Four
Jack
I should never have come to this fucking city.
That wasn’t a useful thought as I stood in an Atlanta courthouse’s elevator shaft, and I knew looking back wouldn’t help.
I had to deal with the here and now.
And now I was in a world of shit.
There was trouble; I felt it in my bones.
And if I ever hoped to get back to Evan, I needed to keep focused.
Not let anything distract me.
I glanced over, my expression turning into a scowl as I looked at her.
Especially not a woman, not even the one who emerged from the elevator now.
Her face was sweaty, her expression one of complete focus.
She’s so fucking beautiful.
I needed to get a grip.
But even as I told myself that, I couldn’t deny the truth of that thought.
Couldn’t ignore that voice that whispered mine every time I looked at her.
It pissed me the fuck off, and that anger only grew as I watched her climb out of the elevator shaft.
The squeeze was a little tight around her shapely hips, but she pulled long thick legs through the hole and made her way out of the elevator and onto the roof, her grip trembling on the metal edge.
I didn’t help her.
Wanted to see if she’d fall.
Wanted to be the one to catch her.
She made it out, but rather than stop or look relieved, the woman looked around wildly, her eyes searching .
She had the worst poker face I’d ever seen, but even if her every emotion wasn’t written across her face, I still sensed that the confined space was getting to her, and that the knock against the elevator almost sent her spiraling.
And as she climbed out, she was terrified.
If I was a better man, I would have been ashamed of how much I liked it.
Now, though, she looked almost relieved.
The feeling was misplaced.
Because her journey, whatever it was going to be, had just begun.
She looked over my shoulder and then met my eye.
Even in the dark shaft that was only lit by her phone, her gaze was steady. But I saw past that steadiness and saw the fear she tried to hide.
Of me or what was below, I couldn’t tell.
So I waited, wondering what she would do.
“We have to climb down that ladder to get out of here, don’t we?” she whispered.
“We?”
I stared at her, watching as her eyes widened and then saw when she was back in control. If she cried, begged for my help, I would have left her.
But she didn’t.
She just kept breathing, kept standing.
And fuck me, that made something savage uncoil in my chest.
“Yes, we. You and I,” she said, trying to sound like she wasn’t afraid.
I let out a humorless laugh. “Affirmative.”
She shook her head, a grudging smile on her lips. “I can see the headlines now: Semi-prominent Atlanta Attorney Found Dead at the Bottom of an Elevator Shaft. Details at Eleven. But given the circumstances, lead the way.”
I huffed and then made my way to the metal stairs welded to the concrete wall.
The woman kept pace as we traversed down the ladder, and after a few minutes, I looked at the wall and saw the crisp L that had been painted in black.
We had arrived.
I hopped off the ladder and after a quick sweep of the elevator shaft, I faced the door to my left. The door in the concrete cutout was about half the size of a regular door, which meant I would have to crouch as I went through it.
Not ideal, but I didn’t have a lot of choices.
Despite my resolve to stay detached, I looked back at the woman.
She nodded curtly, telling me she was ready.
I took that as my cue.
I turned the knob and then pushed the door open moving slowly, millimeter by millimeter.
Almost instantly, my gaze landed on a figure.
I’d seen enough corpses to know I was looking at one now.
But the presence of a body, one that, from what little I could see in the dim room, had experienced a massive amount of trauma, didn’t bode well for what else I would find outside.
I listened as the woman followed and heard her sharp intake of breath.
I looked over my shoulder at her, ready to silence her if she cried out again.
She was quiet, still, but her eyes were wide as she took in the body .
I watched as she visibly tamped down her reaction and then locked eyes with her.
I couldn’t say why I was so in tune with her, but in those brief seconds, I had no doubt that she was in control of herself, that she was as ready as either of us could be to face what was on the other side of the door.
I let my gaze pass over the corpse one final time and took in the disarray in the room.
It appeared to be a storage closet and had all kinds of supplies.
There were countless rolls of toilet paper stacked against one wall and a variety of cleaning tools and cleansers. I spotted something in one corner and walked toward it slowly.
The surge of adrenaline hit me when I realized that it was a set of pipes.
The pipes looked old, solid metal and not those new, flimsy plastic things. Each was about eight inches long. Perhaps a little longer than I would prefer for delivering maximum impact, but the find was better than I dared hope for.
I was sure I’d be stuck making due with mops and brooms, so this was an unexpected piece of good fortune .
I picked up one of the pipes, testing its weight in my hand, and then gave it a swing, familiarizing myself with how it would handle.
Heard the woman’s sharp inhale.
I looked at her and saw the terror in her expression.
I didn’t fucking care.
She’d get over it.
Or not.
I reminded myself she wasn’t my fucking problem, and again turned my attention to pipe.
My first thought had been correct.
These pipes were sturdy and would do damage.
I wasn’t optimistic enough to think it wouldn’t come to that, but at least I was more prepared than I had been before.
I grabbed a spray bottle labeled ammonia and headed toward the door.
“Wait,” the woman said.
Her voice had an undercurrent of urgency, but when I looked at her, she lifted her lips in a nervous smile.
She’d been tense, scared, and almost panicked in the elevator.
It had been written all over her face. But I was impressed by the way she pushed passed that fear and her nerves to meet my eyes.
“Yeah?” I practically grunted.
She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head like she was trying to solve a particularly stubborn problem.
“What’s your name?” she finally asked.
“Does it matter?” I responded.
Her full lips twisted into a smile again, but this one was genuine. It transformed her face, and again I was struck by her beauty, especially when her eyes lit up.
“No. I guess it doesn’t,” she said with a small shrug. “But would you humor me?”
“Jackson Thorne,” I said gruffly.
“Asia Newman,” she said, her smile still bright.
But her smile, that moment, was gone as quickly as it had come.
She crossed the messy room in two long strides and grabbed a pipe.
She held it tentatively, like she was more afraid it would hit her than she would hit anyone else. But I saw as her grip tightened and again couldn’t miss her resolve .
She locked her eyes with mine and then nodded.
“All right, Jackson Thorne, what’s the plan?”
I huffed and then confessed, “I haven’t gotten quite that far.”
That wasn’t the entire truth. Sure, I didn’t have a step by step plan but trusted my experience to guide me.
Asia didn’t have that to fall back on.
“If we’re lucky, whoever was trying to get into the elevator was an isolated thing, and we can calmly make our way out of here and let one of the guards know some psycho is upstairs,” I said.
She tilted her head and pursed her lips, her stance screaming yeah, right. “Sure, and we’ll find our way over the rainbow and click our heels to find our way home.” She shook her head. “I didn’t ask for a fairy tale, Jackson, I asked for a plan.”
I froze at the way my name rolled off her lips.
No one had called me that in years, and I’d all but forgotten the person that name had belonged to. But I kept those thoughts at bay. “No one’s called me Jackson since my middle school math teacher, and she sent me to detention,” I said.
Her smile was bright enough to light up the entire room. “I’m sure that detention was well deserved, and I think Jackson suits you.”
She was pressing her luck, but I shrugged it off. What she called me didn’t matter. I told myself she’d be less than a memory soon enough.
I gave a noncommittal grunt and then refocused.
“Don’t know what’s out there, so it’s hard to form a concrete plan, but you should get out of here and go home,” I said.
I hoped it would be that easy.
I knew it wouldn’t be.
“Where’s your car?” I asked.
She smiled again, not as brightly this time. “Believe it or not, I actually thought today was my lucky day. I got a spot right outside the front entrance, which is unheard of. Where are you parked?” she asked.
“Parking garage, bottom floor,” I said .
She nodded, but her expression dropped an increment.
I told myself it was only a general observation. That there was nothing about Asia in particular that I paid attention to. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” she responded, trying to be nonchalant, though her embarrassment was clear, “it’s just that place is so freakin’ creepy. But you should come with me. I’ll drop you off there on the way out.”
“That’s plan A. If that doesn’t work, we go for the garage. And thanks, Counselor,” I said.
Her smile lifted ever so slightly. “Now that’s a plan. And you’re welcome, Jackson.”
I didn’t respond and instead faced the door, but it wasn’t lost on me that she’d called me Jackson again, or that I’d tear anyone else who called me that a new asshole.
As I reached for the doorknob, I looked back at her and tried to ignore the little kick in my chest.
I’d told myself no distractions, and she was definitely that.
And yet…
I couldn’t just walk away from her .
As I studied her, I tried to figure out why. She held the pipe tightly, her face set in a resolute expression. Yes, she was afraid; that was clear.
But despite that fear, she was ready to face whatever lay on the other side of the door.
Yet again, I was struck by her bravery.
That annoyed the fuck out of me.
And at the same time made me that much more determined that we’d get out of here.
Once again, I inched the door open.
The sight that greeted me on the other side was unimaginable.
The lights in the hallway were dimmer than they would be on an ordinary day, so I was sure the building ran on a generator. But even though the lights weren’t as bright as they should have been, it was bright enough for me to see what had happened.
Bright enough for me to see too much.
I stopped counting when I reached the twelfth body, if it could even be called that.
The “bodies” were more like pieces.
Misshapen lumps of what were once people.
It didn’t make any sense .
But whether it made sense or not, logic couldn’t argue with what my eyes showed me.
And what they showed me was that something awful, ungodly, happened here.
Was still happening here.
Asia was so quiet that I looked back to check on her.
She was so still she looked frozen, her unblinking eyes glued on one particular scene.
From what was left, I’d say it had been a man.
The shape had no discernible face. His arms and legs were pulled from their sockets, and his guts spilled from the jagged hole that ripped into his abdomen. His chest was cracked open, the reddish-white of what I could only assume were rib bones peeking through.
What was left of the man was smeared along the floor, little bits and pieces of flesh creating a macabre trail down the hall.
I let my gaze follow that trail to the place where it ended and then looked in the opposite direction.
My heart beat a steady rhythm, but that steadiness told a lie. Earlier today, I was confident that I’d seen it all. And in truth, it wasn’t the twisted, broken, partially eaten man that had me fighting for control.
No, what had my chest tight, my muscles tense, was the confirmation that this was only the beginning.