Chapter 28
ANNIE
I came to with a jolt, my head pounding and my mouth impossibly dry. Darkness surrounded me, and scratchy material rubbed against my face. The last thing I remembered was walking down a corridor with Six, then...
The memory slipped away.
My thoughts came in disjointed fragments, refusing to connect properly. Drugged. I’d been drugged. The realization floated through my mind, oddly detached from any sense of urgency I should have felt.
My heart was pounding and I couldn’t really tell if it was panic or the drug, but I forced myself to remain as still as possible and listen.
Dripping water echoed somewhere in the distance, the sound stretching and compressing in my ears like an audio file being manipulated.
The air felt damp and cool against my skin, carrying the scent of mildew and concrete dust. Beneath me was a hard, cold floor.
No voices. No footsteps. Just the occasional distant sound of water hitting stone that reverberated inside my skull.
I flexed my wrists experimentally. No restraints. Whoever had taken me hadn’t bothered to tie me up. Either they were amateurs, or...
I lost the thought halfway through. What was I thinking about? Each thought was taking longer to form than it should.
Slowly, I raised my hands to my head, expecting at any moment to hear someone shout or feel hands grabbing me. Nothing happened. I grasped the fabric and carefully pulled it off.
I blinked as my eyes struggled to focus, the dim light pulsing unnaturally.
I was in some kind of tunnel or passageway.
Concrete walls surrounded me, stained with water damage and streaked with rust from exposed pipes overhead.
The only illumination came from sporadic emergency lights that cast shadows across the crumbling infrastructure—shadows that seemed to shift and move even when nothing was there.
The floor beneath me was bare concrete, cracked and uneven.
Puddles of stagnant water dotted along the ground, reflecting the sparse light in ways that made my vision swim.
The ceiling was low, with exposed wiring and pipes running along it, occasionally doubling and tripling in my drug-addled vision.
This place was old. Abandoned. The kind of infrastructure people forgot existed beneath their feet.
I sat up slowly, wincing as the movement sent the world tilting on its axis.
A wave of nausea rolled over me, and I had to breathe through my mouth to keep from vomiting.
My cuff was still secure around my wrist, thank god.
I touched it reflexively, feeling a wave of relief when I confirmed it was undamaged.
I strained my ears again, trying to catch any sound of my captors. Nothing but that steady drip of water and, very faintly, a distant rumble that might have been machinery or a large crowd. The sounds blended together, sometimes crystal clear, sometimes muffled.
I pushed myself to my feet, immediately regretting it as my legs threatened to fold beneath me. The drug, whatever it was, had left my limbs feeling disconnected, like I was trying to operate a marionette rather than my own body. I leaned against the wall, waiting for the tunnel to stop spinning.
“Get it together, Annie,” I muttered, my voice sounding strange and distant. “Just walk.”
I started moving. The tunnel stretched ahead, concrete walls occasionally marked with faded maintenance signs that blurred and shifted when I tried to read them. I’d been walking for how long? Minutes? Hours? I couldn’t tell.
My fingers trailed along the wall, the rough concrete sometimes feeling like sandpaper, sometimes barely registering against my numbed skin.
I came to a fork and two identical passages branched in different directions with no indication of where each might lead.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Above my head, the ceiling trembled and a dull boom echoed through the structure.
Tiny particles of dust and concrete drifted down, settling on the ridiculously tiny dress I’d been made to wear.
I brushed it off with an irritated swipe, my coordination off just enough that I nearly scratched my own thigh.
I stood at the junction, trying to decide which way to go. Another boom shook the ceiling, harder this time. More dust rained down, and I stepped back, shielding my eyes. The movement was too quick. The world tilted again, and I stumbled sideways, catching myself against the wall.
“Hello,” I called. The words slurred slightly, my tongue feeling too thick for my mouth. I frowned, trying to focus.
I was about to go to the right when I heard a faint sound coming from the leftmost tunnel. The scrape of a shoe against concrete, perhaps. I moved toward the sound.
The passage curved slightly, the lighting growing dimmer with each step. Another boom from above, another shower of dust. This time, I heard a grunt, followed by labored breathing. The sound came again, clearer now. Definitely breathing, heavy and strained.
I rounded the curve and froze in horror.
A Colosseum security guard lay slumped against the wall, his wrists and ankles bound with electrical wire.
Blood matted his hair and ran down the side of his face from a nasty gash above his temple.
A strip of duct tape covered his mouth, but his eyes were wide open, pleading as they locked with mine.
“Oh my god,” I gasped, rushing forward.
The guard made muffled sounds behind his gag, his body straining against the restraints. I knelt beside him, my hands hovering uncertainly over his injuries, my movements clumsy and delayed.
“It’s okay,” I said, trying to sound calm. “I’m going to get you help.”
My thoughts came sluggishly. What the hell was going on? Had Cipher done this?
I knelt beside the guard, my fingers fumbling with the electrical wire binding his wrists. The wire was tight, cutting into his skin, and my hands shook as I tried to loosen it.
“I’m going to get this off you,” I whispered, struggling with the thin metal that refused to give. “Just stay calm.”
The guard’s eyes widened, looking past me. His muffled sounds grew more frantic behind the tape.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was, but my body moved anyway, an instinct to face the threat. I stumbled backward as I took in the massive figure looming over me, his form splitting into two before resolving back into one.
Baron Ash stood there, his armored suit gleaming dully in the dim emergency lighting. His mask, that infamous featureless faceplate with only thin slits for eyes and glowing, molten lines, tilted down so he could study me with that one green eye.
“Cipher’s little whore,” he said, his voice somehow conveying amusement despite its flatness.
I scrambled to my feet but the sudden movement sent another wave of dizziness through me, and I had to lock my knees to keep from swaying.
“What do you want?” I asked, trying to sound authoritative despite the fear coursing through me and the slight slurring of my words.
Ash took a step forward, and I instinctively stepped back, bumping into the wall beside the guard.
“I believe you and I have a mutual associate,” he said, the word dripping with contempt. “One who requires a lesson in respect.”
“I need to help this man,” I said, hearing the tremor in my voice, gesturing to the guard who was still making desperate noises behind his gag. “He needs medical attention.”
“Oh, you’re worried about him?” Before I could react, he spun around and delivered a savage kick to the guard’s head. The sickening crack echoed through the tunnel, and the guard went instantly still, his eyes vacant.
“There,” Baron Ash turned back to me with a shrug. “Now you don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
I stared in shock at the guard’s lifeless body, bile rising in my throat. “You—you just—”
Ash clamped his hand around my throat, lifting me off the ground until my feet dangled uselessly.
“Now,” he said, his face inches from mine as I struggled for air, “you’re coming with me. Cipher’s been hogging all the fun lately.”
I clawed at his hand as he dragged me down the tunnel, my feet scraping uselessly against the floor. My lungs burned, desperate for air as his grip tightened around my throat. The drug in my system made my struggles weaker than they should have been, my coordination shot, my strength sapped.
I dug my short nails into the thick, flesh of his wrist. The edges of my vision pulsed with dark, fuzzy static as my lungs screamed for oxygen.
The metal of my cuff dug into my left forearm. The stunner. The thought surfaced through the toxic sludge in my brain. A high-voltage charge was right there, mere inches away. But I needed my right hand to activate the cuff on my left wrist.
I couldn’t do it. The terrifying reality of my situation locked me in place. If I let go of his arm I would choke further. I was dependent on the desperate, failing leverage of both my hands just to keep breathing.
“Struggling just makes it hurt more,” Ash rumbled. The heat radiating from his black armor pressed against my bare skin.
I gagged, a pathetic, wet sound, my grip slipping as the darkness began to swallow the tunnel.
He slammed me against the wall. Stars exploded behind my eyes as my head cracked against the concrete.
When he finally loosened his grip, I gasped, sucking in painful breaths. My vision swam, the dim tunnel lights blurring into smears of yellow that left trailing afterimages when I moved my head. I collapsed to the ground, coughing and gasping.
“You know,” he said, looming over me, “Cipher was arrogant to think no one would touch his little whore.”
I tried to crawl away, but his boot came down on my ankle, pinning me in place. Pain shot up my leg as he applied pressure, the sensation dulled and sharpened in unpredictable waves as the drug played havoc with my nervous system.