29. Jon
TWENTY-NINE
Jon
The restraints are professional grade. Industrial, military, top-tier. Cold stainless steel embedded with reinforced lock housings and pressure-force pivots. There’s no give. No loosened loop or warped hinge. Engineered with intent: to hold someone dangerous. Someone like me.
They’ve done their homework.
But they missed something.
No restraint is flawless. Not forever. There’s always a weakness—we’re just trained not to see them. A seam in the weld. A pressure point in the design. Something waiting. Something hidden. It just takes someone desperate enough—someone broken in all the right ways.
I let my body be still.
Breathe shallow.
My heartbeat thuds in my temples, strained and echoing like sonar.
The metal wraps too tight around my wrist, tight enough to sing with each pulse.
The edge has already peeled back the skin to raw meat.
Blood warms the inner curve of my arm. Doesn’t matter.
I catalog pain now like an ally, not a warning.
I tense my hand. Flex. Rotate.
Skin peels more. My wrist slides just far enough that I can turn my thumb inward.
The next movement has to be fast. One motion, absolute. There’s no halfway.
I grit my teeth and snap it.
The sound is liquid and brutal—like violent bubble wrap. The knuckle pops right out of the socket, sinew and tendon yanking free. Pain doesn’t just bloom—it explodes. A white-hot fracture down my arm that punches through my lungs.
Motherfucker.
My throat locks. Vision fuzzes, the world narrowing to a white tunnel with a grenade siren screaming inside it. Can’t think. Can’t breathe. Everything collapses for a searing moment.
Then I come swimming back.
I sag forward and suck in air through clenched teeth. The burn lingers, but it’s background now. Manageable.
Functional pain. Necessary pain. The kind that buys escape.
That buys time.
I wrench against the cuffs. The change in joint angle creates just enough slack—microscopic—and I force my hand backward through the ring.
Bone grinds. Skin splits wider. The taste of copper hits the back of my throat—I’ve bitten my tongue.
Fingertips stretch, shaking and numb, reaching for one thing.
The waistband seam.
Custom-stitched. Double-knit. Reinforced. I find the edge beneath the layered fabric and twist two fingers into it. I pull.
It holds.
More pressure. Pull harder.
Then—a single strand snaps like a tendon. And everything starts to unravel.
The thread parts, then the fabric. A tiny notch opens, revealing a silver sliver tucked deep in the fold.
My pick set.
I crush it in my palm like a relic, dizzy with relief. A breath escapes me—sharp, short—and vanishes into the shadows. I’m not out yet. But I’m close.
I wedge the first tool into the inner lip of the cuff. My other wrist is still trapped behind my back, so I’m working blind, fingertips numb and trembling. I rotate the tension wrench gently—too much pressure and the pin shears.
Sweat curls down my back in threads. My nose stings with the stench of blood and iron, along with something moldy in the walls. I tune it all out.
Focus.
Click .
Too soft to be sure—was that real?
I adjust the angle and try again.
Another click. This one is cleaner.
Then the cuff slips off with a faint, metallic chime.
My hand falls forward, swelling already setting in. I stifle the groan, press my fist to the floor, panting.
Not yet. One last step.
I grab my dislocated thumb, anchor hard against my thigh, and shove.
The joint crunches back into place with a sickening slap.
Black spots flutter across my vision. My stomach convulses. But I stay upright.
Everything tastes like rust.
I flex my fingers. They shake. The nerves are on fire.
But they move.
I stand, slow and low, legs aching from blood pooling at awkward angles. My equilibrium teeters, but I steady myself against the wall.
Next: the door.
It’s unmarked. No obvious handle. Seamless flush paneling. Tri-lock system. Clean. Surgical. But that kind of control? Means electronics. Electronics mean wiring.
Wiring means options.
Guardian HRS embedded it in us as instinct: Every system has an override. Fire codes demand it. Natural disasters. System crashes. Even the most secure facilities have panic contingencies wired beneath the surface.
I run my fingertips around the frame, every millimeter painstakingly cataloged. Then—there. A vertical seam just left of center. Less than a fingernail thick. Matte texture interrupts the smooth lacquered surface.
I slot my pick into the edge. Drag slowly. It catches. I let it ride the groove down until the panel wiggles free with a breath of friction and pops slightly outward.
Behind it—nestled in foam insulation—is a tangled, color-coded mess of wires.
Someone cobbled this together fast. No labels. No redundancy. It wasn’t supposed to be found.
That means it might kill me.
I mutter under my breath, half memory, half prayer. “Red to black. Yellow bypass. Blue disconnect. Ground the circuit.”
My fingers twitch over each decision. Mistakes here mean alarms. Gas. Fail-safes.
I isolate the wires, using the tip of the pick to strip connections. One wire sparks. I flinch, heart leaping—but the circuit holds.
I ground it to a stripped anchor bolt embedded in the floor.
A soft trio of clicks. Quiet. Final. Like coffin lids, one by one.
The lock disengages.
I don’t savor the moment. No fist-pump. No breath of victory.
I’m moving.
The hallway beyond is near-dark. A sickly yellow light faintly fluoresces from the broken bulbs overhead. The air is heavy. Dust thick enough to taste. Mold creeps up corners. Every shadow could be a camera.
Could be a gun.
Far off, voices echo. Cuts of radio chatter. Words clipped and panicked: “Sector two breach… no visual confirmation… he’s gone dark.”
Damn right I have.
Noise swells ahead—boots. Close. Fast.
I duck back and press into a crumbling alcove just before two guards barrel past. Tactical armor. High alert.
Their guns are hot. Their strides purposeful. They’re not performing a sweep. They’re hunting and carrying the scent of urgency. They know I’m out.
I wait. Five seconds. Ten. Until the hallway quiets and the sound of their boots fades into nothing.
Then I move.
I sink into every shadow. My pulse leads me now—thunderous, but focused. Each movement is practiced and deliberate. I scan corners, wait for the telltale rotations of camera eyes. Up ahead—a vent, bricked shut. New. Not in Wolfe’s blueprints.
He’s changed the maze. Tightened the net.
Cameras dot the main thoroughfares now. Laser tripwires glow when you catch them at the right angles. If I hadn’t trained for this, I’d already be dust and blood on the floor.
I slide into a maintenance corridor—too narrow to turn around in fully. Smells like burned dust and bleach. Pipes sweat condensation overhead. The air pressure shifts, like I’ve dipped below sea level. The architecture mutates.
This wasn’t planned by architects.
This was carved by Wolfe’s paranoia. Buried beneath everything official.
I hit a junction. Left is the luxury wing—wine cellars and imported Italian marble displays. Symbolic power. Public-facing.
Right angles downward. Archives. Old storage. Noise hums through the corridor—generators? Pumps? Something mechanical and private.
Something hidden.
I head left.
The walls shift to rough brick. Conduits hum to my left. Somewhere water trickles. The smell’s different here—wet insulation, mixed with ozone and faint masks of ammonia. Chemicals meant to sterilize, to hide rot. It makes my stomach curl.
I round a bend—and freeze.
Two guards. Talking in low voices. One nods toward the stairwell I just came from.
I slide back into the shadows, pulse slowing. My breath catches in my chest, tucked behind cracked plaster and exposed wires. One boot scrapes nearby—then hope.
They walk past.
They don’t see me.
I wait.
Slow count to ten.
Then I’m moving again.
Ahead—something new. A door with a keypad and reinforced paneling. Fresh wiring runs along the molding.
Beside it—blood.
A thin palm smear. Downward drag. Not enough to kill. Enough to warn.
My stomach lurches.
Too small to be Aria.
But someone was here.
I don’t risk time with the keypad. Brute-forcing it in the dark might trigger a failsafe and bolt the place permanently.
I look. Behind the crates—barely visible—a recessed panel. Cleaner air slips through its seams.
An emergency hatch.
Slide latch. Manual.
I try it.
The creaking metal feels loud enough to wake the dead.
I slip inside.
And I know instantly?—
Too quiet.
Then it hits—the sound. Sharp, sudden.
Crash ! A piece of furniture screeching across tile.
Voices yelling. Frantic.
A scream. Female. Young.
My blood turns to ice and starts to boil.
Aria.
No conscious thought—just adrenaline. Motion. Velocity. I don’t track where I’m going—I charge.
Past tumbled debris. Broken screens. A corridor spattered with aging blood.
Then—a corner.
I see her.
Choked. Lifted off the floor. A brute of a guard presses her against the concrete wall, arm flexed. Her legs kick weakly. Her hands claw at his wrist.
Near them, a body lies still. Another guard. A teenage girl crouched by him. Bloodied. Blade shaking in her grip.
Time stops. Something inside me snaps.
I’m on him before thinking. I snatch a length of rusted rebar from ruined shelving mid-charge. My first swing connects with the guard’s head—solid and brutal. He grunts, stumbles.
Drops Aria.
She crumples.
I swing again. Catch him in the temple, full force.
His knees give out. He crashes to the floor.
I swing once more for certainty.
Then I’m beside Aria.
Catching her, holding her close as her body shakes and gasps for air. Tears stream down her dust-covered cheeks. Blood from a temple cut threads into her hairline.
My voice comes apart.
“Aria—” My hands desperately check for injuries. Jaw. Sides. Arms. Shoulders. “God, you’re bleeding?—”
She clutches my wrist like it’s the only real thing left on earth.
“Jon…” she croaks.