Chapter 11 #2
Aria huffs and puffs beside me, clearly not one who spends her days working on her fitness, but I’ve got some bad news for her.
If she’s already out of breath, then the next few days are not going to be kind to her.
Assuming I keep her around that long. But that’s up to her.
I’m not ending her until I get the answers I’m looking for, and only then will I put her out of her misery and take revenge for her pitiful betrayal.
If she were smart, she’d drag this out as long as possible, but on the contrary, she might as well tell me what I need to hear so I can hurry up and put her out of her misery.
We both know how this ends. There are no ifs, whats, or buts about it.
An hour turns into three without a single word passing between us.
It’s peaceful. Apart from the sound of our footsteps in the old, dried-up sewer, it’s the most silence I’ve experienced in seven years.
Well, I suppose that’s not entirely true.
I’ve had more than my fair share of time spent in solitude.
Look at a guard wrong, and you’re fucked.
Forty-eight hours spent in solitude to think about your actions, but for me, it’s really not so bad.
I enjoy the peace. It allows me a chance to reflect, plot, and plan, and time like that is more than valuable when planning an escape.
As for what happens next, I’ve got no fucking idea.
Every bit of planning I’d done before is out the window. I’m on my own, but I’m not worried. I’ll roll with the hits as they come, and there will be hits. Plenty of them. But if I keep myself five steps ahead, nobody can touch me.
Aria suddenly gasps beside me, her eyes going wide.
My head whips down, trying to figure out what’s wrong.
Has she rolled an ankle? Been bitten by something?
“What’s wrong?” I demand, already trying to figure out how to solve whatever problem she hits me with.
Rolled ankle? Tough break. Shake it off and keep walking.
Snake or spider bite that infects her whole body, rendering her legs useless?
Sure, it’ll suck, but I’m not opposed to carrying her out of here, healing her up, getting my answers, and then taking her out.
I didn’t come this far to have my revenge ripped away by nothing more than a mere spider.
Aria shakes her head. “Nothing, it’s just . . . It just occurred to me why you call the psycho organ harvester, Doc,” she murmurs, keeping her gaze locked on the uneven ground before her. “Because he slices and dices people. Like a surgeon.”
Are you fucking kidding me?
I don’t bother to respond, just shake my head as frustration burns through my veins.
“What does he even do with those organs anyway?” she muses, still talking as her lips twist into an uneasy cringe, and a visible shiver tracks across her body. “Is he . . . no! Is he eating them? Like going full cannibal on their ass?”
“No fucking idea,” I find myself saying, unsure why I’m indulging this conversation as the image of Doc feasting on Aria’s intestines pops into my head. “I don’t know. Nor do I want to. The less I know about that man, the better.”
“Kinda fucked up, right? I mean, who looks at human flesh and thinks, mmmmmm lunch?”
I don’t respond, and after a minute, Aria sighs.
“Seriously? Is this what it’s going to be like?
We could be walking through this tunnel all night.
The least you could do is try to be decent company.
Besides, when those cuts on your shoulders start getting infected, you’re going to need me to help you, because you and I both know that with muscles like that, there’s no way in hell you can reach the back of your shoulders with those big meaty fingers. Can you even open a Band-Aid?”
For fuck’s sake.
Not that it’s any of her business, but no, I can’t reach the back of my shoulders, but it’s not as though I was going to ask for her help in the first place.
And as for the Band-Aids, I could open one if I needed to, but I’m a man—a very big one at that—so naturally, I don’t need Band-Aids.
They’re for small children who graze their knees, not convicted murderers who break out of prisons via sewer systems.
“Okay. Fuck the Band-Aids,” Aria says with a huff, realizing her ploy to bait me isn’t going to work. “What’s your plan?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“You’re just going to bust out of this sewer line and hope that there aren’t any cops waiting for you at the other end?
” she questions. “And if by some miracle, you happen to get out of here, without dying from an infection, what then? You drag me around everywhere you go and live life on the run? Because you know that’s not sustainable, right?
You’re about to become the most wanted man on Earth.
There’s nowhere you can go where people won’t actively be searching for you.
You can’t walk through a town. Can’t get groceries.
Can’t even stop for gas. What kind of life is that to live? ”
“Are you done?”
She rolls her eyes and grumbles. “Not really. I have plenty more to say on the topic.”
“I’m sure you do.”
Another hour passes when I hear her stomach grumble, and she stops in the middle of the sewer, letting out an exhausted sigh. “Can we just . . . pause for a minute? My legs are aching, and I’m—”
“No. Keep walking,” I throw over my shoulder. “The sooner we find the end of this tunnel, the better. We need to put as much space between us and the prison before they realize we’re gone. They’ll canvas the outskirts of the prison first, but it won’t take long before they widen the search.”
She lets out a shaky breath. “I don’t hear the alarms anymore. Does that mean they’ve turned them off, or are we just too far away to hear them now?”
I shake my head. There’s really no telling.
“Wow. You’re just full of information, aren’t you?
” Aria mutters, clearly irritated with the situation she’s found herself in, but I get it.
If I were in her shoes, I wouldn’t be happy about it either.
But then, if she didn’t want to get herself kidnapped by a convicted criminal, then she shouldn’t have baited the one she ensured was locked up in the first place.
“Get walking, Menace.”
She groans, and I listen as she drags her feet again. “You’ve really got your heart set on killing me, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Because you think I’m this menace girl.”
“We’ve already covered this.”
“And what are the chances that you get out of your own head and look at me long enough to consider that you might be wrong? Because, even though I haven’t really got my shit together, I’m not exactly ready to die because of someone else’s bullshit.
There’s still so much I need to do. Though it’s not as though I can go back to work after all of this.
You know, you kinda killed my boss and crew.
Knowing Janette, she’ll find a way to blame all of this shit on me and have me written up. I’ll—”
“Who’s Janette?” I ask, the words tumbling out of my mouth before I even realize that I’ve been sucked into her bullshit.
“This woman I work with, Captain Clipboard. She’s the biggest pain in my ass, and I don’t doubt that she’ll have something to say about all of this and find a way to blame it all on me,” she says.
“According to Janette, I’m a colossal screw-up and not worthy of being anything more than a coffee runner. ”
“Sounds like a bitch.”
“Mm-hm.” She pauses for a moment before catching up to me, glancing up, and looking at me with a deep curiosity. “What were those little papers you got from your cell earlier?”
My brow arches, and I fix her with a hard stare. “How’d you know about that?”
“I, umm . . . I saw you. There were more vents in the ceiling that had a clear view of the cells below.”
I nod, impressed. “I’ve been locked up at Hartley Creek for seven years, and in that time, not one person has been observant enough to notice my kill list. Yet you’re there for two fucking seconds and start uncovering all my dirty little secrets.”
“Kill list?”
“Polaroids. Pictures of those who’ve wronged me,” I explain. “I have no intention of forgetting what these people have done to me, and when the time comes, I’ll see to it that they pay the ultimate price.”
“Let me guess, this menace girl is right at the top of your kill list.”
I nod and glance at the woman who I’ve more than memorized. Every curve of her face, every freckle, eyelash, and speckle within those bright green eyes. Only today, they don’t look as bright. Not like they were the day I took that photo. Today, they’re fearful, but that’s the way I like it.
“Yes,” I say, giving her a pointed stare. “You are.”
A sheepish expression crosses her face. “Can I . . . see her?”
“No.”
Aria shakes her head, frustration burning in her eyes, and I prepare myself for the onslaught.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she spits at me, grabbing the first aid kit she’d gotten from Doc and launching it at my head.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you insisting on being such a stubborn jackass? You are literal proof that confidence doesn’t require intelligence.
What is it, huh? Are you scared? Scared of being wrong?
Scared that you’ve gone too far and can’t figure out how to admit that you’ve made a mistake?
TELL ME! GOD DAMN IT! Tell me, because if you’re willing to risk my life on it, then you better be damn sure. ”
Anger burns through me like a wildfire, and in the blink of an eye, I find myself slamming into her, my hand braced around her throat as I shove her against the wall of the old sewer line. “I AM SURE,” I roar, blood vessels bursting in my throat as the sound echoes up the long, dark tunnel.
Aria gapes at me, her eyes wide as her body trembles beneath my hold, but I feel no empathy for her.
She asked for this. She has done nothing but bait me all day.
She should have known that, sooner or later, I was going to break, just as I did this morning in the conference room . . . before everything turned to shit.
“Then do it,” she challenges. “Stop being such a little chicken shit, and just do it. Snap my neck like you did all of those men in the prison. What’s the point in dragging this out?”
I scoff and lean into her, my stare boring into hers like lasers as my grip around her neck tightens. “You don’t think I will?”
She swallows, and I feel the movement beneath my palm, and as I hold her stare, refusing to release her, a strange tension begins to build between us.
Her chest heaves with gasping breaths, and I do the same, feeling myself about to break.
She always had this hold over me, always knew exactly how to draw me in, only I’m not the same twenty-year-old dumbass kid she used to know, and she sure as fuck isn’t the seventeen-year-old girl that I once knew. Everything is different now.
She scoffs, challenging me further. “I know you won’t.”
Anger radiates out of her, but I don’t let up, and as the tension boils between us, pushing it past the point of no return, she finally turns away, snapping her gaze down the long tunnel ahead.
Her jaw clenches, and I don’t ease up, knowing her too damn well.
She’s not nearly finished. The girl I know doesn’t give up that easily, and she sure as fuck doesn’t falter at the first sign of fear.
This girl does, though. She’s terrified of me.
It’s clear in her eyes, in the way her body trembles, and in the way she shrinks away from me every time I get too close.
The girl I knew would never have done that.
Though the girl I knew never had to watch me tear men to shreds with my bare hands. At least, not until that day.
Could there be a chance that I’m wrong? That this girl truly is just a journalist who came to the prison to break a headlining story and make a name for herself? Could this all just be some kind of messed-up coincidence?
No. There’s no way.
She has her eyes. Her hair. That same rasp in her tone.
I can’t be wrong. This is my menace.
My gaze trails over her face as she stares down the long tunnel, refusing to look away.
Only when her brows begin to pinch, and she stares with a curious purpose, do I begin to ease up.
“Is that . . .” Her words fall short, and she carelessly shoves her hands against my chest, pushing me back a step.
For whatever reason, I find myself moving out of her way. “I think that’s the end.”
“What?”
My head whips around, trying to see what she’s seeing, but there’s only darkness.
“Holy shit,” she says, excitement brightening those familiar green eyes. “It is. We’re almost there.”
Aria scrambles for the first aid kit, scooping it off the dirty ground and into her arms before picking up her pace. “Come on,” she throws over her shoulder. “The sooner we get out of this godforsaken sewer line, the sooner I can get away from you.”