A door behind him bursts open and two males enter, dragging Clipper, Sammy, and Jackson. All three are bound and gagged. The team’s earlier shouts had nothing to do with the Forgery after all.
“We got the others, Titus,” one of the escorts says.
Titus lowers his knife from my chin and turns toward them. Bree and I sense our chance and act at the same moment. She scrambles to her feet and I grab the radio from my hip.
“Xavier. We’re—”
Titus’s fist comes out of nowhere. I taste blood, drop the radio. The world goes momentarily blurry. When my vision steadies, Titus is standing before me, unwrapping a metal chain from his palm. He stomps on the radio, crushing it beneath his heel.
“That’s enough!” Bree shouts, the handgun trained on him. “Untie them.” She motions toward the rest of our team with the barrel. “Do it now or I swear I will fire.”
Titus slashes his knife so quickly I don’t see it coming. One moment he’s still and the next my chest is on fire. I gasp, press a palm against my shirt. The material grows damp, and my fingers sticky.
“Put it down, girlie,” Titus says to Bree, “or next time he’s gettin’ worse.”
“We came to help you,” she says, refusing to lower the gun. “We came—”
“And we ain’t askin’ for yer help! But that’s the thing with yer people. Ya think ya know what’s best for e’erybody. Ya think so much ya don’t think at all.”
I blink, and his blade is against my neck for a second time. The two men behind Titus have brought knives to Sammy’s and Clipper’s throats as well. Only Jackson is left unthreatened, but seeing as we had him bound from the beginning, it was probably clear we never cared much for his safety. For a split second I hope that he will take advantage of this and somehow free us all. A foolish, desperate thought.
“Put down yer weapon and we’ll have a nice talk,” Titus says to Bree.
“How do I know you won’t slit his throat when I lower my gun?”
“Yer just gonna have to trust me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Cus if ya don’t, I’ll kill yer whole team instead.”
Bree shifts her footing. “You’re bluffing.”
But I know he’s not. I can see it in his bloodshot eyes. We were wrong to think these people wanted our help, that we could convince them to join our cause, turn their prison into our hideout. So wrong.
“Bree,” I say. Titus’s knife grates against my throat. “It’s not worth it.”
“I can do this,” she says.
They are too spaced out. She’ll only get a shot off, two at best, before one of us is dead.
“You’re good, but you’re not this good. No one is. If you’re smart, you’ll acknowledge that.”
Her grip is shaking now, the gun quivering as it darts between Titus and his men. Bree swallows and lowers the weapon. Titus snatches it from her. He turns to face a vacant wall, and pulls the trigger six times. My ears ring, pound, throb from the shots being fired in enclosed quarters.
Titus hands the gun back to Bree, smiling. “So powerful ’til it ain’t, eh?”
She looks at the weapon, now an empty piece of metal. Her jaw clenches. She lunges at him, but someone along the wall jumps to restrain her.
Titus wraps the chain back around his palm.
He’s struck Bree all of three times when I’m blindfolded and dragged from the room.
I’m shoved to a sitting position, the ground beneath me cold. Pain flares through my shoulders as my hands are pulled behind me and bound. Then my shirt’s being torn open. A moment later comes the sting of a needle, stitching the cut on my chest but not bothering to be gentle about it. A gag ends up in my mouth when I won’t stop yelling for Bree and the others.
When the wound is dressed and the blindfold finally pulled off, I find I’m in a dingy room filled with pipes and poles and oddly sized metal containers. The view is engulfed by darkness as the healer leaves, pulling the door shut behind him. My only company now is a flickering candle set far out of reach.
“Hey!” I shout through my gag. My voice echoes through the dark room. I scramble to stand up and find my arms are not only tied behind my back, but around a pole as well. I twist, attempting to free myself, and feel the stitches strain from the motion.
“Hey!” I shout again. “Untie me!”
“They’re not coming,” someone says. Jackson.
I flatten myself to the floor and peer beneath a metal vat behind the pole I’m tethered to. I can just barely make him out on the other side, sitting with his back to me.
“Jackson. Can you untie me?” The gag is muddling my words, but he seems to understand me well enough because he laughs.
“Why would I help you? And besides, I can’t. I’m tied up, too.”
“Where are the others?”
“Sammy and Clipper were dragged off somewhere. I don’t know where they took them.”
“And Bree?” I ask, my voice catching. “What about Bree?”
“Titus beat her until she passed out. Then I was dragged here, but you were too busy screaming to hear them bring me in. I don’t know anything else.”
My mouth goes dry. How did this happen? How did I manage to botch our mission, get my entire team caught? And Bree. It’s completely my fault. I told her to put the gun down. I told her to surrender her only way of protecting herself.
A loud screech echoes through the room and torchlight floods in. I shrink away from it. A man dressed in furs and leather enters, dragging Sammy and Clipper behind him. Sammy’s blond bangs are slick with blood and his nose is swollen to double its normal size. It’s broken for sure. I feel a small surge of relief when I see Clipper unharmed.
The man binds Sammy to the pole in front of me, and Clipper to the one behind Sammy. Then he notices me watching and shouts back toward the doorway.
“Did he wanna see the leader next?”
“Bring him,” comes the reply.
I’m promptly untied and dragged from the room. We go up a flight of stairs and through a series of hallways. Some have cold, concrete walls; others are nothing but frozen dirt tunnels. Not once do I see a window. We are still underground. Even stranger, I don’t see a single person. There have to be more than the handful Bree and I saw after falling through the trapdoor.
We make a quick turn, and I’m shoved into a room. A hammock hangs between two poles. A bedpan rests on the floor. Several candles sit on the surface of a crudely fashioned table. Titus steps from a corner and into their glow.
I’m pushed onto a crate serving as a chair, and while my arms remain tethered behind my back, at least the gag is removed.
Titus waves at my escort dismissively. “Put the damn torch out or get gone, Bruno. It’s hurtin’ my eyes.”
Bruno grunts and leaves. As soon as I’m alone with Titus, I spit out the first thought that comes into my head.
“Where’s Bree?”
His lips spread into a thin smile, which looks wicked in the candlelight. “You ain’t here to talk about yer woman.”
“Where is she?”
“Tell me yer name, and maybe I’ll tell where she’s at.”
“Gray,” I say immediately. “Gray Weathersby.”
He says the name back to me, like he’s trying it on. Then he runs his fingers absentmindedly through a candle’s flame.
“I gave you my name. Now where is she?”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
I writhe against my bindings. “You said—”
Titus picks up his knife and drives it into the table. It stands, wobbling upright, light bouncing off the blade. “What’s it this time?” His lips are pulled back in a snarl, his chest heaving. “What do ya want?”
“This time? We came to help you.”