“Probably the least of our concerns right now.”
“Right,” Pete huffed.
Marie shut off the light and they started moving again, making their way underneath the prison at a painstaking pace. Pete’s knees ached, as did his head, but still he crawled. If Marie could suck it up, so could he.
Just when he’d convinced himself that he’d died and gone to hell and was fated to crawl around in the dark for the rest of eternity, Marie turned the flashlight on, ran it along the low ceiling, and said, “There.”
“Let me go first.”
“Because you’re the man?” she asked sarcastically.
“Because you’re the brains of this operation. If I get shot in the head, you still have a chance. If you get shot, I’m done for.”
“Since you say it so nicely.”
Pete took the keys from her and fitted the one she indicated into the lock. It turned with a grinding squeal.
Cross your fingers one of the bad guys isn’t standing on the other side.
Nobody yelled or fired down at them, so Pete lifted the trapdoor slowly, giving himself an inch of room to scope out their location. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see a God damned thing.
He lowered the door. “It’s dark out there. I think the generators finally ran out of gas.”
“The flashlight still has juice.” She passed it to him.
Pete raised the door again, this time several inches so he could take a better look. Wincing in anticipation of trouble, he turned the flashlight on and took a look. Since he didn’t see anyone, he held the light with his teeth and flipped the trapdoor all the way open, taking care to set it down quietly on the other side. He boosted himself through, then reached down to pull Marie up.
“Hey! Someone’s over there.”
Pete didn’t recognize the voice. He grabbed Marie’s hand and darted across the hall to a door, which wasn’t locked. He pulled Marie inside, closed the door, and shut off the flashlight.
“They didn’t see us,” he whispered. “They only saw the light. If we’re lucky, they’ll just move on.”
But they weren’t lucky. Within minutes, it became clear that whoever had seen the light was searching for them, checking doors and not trying to be quiet about it either.
Pete passed Marie the flashlight, then stood in front of her, fumbling around for the mop handle he’d glimpsed as they entered. He didn’t want to fire the gun unless it was absolutely necessary because of the amount of noise it would make. He finally found the handle and worked his hand down the length until it was butted up against the mop head.
The door flung open, and Marie twitched behind him but didn’t scream. Pete thrust the mop handle in the direction of the door as hard as he could, aiming where a man’s midsection would be. He made solid contact, the handle jolting in his hand, and whoever had been looking for them grunted in pain.
Marie switched the light on, and Pete kicked the man in the head.
Marie quickly directed the beam of light toward the far end of the hallway, over the body of the man they’d just disabled. “We need to get to that stairwell.”
They ran. Pete kept waiting for a gun to fire, and to feel the burning pain of a bullet entering his body, but it never came. The door to the stairwell was locked, and with each key Pete tried, his heart rate ratcheted up a notch. He finally found the right one and unlocked the door.
Someone called for Joe, but Pete and Marie entered the stairwell and closed the door quietly behind him.
“He’s over here!” another man shouted.
Without prompting, Marie sprinted up the stairs, keeping the flashlight aimed so they could see, but not shining it all over the place. Soon, both were gasping for breath.
“Jesus,” she said. “I should have quit smoking sooner.”
Pete, who’d never smoked, wasn’t doing much better. The last few interminable days had taken a toll on his body. They slowed to a steady pace and continued upward until they reached the fourth floor.
Here, the sound of someone hammering at a door was impossible to miss.
“Sounds like they’re trying to break into medical,” Marie said. “Looking for drugs, is my guess.”
Pete almost commented on the fact that she was no longer pressing him to negotiate. Maybe she’d seen enough during Clyde’s little production and the aftermath to change her tune.
“We’ll pass by Andersen’s office first. Maybe we should go in there, wait until they give up.”
“What makes you think they’ll give up and not just batter the door down?”
“He bragged to me on the day I had my one and only interview that the doors were solid wood with metal cores. He got some fantastic discount because they’d been the wrong size for whoever ordered them. Once we’re in there, I don’t think they’ll be able to come after us.”
Pete could only shake his head. It was hard to believe that only days ago, he and his men had been flown into Anchorage to clean up after the earthquake. Now, it looked like he may never leave Mueller, let alone Alaska.
“Okay,” he said, shaking off his gloomy thoughts. “Light off and we’ll move fast as we can to the office.”
Pete fanned out the keys, trying to guess which one would open the office door. One stood out from the others—bigger and fancier, like it belonged to some ancient dungeon—and he met Marie’s eyes in wonder. “Do you think?”
“I do.”
She clicked off the flashlight and Pete eased the stairwell door open. At least they wouldn’t have to try to be quiet—Andersen’s plush carpet would quiet their footfalls.
Ahead of them, he could see four men working on the door into medical. They had two lanterns that looked like the ones Andersen’s men had brought to the control room.
He hoped they weren’t the same ones.
Confident that all four of the men were focused on the task at hand, Pete and Marie jogged ahead, sticking to the shadows. When they were across from the door into Andersen’s office, one of the convicts shouted, “Over there!”
All four of the men turned and raced toward them.
“Fuck.”
Chapter 20
Without being told, Marie shone the flashlight at the keyhole and Pete drove the key home. It slid in smoothly and turned. A gun went off, but the shot didn’t hit anywhere near Pete and Marie.
A little luck, for once.
One of the convicts yelled at the other, “Jesus, Ted. Open your eyes when you shoot!”
Pete and Marie leaped through the door, slammed it closed and locked it, then stood leaning their backs against it, waiting to see whether it would give or not.
Right away, the men on the other side began pounding on the door. The sound came through, but not even a slight vibration passed through the sturdy door.
“Let us in!”
“We just want the keys!”
“We won’t hurt you!”
“And if you believe that,” Marie said to Pete, “I’ve got a piece of land in the Florida swamps just for you.”
Pete turned away from the door and went to the window. It had finally stopped snowing outside.
“It looks so beautiful,” Marie said.
And she was right. A nearly full moon shone down on more snow than Pete had ever seen. The avalanche had piled pristine white mounds of it against the walls of Mueller Max that, in some places, reached higher than the third floor of the prison. Crystalline flakes glinted in the moonlight.
Pete turned to Marie. “So where’s this closet you told me about?”
Marie turned the flashlight off, the moonlight lighting the room enough for them to see, and led Pete over to the wall on the left-hand side of the desk. She pushed on it and it eased open.
“What an asshole.” Pete opened the door all the way.
If only this was the entrance to some secret, fully equipped cave. There’d be a plane all fueled up waiting to fly us out of here.
Instead, there were several coats, a drawer full of knit ha
ts and scarves and gloves, and a couple pairs of heavy-duty winter boots. Shoved in the back corner, Pete found an old knapsack.
He took the heaviest-looking coat and gave it to Marie.
“My stuff is in medical,” she said.
“We’re never going to get there. Not without risking our necks.”
“Damn it,” she said, smiling. “I really love that coat.”
The men outside the door must have found something to use as a battering ram, because suddenly a loud bang sounded. They were running out of time. That might be a reinforced door, but it still had a doorknob on it, and that doorknob could be broken.
Pete and Marie dressed quickly, and Pete shoved the excess clothing into the knapsack. Marie stuffed two of the thinner scarves into a pair of boots to make them fit her feet.
Boom.
The door was going to give way pretty soon.
Pete pulled out the Glock and told Marie to stay behind him.
He fired once, and the window glass exploded outward. The men on the other side of the door shouted in alarm. Pete imagined them diving for cover.
With his elbow he cleared jagged glass from the frame, then offered his hand to Marie. There was a drop, but there was also a lot of snow.
There was no going back now, only forward.
He took one last look at the view before he lowered Marie over the lip. There wasn’t a single dirty tire track, or boot print, or any other sign of man marring the clean canvas ahead of them.
Just the pristine white of the Alaskan wilderness. And his promise to himself that he wasn’t going to let them die out there.
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ALSO BY K. M. FAWKES
ESCAPE THE DARK
Dark Tides
Fearful World
Into the Ruins
Caught in the Crossfire
Do or Die
ENTER DARKNESS
The Longest Night
Dead of Winter
The Survivors
Thin Ice
First Light
AT ANY COST
Survive The Dark
Fight For Everything
Bleak Horizons
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
The Fall
Shallow Graves
Final Ride
Stone Cold Fear | Book 1 | Powerless Page 16