Page 48 of Aftermath

Austin jerked his chin in the direction of the stairs. "We cuffed him upstairs—took his keys and guns, too." He blew out a breath. "We're going to lock him into one of these cells—"

"Why don’t we just kill him?" Cam asked bluntly.

"Believe me—the thought crossed my mind. But we need the passwords to get out." Austin sighed and inspected his gunshot wound. "I think I'm in shock, because I can barely feel this. But I need to patch it up so I don’t lose more blood." He smiled wryly at Cam. "Tim was shot in the foot—pissed him off like you wouldn’t believe."

Cam ignored that and said, "We gotta find you a medical kit. And you mentioned guns; we could always fire off a couple rounds at the door. Maybe aim at the hinges or something."

He walked over to the water bucket, gently placing the soaked washcloth around the wrist that hurt the most from the cuffs. The fabric and the water were far from clean; he probably risked infection, but so did touching everything else down here, and he fucking needed the pain relief the chill of the water offered.

"If we get out without the douchebag's help, I wanna kill him."

"I think there's a line." Austin's mouth quirked up a little. "Come on—let's go talk to the others."

Because all the men were in a state of shock, they got a surprising amount done without emotions bringing them to their knees.

Cam gulped and gritted his teeth together. It was in complete silence, as Lance began to talk, that Cam tried to regain his breathing. Only Chase noticed; he side-eyed Cam a little, but he said nothing.

God-fucking-dammit. Cam despised this. But, he had to admit, it was getting better. The more he remembered, the more he got used to the onslaught of emotions. It didn't catch him off guard as easily as it had mere weeks ago.

"And as I understand it—Cam, you had a theory about why the ten of you were chosen," Gale continued patiently. "You talked about that while Victor, Sean, and Lance tried to get the door open."

Cam shrugged and let out a heavy breath. What Gale said wasn’t exactly correct. They had all been on the same page about Psycho's motives. Cam had only connected the last dots, sort of. What had once been a guess became a solid theory with Cam's thoughts.

"I just said that shit about our clothes," Cam muttered. "It seemed plausible or whatever."

Austin tilted his head back, looking like he was dizzy, as Cam cleaned the bullet wound in his bicep. Like Cam had suggested, a couple of the guys had used the guns on the armored doors and managed to get one open. The bullets were all gone, but the door they did shoot open had turned out to be a supply closet. Medical kits, utensils, toilet paper, razors, toothbrushes, toothpaste…a lot of shit was found in there. But most importantly, they'd found a tool box and a crowbar, all of which Victor, Sean, and Lance were using to try to open the door that hopefully led to freedom. With the guns, they'd managed to do some damage, and now all they needed was that final shove.

In the meantime, Tim and Chase were guarding the crazy motherfucker who was now cuffed inside Chris and Pete's old cell. The reason they picked that cell was 'cause there was a pipe in one of the corners—a perfect spot to cuff Psycho to.

That left Cam and Austin seated on the stairs in the basement with a medical kit.

It felt so fucking odd to move around freely, even if they were still somewhat locked in. It was pretty dark, and the fumes from the spilled gasoline made things even worse. Still, it was a small slice of freedom.

"You shouldn’t be alive!" Psycho cried out. "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

"Shut him up!" Cam growled, turning his head toward the cell. His hands on Austin's arm had stilled, but he didn’t move them away. "I don’t care; just, just—bash his fucking head in!"

"My pleasure," they heard Chase mutter. Soon, he was pounding on the kidnapper.

Cam sighed and returned to applying antiseptic cream to Austin's arm. "I was thinking," he said quietly. "What can you tell by looking at the other guys?"

Austin probably figured Cam was doing this to distract him from the pain. "Nothing. Other than they're just as beat-up and filthy as us."

Cam hummed. "Their clothes. They're all in work clothes—except for Sean, who's unemployed. Pete didn’t have a job, either, but…" Pete wasn’t alive, so that didn’t really matter.

"I'm not in work clothes," Austin reminded him, then hissed when Cam placed a sterile pad on his wound. "Damn."

"Sorry. But yeah, you kinda are." Cam gave Austin's shredded sweatpants a pointed look. "Psycho picked you up when you were wearing pants with a logo from a construction company."

"All right." Austin conceded. "So? Where're you going with this?"

Instead of answering right away, Cam peered up the stairs. "Sean!" The incessant noise of three men trying to force open a heavy, steel door silenced for a beat. "What were you doing when that motherfucker took you?"

The silence went on for another moment before an obviously tired Sean replied. "I was coming out of a diner. Why?"

Cam's brow furrowed in concentration. Then he asked the next question. "What did you do before that? What did you do that day?"

"What?" Sean sounded confused. "What's with the Twenty Questions?"

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