Chapter 39 Ana
Ana
Was it over? Was she dead? Ana scrabbled to pull her senses together, scanning her body for pain, but felt nothing. She was thinking—how could she be thinking if she was dead?
At the edges of her mind, she became aware of a faint sound—the dull repetitive hum of the air-conditioning unit. Air-conditioning? In the afterlife?
Carefully she opened her eyes and peered around. The bunker came into focus. Hunt was gone. He had taken the radio with him.
She gasped, sucking in gulps of air. She was alive. Hunt had left her alive—for now. Relief flooded through her.
She was curled up on the mercifully cold concrete floor, squeezing her knees to her chest. The shock faded as she focused on her breath, in and out. Her heart started to beat normally in her chest as her shaking subsided.
There was no way to tell how long she lay there.
Time had ceased to flow in this godforsaken bunker.
But, bit by bit, thoughts started to cut through the mess in her head, nudging her, pushing her to get up, to move.
There was something she needed to do—an imperative; something more important than her.
She had to get to Alex. She checked her phone. The timer was still counting down the next hour. Twenty-three minutes remaining.
Alex was still alive. Ellis was still playing the game. Hunt was still hunting. This was not over.
Pulling hard on the zip ties, she tested them out.
They were just small bits of plastic but surprisingly tough.
They cut into her wrists but didn’t stretch or flex.
There was no question in her mind that she was getting out of here.
No pieces of plastic would hold her back now. Not after everything she’d faced today.
Her mind raced as she looked around, sizing up her options. Suddenly she smiled.
Time to fight fire with fire. Carefully she pulled her knees up, pushing her body close to her tied hands.
Her fingers grasped at the pocket of her jeans.
It was awkward and painful; she could feel something slippery on her fingers.
Blood from the zip ties cutting into her wrists.
She didn’t care. She was so close. Her fingertips brushed the top of Raya’s lighter.
A last push and she stretched herself further than she thought possible. Her fingers reached down, and just like that, she had it. The Zippo was in her hand, behind her back, her thumb felt the letters: RM.
Feeling her way around, she flicked the lighter open, testing out the wheel. This was going to hurt for sure, but what were her options?
She maneuvered her hands behind her, guiding herself by touch only, the Zippo cradled in her fingers. In her head, it felt right—the angles worked. If she lit it here, she could melt the ties.
Taking a short sharp breath, she flicked the wheel.
Ouch! The flame burned straight up onto her skin. She almost dropped the lighter. Breathing deeply through the pain, she bent forward and adjusted the angle. Before she could think about it too hard, she lit it again.
Fuck. It hurt so badly, but this time she smelled the sizzle of plastic. Taking a deep breath, she pulled her hands apart with all the strength she could muster.
Snap. The tie split. She brought her hands forward and, bending down, used the Zippo to free her feet. There was a nasty black burn on her left hand, the smell of burned flesh, but she brushed it off—she was past caring.
Rolling onto her knees, she pushed herself up and looked around.
The chessboard and pieces must have fallen off the crate they were resting on and were now scattered across the bunker floor.
A small crack had appeared between the side of the crate and the wall; a strong smell of smoke was coming from it.
Ana kneeled by the crate and ran her fingers along the crack.
Air was whistling through it. Her heart jumped.
Everything was starting to make sense. The loud crack wasn’t a gunshot, it was the heavy crate slamming shut behind Hunt when he left the bunker. This was the exit. The way out. She pried the side of the crate open and peered inside.
A small dark tunnel led off to the right; the space was tight with barely enough room to crawl. At the far end, shafts of light cut through heavy, smoky air. That must be where the hatch and keypad were. That must be the way back into the outbuilding.
She was going to get out of here.
But first, there was something she needed to do. Running over to the desk, she checked the screens, searching for Alex. The images flashed up, changing over and over, set on the timed loop.
Where was he? Her eyes flicked left to right, searching. If she could just find Alex—if she could get to him in time before it was too late. Before Ellis.
As she scanned the wall of screens, she noticed multiple wires leading down from each of them into a plastic conduit that disappeared beneath the desk. Of course, Hunt didn’t have cellular either; everything in this bunker was likely hardwired.
Instinctively she ducked under the desk and followed the conduit. It led behind the desk drawer. Ana pulled the drawer out and, using her phone flashlight, looked for the source of the wires.
Hidden behind the drawer was a laptop. So, this was where Hunt was recording the video feeds. This was it—everything was saved here on this laptop. She reached in and pulled it out, then set it on the floor and flipped it open. The screen woke up instantly, revealing a single open window.
As Ana stared at it, her jaw dropped open. She slumped down on her knees. It took several moments to register what she was seeing, and several more moments to understand it.
Then it hit her.
Hard.
She jumped back, her mind racing. Recalibrating. For the first time all day, she felt completely lost, with no idea what to do next. Only one thing stood out in her mind. One person.
She needed to get to Alex. Now.
It was as though the wind caught her; looking around, she saw the free weight lying on the floor where she’d dropped it. Reaching for it, she crawled back under the desk, and raising it high, smashed it into the laptop. Hard. Over and over.
Pieces of plastic, keys, wires went flying in all directions. When she was sure it was unsalvageable, she stood up, breathing hard. She picked up the smashed laptop and placed it on the desk in front of the monitors.
Pulling the lighter out of her pocket, she balanced it carefully on top, the letters RM facing forward. For Raya.
Fuck Hunt. He didn’t get to own their confessions.
He didn’t get to control them, to show the world their secrets.
He didn’t get to win his own game. For the first time in a long time, Ana smiled.
She turned to the corkboard and pulled Karl’s photo off, folding it in half.
Reaching over to the desk, she carefully nudged a gray pen into the fold and wrapped it up, slipping the package into her back pocket.
It was time to get the hell out of there.
Clambering down into the small opening behind the crate, she army-crawled through the tight tunnel back to the hatch.
In the time she’d spent trapped in the bunker, the fire must have burned out.
The heavy hatch lid was already open, the metal warped and blackened by flames.
The keypad had completely melted—Hunt wasn’t going to be able to lock himself safely away in the bunker again.
Ana climbed into the smoke-damaged shack above.
Shoving debris out of the way, she leaped over still-smoldering bits of furniture, finally finding her feet on free ground and taking off in a sprint.
There was no hesitation or thought. She knew what she needed to do and where she needed to be.
Rounding the corner of the pool fence, Ana ran as fast as her legs would carry her. Straight to the death machine.