a window that was blocked out with a blackout curtain and carpet that was riddled with filth.
And that sound hadn’t come from behind me.
When I swept my flashlight over the dead-end wall I stared at, I chewed on the inside of my cheek.
I thought about all of the Sherlock novels I read growing up as a kid.
Daydreaming my life away while growing up much too quickly.
And one of the lines I’d always been obsessed with was one that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was known for:
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
I reached my hand out toward the dead-end wall and knocked on it, and sure enough, it wasn’t a solid wall.
I mean, sure, walls had voids, but every void had a certain sound.
Knocking on that wall felt like I was knocking on an entrance to a cavern.
Almost like I was just knocking on someone’s bedroom door or some shit. The sound should’ve been more muted.
I beamed my flashlight back down to the scuff marks on the floor.
The little bits of particleboard that didn’t quite break down the way dirt did on carpet.
I pressed my hand against it to see if I could get it to pop open and swing. Like those old mirrors in bathrooms with the magnets. But that didn’t work.
“Come on, there has to be a handle somewhere,” I grumbled.
I couldn’t just punch my way through. We couldn’t leave a mark.
Not a fucking trace. But I knew there was something behind this wall.
Something living enough to make sound. I kept trying to tell myself that maybe it was just an animal that had burrowed into the walls from the outside.
Maybe even a guard dog they kept on watch or some shit.
But if it was a dog, it would’ve barked.
If it was an animal in the wall, it would’ve scurried about.
Not gasping and whimpering about.
I ran my hand along the wall, pressing into random spaces. Until finally, a place to the left that I pressed against had a little square that popped open from the wall. I looked around to see if any of the guys were near, but all I heard was Cap yelling out about how we had ten more minutes.
I could do a lot within ten minutes.
There was a small black button behind the little square that flipped open like a hidden compartment door. I drew in a silent breath and held it before I pressed the button, and almost immediately, I was ripped back to the cockpit.
Watching a bomb drop from my plane after pressing the button for it.
A heavy ‘ka-thunk!’ followed the depression of that button.
I slid my flashlight around as a door in the wall popped open.
I fucking knew it. I slid my fingers in between the crack of the door and the crack of the wall it was hidden in, and now I understood why there were particleboard scuff marks on the carpet.
Fucking hell, this door was a bitch and a half to open.
“Please, don’t. I’m sorry. I swear, it won’t happen again.”
Her voice was unmistakable.
Her voice.
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.
And before I knew it, I had her pulled through the bars and tossed over my shoulder.
It was time to get the hell out of this fucking place.