Unlocked (No Way Out Series Book 3)

by Shari J. Ryan

  With nothing else to follow my name up with, I realize she’s only saying it out of her own need. My name has never sounded as sweet, and I would do anything to live a life with this woman in a place where we don’t have to run or hide, where I can hear her say my name every day. A place where there is a way out.

  Her nails press tightly into my shoulders as her moans grow louder. Her body moves against mine harder and faster and I feel nearly strangled when her body spasms against me. It doesn’t take long before I’m holding her as tightly, pressing my face into her shoulder as I lose myself completely within her. We slip down against the wall, ignoring the chill of the water. I kiss her again, cradling her head in my hands as she traces her fingertips along the ink over my chest.

  When the water becomes unbearable, we lazily make our way into the twin size bed where we both fall asleep in the comfort of what we hope is safety, knowing there isn’t another night in sight that would offer us the same.

  Without an alarm, the banging on the door does the job, except neither of us is dressed. I sit up, finding light pouring into the room from windows lining the top of the walls—windows we can’t see out of, but that’s probably for the best. In the corner, I see a table with two piles of clothes; below the desk are two pairs of boots. I don’t remember seeing them in here last night, but it was dark.

  Placing a kiss on Reese’s cheek, I nudge her softly, hoping not to startle her awake, considering the knock on the door isn’t getting her up. “Hey,” I whisper into her ear. “We have to get up.” She stirs a bit, her legs brushing up against mine. I’d kill to wake up next to her every morning. The sunlight is hitting the side of her face, illuminating her freckles and the perfection of her smooth skin. She shouldn’t be forced to do what we’re about to do, but I couldn’t trust anyone enough to leave her behind either.

  A groan rumbles in her throat as her eyes open with a start, the light beating down directly into her translucent blue eyes. After a couple blinks of confusion, she looks around the room and jumps out of the bed. “Where are we? What’s going on? Who are you?” Her fingers are pressed into the roots of her hair and she’s spinning around, groaning. “What is this?”

  “Reese,” I respond calmly. “It’s me. We’re in the bunker.”

  “No,” she cries. “No. No. No!” She’s pacing back and forth from the door to the window, holding the sheet tightly against her body.

  “Reese, it’s okay.”

  “I’m hungry. I’m starving. I need food. What is this? Why can’t we get out? I want out. I want out right now!” she continues, her breaths turning faster into hyperventilation.

  “Reese,” I say again, unsure of what’s happening right now.

  She stops pacing and slowly turns around to face me. “I’m sorry, I—“

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, I don’t know what happened,” she says.

  “You’re tired and you could use several more hours of sleep,” I explain as the only form of explanation I can come up with.

  Another knock on the door startles her again, her eyes wide as she looks back and forth between the door and me. “We’re coming. We’re coming!” I shout at the door.

  “We?” I hear my mother’s voice, as well as the hostility.

  “I’m a grown man, Mom,” I say, loud enough for her to hear.

  I place Reese’s pile of clothes down in front of her as she scurries to get dressed; probably way more embarrassed to hear my mother’s voice than I am. For the number of times I was forced to hear JJ giving it to her each night after they spilled the news of their relationship, she can think whatever the hell she wants to think right now. Although, I think part of the sound effects from her and JJ were to piss Dad off, considering he was forced to live in our basement for a while after he dropped himself into the center of Chipley. He may have been buddy-buddy with Jackson Crownwell, but clearly that didn’t give him the freedom of his own housing. It was our basement or a shed. I always believed that was Mom’s primary reason for leaving Chipley, but it never made sense why she would leave me, too. I gave up trying to understand it all. I’m guessing I’ll most likely be buried with my unanswered questions.

  Reese is completely dressed by the time I get my boots tied and she moves behind the wall, away from the door’s view. Opening the one barrier between us, Mom stands before me in a typical mother stance with her arms folded across her chest and her tongue pressed against the inside of her lips.

  Of course I smile because I can’t resist, and what other choice do I have right now? “We were kind of tired. Sorry for oversleeping.”

  “What are you thinking?” she asks, poking her head in to look around the corner.

  “Um,” I press my finger to the bottom of my chin, hoping to appear pensive. “I’m thinking I wanted to spend what could be my last night with my girlfriend.” The term seems like it’s not enough to label our relationship with after what we’ve been through, but it’s what I want her to be.

  “Girlfriend!” she laughs. “You’ve known her for such a short period of time.”

  “If you’ve come here to insult me, you can leave. If you’ve come here to ask me to save your ass, then lose the attitude and accept Reese for what she is to me.”

  Mom takes a step inside, but only up to where I’m standing. She leans forward, bringing her mouth close to my ear. “I hope you are at least using protection. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.”

  “What is protection?” I ask her, loud enough to make this an official scene.

  She presses her palms up against my chest, pushing me out of the way. “The two of you need to be smart about whatever you think you’re doing right now. We don’t have proper medical care and we certainly don’t have the resources to care for an unplanned child. So if you are going to take part in a sexual relationship, be smart about it. I’ll bring you some condoms, son.” While I know she’s trying her hardest to embarrass the shit out of me, it’s not working. However, in truth, I probably should have been more careful last night. And by the look on Reese’s face, she’s thinking the same thing.

  Mom looks between the two of us and shakes her head. “Let’s go.”

  She walks far enough ahead to give us the freedom to at least whisper. “I’m sorry about last night. I wasn’t thinking,” I tell Reese.

  “It’s okay,” she says, looking down toward her feet.

  “Do you think we have anything to worry about?” I wish I didn’t have to ask this. I shouldn’t have to ask this. Why would I not think this through?

  “I haven’t had my, you know,” she pauses and tucks her hair behind her ear, “in more than three years.” I shouldn’t feel relief after hearing this, but I do. “I don’t know much, but I’m guessing that would remove any worry for what you’re thinking.”

  I take her hand and squeeze it against my stomach as we continue following Mom. Two patrols are waiting for us in front of a door at the end of the hallway. Before we reach them, Mom turns around and takes my arm, pulling me into her. “Please be safe.”

  You’re throwing me into the middle of a cannibalistic loony bin, Mom, I think to myself. Why bother with the well wishes? “What’s the plan?” I ask her.

  “Get them to respect you and prepare them. When you think they’re ready, we’ll let nature take its course. You and Reese will have a place here to stay once you’re done and you will be taken care of.” That’s all I wanted to hear.

  “Ready?” I ask, turning to face Reese.

  “Okay,” she responds quietly, clearly not ready for what we’re about to face, especially after trying so hard to get away from these people.

  The patrols hand us bags and the weapons we were promised. “There are enough instant meals to last a month between the two of you. There is iodine for water and enough ammo for you to do what you need to do,” Locke says.

  “A month?” I laugh. “We’ll be back today.”

  We both pull the bags over our shoulders and the
patrol hands me a belt with holsters for the knife and pistol, before helping Reese secure hers.

  The doors through the white control room we first arrived in open up into the dark tunnel that leads up into the broken down house masking Chipley’s one true exit and now entrance.

  “It’s different this time,” I tell Reese.

  “I know,” she agrees.

  14

  Chapter Fourteen

  REESE

  Retracing the steps into the center of Chipley is unsettling but we haven’t crossed anyone’s path just yet so it feels like the calm before the bloodbath.

  The sheds are now in view as we pass by what was once the safe area. There is no part of Chipley that would be considered safe at this point, though.

  “I say we go to door to door, recruiting help. Finding each person individually might give us a better chance of gaining camaraderie,” Sin says, downing the rest of his bottle of water.

  I agree in silence as an ache brews in my gut. The memory of what some of these people did to me when they thought I was weak enough to be taken down is still fresh in my mind. None of them are right in the head and I know from experience that reasoning with the insane is nearly impossible.

  Sin wraps his arm around my shoulders, placing a quick kiss on the top of my head. He seems less nervous than I am, and I wish I knew where he was getting his confidence from because I could desperately use some of that right now. Maybe he’s ignoring the possible outcomes, going into this blind with simple hope. I’m not naive enough to believe there is a high likelihood these people will look up to us, respect us even. It almost seems impossible, as if we’re being used as a decoy. While I would like to think Sin’s mother wouldn’t use him as a disposable distraction, she also left him in Chipley to rot and I don’t trust that woman for as far as I can throw her.

  By the time my thought is complete, Sin’s fist meets the wooden slab of the first shed. He knocks tersely but not in a threatening way. I doubt the people here knock on each other’s shed doors. I doubt the people here are friends with one another. I doubt the people here would trust anyone, especially us.

  The door opens slowly, the creak from what sounds like rusty springs whines loudly against the silence in the air. “Who are you?” A woman answers.

  “My name is Sin. I’m here with Reese, another prisoner of Chipley. We know of a way out and we are seeking your help, as well as the help of others.”

  The woman laughs, a loud, harrowing laugh. “You think you know of a way out and you want my help?” she says, taming her outburst.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Sin responds, still even-toned.

  The door opens a little wider, allowing the light to pour into the shed. It looks similar to the one I lived in, a mattress surrounded by four wooden panels, two buckets in the corner—one for disposal, the other for drinking and washing water, and tiny cracks of light beaming in from random holes in the wooden walls. Of course her shed isn’t locked, she is free to come and go as she pleases.

  The woman takes a step closer to us, the sun illuminating her entire body. Her skin is so pale, it’s nearly translucent as it glows under the sun. Her eyes are swollen, the whites surrounded by a web of red veins as if she has been crying, dirt is caked beneath her nails, and her clothes are torn and covered in filth. She smells the way I assume I must have smelled while living here, in fact, until this morning, and I believe the only reason I can tell the difference between what smells and what is clean is because I am currently clean. She looks as if she might have been an attractive woman at one point in her life, but now she looks like she climbed out of a trash bin. I wonder what she did to earn herself a ticket to hell. Would she have been better off committing no crime and instead turning into a Juliet, or worse?

  “There is a way out?” she asks, a serious inflection saturating her voice.

  “We were just out,” I tell her.

  Her eyes widen as a look of hope washes over her face, the grime on her forehead crackling against the strain of her skin. “What do you need from me?” she asks.

  “We’re all going to need to fight for our survival, but I believe we can win. I believe we can start over outside of this town.”

  If every person in Chipley is as easy to convince as this woman, we may have little to worry about, but I doubt everyone will be as gullible. “Hold on,” she says, closing the door gently. I look at Sin, gauging his thoughts, but before I have a chance to look back at the door, it’s open again. The woman steps out in a robe covering her white t-shirt and blue scrub pants. Cradled within her arms, she has a small wooden plank no longer than the length of my arm, with two nails spiked out from the end. “I’m ready now.”

  “What is your name?” I ask her.

  “Cora,” she responds. “But that doesn’t matter here.”

  “It will matter again soon,” I tell her, making a statement that could very well be no more than a blatant lie.

  We walk up to the next shed as Sin knocks again. He gives the same speech to the man who opens the door. He spends more time staring at Sin with curiosity than asking questions or making decisions, but after a few minutes, he decided to follow us as well.

  Six more people agree, followed by three who refuse. One even tries to attack us just for knocking on their door.

  Now that we have approached each person in this town, we have less than a third of the people in agreement with our makeshift plan. We only have about thirty people, which is still more than we had two hours ago.

  Standing in the center of Chipley where the food typically drops, we’re surrounded by thirty criminals who all want a lucky break—a way out. “I need you all to stay here while I collect the inmates from the solitary confinement cells on the hill. We believe we have a solid plan, but before we explain more, we must tell you what you don’t know. The world as we know it is…well, interesting. Our country has suffered a massive terrorist attack. A toxin has wiped out seventy-percent of the United States’ population. I will explain more when I return with the rest of us.” The volume of the voices around us grows. Concern, questions, and anger filter through the conversations. There is no easy way to explain what we saw without proving it. If someone told me the world ended outside of this town, I wouldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. Now, I wish I could unsee what I’ve seen.

  I’m questioning whether these people will actually stay put while we visit the dark prison up the hill, but for anyone with a hope of escape, I’m guessing they’ll wait here. Sin and I leave quickly, heading up the hill as he loads his weapon. “You think it’s going to be that bad when we let these people out?”

  “They’ve been locked in the dark for who knows how many years, Reese. You know what the darkness does to a person. We can’t take any chances with these people. Every one of them has either murdered or committed an act so violent that they didn’t even deserve to be free in a condemned town where people feed off each other for survival. These are the people who have earned a free to ticket to death row, which means they could potentially make the best combatants for us.”

  We reach the front door of the prison and walk into the darkness. Sin pulls his bag off his shoulders and slips his arm in, retrieving a flashlight. He powers it on, pointing it down the long hallway of cells. There is a stirring of people moving around, grunting, and firing questions at us from every direction. “Listen up,” Sin shouts. “There’s a way out. We need to fight for it and we need your help doing so.” Sin takes a few steps down the hall, placing himself in between the rows of cells. “We want you to fight alongside us; you must, however, follow us and adhere to our direction. You will not act out of haste or disorder, or you will be shot immediately. If you agree with this accordance, hold your hand out of your cell and I will release you.”

  Almost every cell from where we are standing to the end of the hall has a hand poking out. There are only a few that don’t. Sin reaches into his pocket and pulls out a ring of keys. “At least, my mother wanted to ma
ke things a little easier for us,” he says, showing me the keys. Sin leads us up to the first cell. “Hands in your pockets. Keep them there until told otherwise and start a single file line in front of the main exit.”

  “How are we trusting these people?” I ask Sin. I realize my words are loud enough to be heard by the surrounding cells but how do we know one of these prisoners won’t snap and try to kill us like they tried to the last time we were in here?

  “We want to get out, miss. We haven’t seen the daylight in years and if you tell us there is a way out, we will do whatever you tell us to do.” I hear the words, but I don’t trust the mouth it’s coming out of. I don’t trust any person in this place. If they were able to kill for nothing once, they won’t hesitate to do it again after being locked up in confinement for so long.

  It takes Sin less than twenty minutes to unlock each cell that had a hand sticking out. Those cells without volunteer followers all proved to have human remains residing inside. We were too late for them. They died, and God knows when. Based on the stench, it could have been years ago.

  More than thirty men and women are standing before us in the lobby of the opaque prison. “The daylight will hurt more than anything else right now. Keep your eyes closed as I open the door and let them adjust slowly. Also, please remember to keep your hands in your pockets as we enter the center of Chipley.” Sin pauses to clear his throat. He places his hand beneath his nose, likely having the same issue with the smell that I am. “While I realize you want what we all want, the townspeople have been informed of your past. They trust nothing and no one. To make this work, we all need to work together with trust regardless of what anyone’s past dictates.”