Ranger #2
I just nodded my head as I righted myself on my feet. But when I looked down to get my bearings, I shook my head.
“Ghost,” I said as I looked back at him.
“I know it’s not the floor from the video. Come on,” he muttered.
Everything was silent in the building. Most of the lights were off except for a few emergency lights that most likely stayed on all the time. The only thing that buzzed about in terms of sound was a literal buzzing sound that was most likely from their electrical wirings.
Footsteps caught our attention and my eyes whipped around.
“In here,” I muttered.
I gave Ghost the same treatment. The instant I slipped into the janitorial closet, I grabbed his arm and tugged him inside. The closet was cramped as fuck. I did not like the fact that his leg was in between mine. But in order to get the door closed, we had to squish in.
And that was a feat in and of itself.
“Move your elbow,” he grumbled.
“Sh,” I said as the door finally creaked closed.
The footfalls got louder.
Heavier.
More insistent.
Pretty soon, there was a shadow passing by that filtered beneath the door.
I silenced my breathing while Ghost practically held his.
Our bodies were smashed together in ways that I knew Cap would tease us for until the end of time if he ever found out.
My face shoved into Ghost’s man-tiddies.
His leg shoved in between mine. His hands, planted on the wall over my head.
My arms spread out to give his massive form a little more room.
The shadow lingered just outside the door for much longer than either of us anticipated.
But eventually, a chirp came over a radio.
“Patrol Team B, report to the lower area. Patrol Team B, report to the lower area.”
And the footsteps moved once more.
“We should follow him,” Ghost whispered.
I just shook my head. “No.”
“No? The fuck you mean, no.”
“Sh.”
Another set of footsteps echoed in the distance, and then another, and another still.
“That voice said ‘team’,” I whispered ever so softly.
All in all, there were four sets of footsteps that passed by us before all fell silent again.
“We need to get into that lower floor,” Ghost whispered.
I counted off the seconds in my head. “If we’re clear for two minutes, we can head out.”
I bobbed my head with the seconds I counted while Ghost listened out for any more of that Patrol Team B nonsense. A law firm? Needing patrols, for fuck’s sake? If there was anything that screamed guilty, it was that. The fuck was a law firm running patrols for anyway?
“You’re right,” I whispered as I reached for the doorknob after two minutes, “we need to find the entrance to that lower level.”
Ghost practically shoved me out of the way to get out of the closet. I stumbled toward the wall, catching myself as he turned his back to me. I went to go cuss him the fuck out and let him know that if either of us were to make too much noise, we’d be shot in terms of our mission.
I saw him turn his back to me and lift his mask.
I watched him for a moment as he heaved in heavy breaths.
“No cameras on this hallway,” I said as I looked up and down, making sure he was protected.
“I know,” he mumbled as he slid the mask back over his face and turned to me. “Jasmine helped me memorize this place.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Oh? That’s a hell of a feat. Is she familiar with this place like that?”
“Yeah,” he said as he rushed a leather gloved hand through his hair. “I mean, no, she hasn’t scoured this place like I have or anything. She’s gone off the official schematics and talks me through things that jog her memory.”
“Gotcha,” I said as I looked down the hallway where all of the footsteps faded.
“Want to know the kicker?” Ghost asked.
“What’s that?” I asked as I turned back toward him.
Ghost had three pieces of paper unfolded and smoothed out. He held them in his hand, shuffling through each of them as he shook his head. I wandered behind him, peering around his body as I took a look at the hand-drawn pictures Jasmine gave him.
“Hey, those aren’t half bad,” I muttered.
“Right? Had no fucking clue she could draw like this,” he said as he handed me a page.
“What am I looking f—?”
I narrowed my eyes as I stared at the drawn map.
“Yep,” Ghost said.
I looked up at him. “Are you sure this is accurate?”
He nodded and pointed. “Yep.”
I narrowed my eyes and looked back down at the map. “What about the official schematics? Do they have—?”
“Nope.”
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
The voice over that radio talked about a lower level to this building.
But the lower levels were supposed to be the parking deck.
“Do you really think those assholes are gathering in the parking deck?” I asked as I looked at Ghost.
I could tell he grinned behind his mask. “Nope.”
I slapped the hand-drawn picture against his chest. “Let’s go find the entrance to this lower level then because something tells me the elevator in this building doesn’t go lower than the parking deck.”
He folded the pictures back up and tucked them away. “No, they don’t. Come on.”
Hope. For the first time in a long time, I had hope.
What the hell was so important that they hid it away on a level that wasn’t on the official schematics?
That in and of itself was illegal as fuck.
We moved like hound dogs, silent, with our noses to the ground.
I watched the floors and the walls, trying to find anything about this building that was similar to what we saw in the video.
I promised Marla that I’d bring her friend back.
Lizzie had to be here.
We turned down a hallway, and all we saw was more of the same sprawled out in front of us.
Jesus fuck, this building felt like a goddamn backrooms maze.
Every hallway we turned down seemed longer than the last. Every corridor we came across looked the same as the last. At one point in time, Ghost and I got caught going in circles.
Around and around.
With no cameras in sight.
“Have you been down here before?” I whispered.
“Nope,” he said with a shake of his head.
“So how do you know where camera placement and all that shit is?”
“Because there is a door in the main building with a warning sign on it on the main floor that reads, ‘No Official Cameras After This Point.’ And with the lack of cameras we’ve seen so far, I can only assume that all of this is what’s behind that door.”
“Huh,” I said as we crept around another corner.
Only for Ghost to curse as he rubbed his hand on the wall.
“Fucking hell,” he grumbled.
“What?” I asked as I watched his hand slide away.
Only to reveal a notch in the wall.
“Did you do that?” I asked.
He nodded. “I wanted to keep track of where we’d been. I knew we were walking in circles.”
He pulled out Jasmine’s hand-drawn maps again and shuffled through the pieces of paper. He shook his head, clearly frustrated at our situation.
“This place isn’t on any of the schematics she drew me, which means she hasn’t been back here,” Ghost muttered as he tucked the drawings away.
“To be fair, it’s not like those are formal schematics.”
Ghost shot me a look. “And to be fair, it wasn’t like your girl drew a formal map of the route she ran to get to us.”
“Ghost, she’s not my girl.”
“Whatever you say,” he grumbled before he took off back down the hallway we had just walked.
“Hey, where are you—?”
He came back and tugged at my arm, yanking me with him. “Shut up and come on. We need to throw open doors.”
We backtracked down the hallways, opening every door that we could. Some of them were locked, but others weren’t. Most of them were just empty offices with nothing in them. A couple of the rooms held chairs and a table, almost like it was an interrogation room.
Huh.
“Stupid fucking bitch,” I heard someone grumble.
I pressed against Ghost’s back and shoved him through the door we just opened.
“Get her water,” the man mocked. “Get her food. How about let the stupid fucking bitch starve, huh?”
My eyes widened before Ghost clamped his hand over my mouth. He eased the door shut as silently as possible before we tucked ourselves away from the door.
He had to be talking about Lizzie.
There was no fucking way in hell he was talking about anyone else.
The footsteps stormed by without even stopping, and I held my breath. Ghost’s hand slipped from my mouth as the voice and the shuffling steps faded down the hallway. And then the coast sounded clear…
“Come on,” Ghost whispered as he cracked open the door, “we’ve clearly passed where we need to be.”
We double backed down that same hallway before we threw open and closed doors again. We were getting close. We had to be. Another round of voices forced us into another tight closet space, only this time, Ghost and I were ready.