CHAPTER 30
Matthew
We ended up in a tunnel. A fucking tunnel.
The things I did for this boy.
I kept my pace with the rest of the group, keeping an eye on Theo, who was chatting with Nico at the front, not seeming at all bothered by the dark, closed space, murky puddles and crumbling rocks .
Every now and again he would sneeze or cough, the sound echoing around us.
It was both amusing and startling and wouldn’t be great if the prison was nearby- they’d hear us from miles away.
“Matthew.” Alex hissed, causing me to whirl round and face him “are you sure this is…right?”
I wasn’t sure. I definitely wasn’t sure. But it had seemed like a good guess.
“No.” I replied truthfully “of course I’m not sure.”
He cringed, eyeing his surroundings wearily “okay.” He sighed “you have the ability to estimate how long this thing will go on for?”
I shrugged. Nope. I was about to tell him as much when Theo and Nico halted, heads snapping around.
“What?” I asked, picking up on their panic.
“I heard something.” Theo whispered “it sounded like- there it is again!”
First there was a tiny rumble. Not something I would have picked up on if I hadn’t been listening. A bang followed. A loud bang from above us, causing stones to crumble from the ceiling. It sounded a bit like someone had dropped a sack of weapons.
“Something’s up there.” I observed quietly.
“No shit.” Dean replied, searching around himself “we need to get out. Up.”
“By doing what?” I asked sceptically “drilling a hole up there?”
Dean stared up calculatingly “Todd.” He called to the burly soldier who had originally been part of my group in Zeltron “sledgehammer?”
“Always.” He replied gruffly, unstrapping it from his back to demonstrate.
“Great. Give that to me and lift me up.”
I scrunched up my nose and sidled over to Theo “this’ll take a while.” I whispered.
“For sure.” He agreed quietly, sliding down the wall of the tunnel onto the floor.
My mouth twitched into a smile, amused, and I sat beside him.
“You think they’re up there?” He asked, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling Dean was currently trying to destroy.
I laughed dryly, closing my eyes “if they are, then they probably know we’re here.”
“Could mistake it for an earthquake.” Theo tried optimistically.
I laughed dryly.
He coughed into his elbow, the sound deep and chesty. I felt a twinge of concern “that sounded worse than usual.”
He glanced at me, eyes dull “it’s…fine.” He mumbled “a cold.”
I nodded slowly, licking my lips “yeah.”
Dean slammed the sledgehammer into the rocks particularly hard, causing a chunk of it to crumble down.
Theo shivered from beside me.
“You sure you’re okay?” I asked quietly, doubting it.
“It’s chilly in here.” He replied defensively.
I grunted, half considering offering my jacket; before I could, he scrambled to his feet, dodging past the others to ride through a loud coughing fit.
I winced, following him and resting a hand on his heaving back “they’ll catch us right away if we go in with you sounding like that.
” I remarked, trying to play off my concern.
He rubbed his chest, shaking his head as he sucked in a deep breath “yeah.” He laughed, but there weren’t any traces of actual amusement “that would be shit.”
“Hmm.” I hummed in agreement “we’d make a terrible rescue party.”
“We would.”
He looked up at me, meeting my gaze through his dark eyelashes with his icy blue orbs. They were glassy from how hard he’d coughed.
“You feeling alright?” I whispered “seriously.”
“Tired.” He shrugged dismissively but fisted the sleeve of my jacket “do you, uh…think…I could borrow your bed when we get back?” He requested sheepishly.
My heart skipped a beat, from both the question and how shy he’d sounded as he’d asked it, and I knew I had a stupid dopey expression on my face when I replied “sure. I can kick Jack out.”
He smiled back bashfully, glancing past me at the others before whispering “I’d kiss you if I could. Let you fuck me against this stupid stone wall.”
My dick immediately responded to the comment and I internally cursed it, muttering a “me too,” whilst praying my little problem wasn’t visible.
A loud bang echoed around us, a shout from Dean followed “we’re in!”
Our heads snapped towards the hole he’d managed to create in the rock and the mess that sat beneath it.
Todd helped us climb up one by one, grabbing us by the bottom of our legs and hoisting us up so we could push ourselves out.
I shuddered at where we’d surfaced: it was an underground prison or dungeon, built from rough, yellow-brown stone with arched ceilings and thick pillars. Iron-barred cell doors were set into the stone walls, and a stone staircase raised on our right, leading upward.
Just as Todd staggered to his feet, having been pulled up by the conjoined force of Alex and Nico leaning over the edge, an ear splitting scream pierced the air around us, appearing to come from up the stairs.
We all froze.
Another one followed, equally as loud, equally as agonised.
“We need to follow that scream.” Dean muttered, face pale.
"You want to do what?” Theo hissed “right, because there’s still a slim chance my hair won’t turn white and I won’t spend the rest of my life locked in a padded room cackling uncontrollably.”
I rolled my eyes at him “you are unbelievable. The whole point of this is freeing the prisoners. As long as we shut the hell up they won’t find us.”
“Actually, they might find us, and then I might have a heart attack and die. Actually, I think I might be about to have one already, I can feel it,” he muttered, grabbing his chest with a worried look in his eyes.
I felt a twinge of unease at that, concern for him creeping up once more.
Dean just shook his head “we’re here for Stryker, you doofus. He needs us. That.” He pointed “was Stryker.”
I winced. I didn’t know him inside out enough to be able recognise his scream, but I could tell from the distress painted onto Dean’s face that he wasn’t kidding.
“Listen, you two wait here. Make sure this hole doesn’t get discovered.” He pointed at me and Theo “us four will search around.”
“You sure?” I asked sceptically “I-“
“Trust me.” His eyes were trained on Theo “if he coughs one more bloody time I might strangle him.”
He gasped indignantly, but all I could note was that he still hadn’t removed his hand from his chest, which he was rubbing in what was clearly meant to be a subtle way.
“Go on, then.” I mumbled “try to be quick.”
I watched them jog up the stairs before turning to my companion- boyfriend? Fuckbuddy?- and asking “it bothering you? Your chest?”
I flinched at another scream.
“Not much.” He smiled but it appeared forced, not reaching his eyes “heartburn.”
“You get heartburn?” I questioned doubtfully.
He shrugged miserably, coughing into his elbow so forcefully he was reduced to crouching down onto the cold stone floor.
I placed a hand between his shoulder blades, feeling the flex of the tight cords of muscle underneath.
“You should have stayed.” I chided him gently.
“I wanted to help.” He croaked.
“Yeah, but now you’re stuck here and I’m stuck babysitting and we’re not helping anyone.”
He cast his eyes away from mine dejectedly. I felt a stab of guilt- I hadn’t meant to make him feel bad about it, but I was right, and I was frustrated that I was being useless.
I ran a hand through his hair, only to paused at the scorching heat emanating from his forehead “you didn’t mention having a fever.”
He groaned loudly “do you have to notice everything?”
“Jesus Christ, Theo, you can’t-“
Another scream interrupted me.
I sighed loudly, feeling a little like slamming my head against the nearest wall as I slumped down beside him.
We must have been sitting there for an hour before Dean and Alex came running down the steps, followed by other men who thankfully were relatively unharmed.
I gasped when I clocked on to who the bloody form in Dean’s arms was- Stryker, unconscious yet trembling, bleeding, face so beaten and bruised it was unrecognisable, naked and his body in no better state than his face, shoes discarded someplace, feet torn and bleeding.
Horror and dread filled my body. Theo whimpered from beside me.
“Okay, so, good news is we’ve got most of them.” Alex panted “bad news, we got found out. Todd and Nico are holding them off, but we have really got to go.
I didn’t need to be told twice.