Page 31 of Heresy
The sound is a gunshot in the silence.
I freeze, my blood turning to ice. I press my ear back to the door, my heart hammering against my ribs, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps, for the shout of a guard. Every distant laugh from the clubhouse below sounds like a direct response to my failure. An eternity passes.
But there is nothing. Only the same distant rumble. No one heard.
I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding, my body trembling with a mixture of relief and adrenaline. I retrieve the pathetic tool from the floor. This time, my grip is iron. I slide the wire back into the crack.Patience, little princess.I find the edge of the bolt again. I apply a slow, steady pressure, pushing it back, millimeter by agonizing millimeter. For a moment, it sticks. My heart plummets. Then, with a final, silent groan of metal, the bolt gives way, sliding fully back into its housing.
The door is unbolted.
For a second, I just kneel there, my body trembling with disbelief and pure terror. I’ve done it. Now comes the impossible part.
I rise slowly and press my hand against the door. It opens with a low, mournful creak. I slip through the gap and pull it silently shut behind me. I’m in the hallway. The air is cold, casting long, monstrous shadows. I can hear the life of the clubhouse below—a shout of laughter, the clack of pool balls. I move, my bare feet silent on the worn floorboards, my back pressed against the wall. I reach the top of the stairs and peer cautiously over the railing, scanning the room below, searching for a path to the garage. A path to a life that is my own.
I reachthe top of the stairs. I peer cautiously over the railing, my heart a frantic bird in my chest.
The main room below is quieting down for the night, the earlier chaotic energy now faded. Two brothers are finishing a lazy game of pool under the single hanging light, theirmovements slow, their voices a low murmur. Another member is passed out in a chair by the unlit fireplace. The bar is unmanned.
My eyes dart to the massive roll-up door of the garage on the far side of the room. It’s closed, but it’s a door to the outside. To freedom. The men at the table are distracted, their backs to me. My path is almost clear. A surge of desperate, dizzying hope floods through me.I can do this.
I begin my descent, my bare feet making no sound on the stairs, moving like a wraith. I reach the bottom and pause in the shadows, scanning the room one last time. Empty. Clear.
I step out from the cover of the staircase, into the open. I am a mouse scurrying across a killing floor. The garage door seems a mile away. I am halfway there.
"Going somewhere?"
The voice is low, laced with a lazy, cruel amusement. It comes from my right, from a corner steeped in shadow. I freeze, my blood turning to ice. I turn my head slowly.
In a deep, worn leather armchair that I couldn't see from the stairs, sits Fuse. His right hand—the one that touched my shoulder—is encased in a thick, white cast that rests on his lap like a chunk of plaster. He has a handgun disassembled on the table next to him, and he’s slowly, methodically cleaning the barrel with his good hand. He hasn't even looked up at me yet. He was waiting. He knew I was there the whole time.
The fragile hope inside me doesn't just flicker. It shatters. There is no escape. My gamble has failed.
He finally lifts his head, a grim, impressed smile on his face. He raises his voice, not in a shout, but in a casual call that is somehow more final.
"Prez! I think your property tried to take a walk."
A dark door on the first-floor landing clicks open. He steps out from the shadows within, his face a mask of cold, unreadable fury. He doesn't look at Fuse. He doesn't look at anythingelse. His eyes, burning with a glacial, terrifying fire, are locked directly on me.
FOURTEEN
THE ROT IN THE CROWN
HEX
From my office on the first-floor landing, I watch the main room through the one-way glass. It’s a king’s perch, a throne of shadows. I should be reviewing Glitch’s latest intelligence on Cain, mapping out the logistics for the snatch team. My mind should be a cold, clear battlefield of strategy.
But it’s not. It’s a cage, and I’m just staring at the bars, waiting.
I know she’s going to try something. The defiance I saw in her eyes is the kind that festers, that sharpens itself in the dark. For the last two days, a tense, electric anticipation has settled in my gut. I’m a hunter who has set a complex trap and is now waiting, with a patience that borders on obsession, to see if the prey is clever enough to test the walls.
Down below, Fuse sits in the deep leather armchair in the corner, a silent, waiting trigger. My orders to him were simple: "Sit. Don't move. Don't speak unless she makes it to the floor."
On my monitor, I watch the feed from the hallway camera. I see the door to her cell creak open. I watch the ghost slip out. I watch her creep down the hall, silent and graceful. I watch her peer over the staircase. My hand clenches. She is more magnificent than I imagined.
She descends the stairs, a wraith in the darkness. She makes it to the floor. Halfway across the room, her hope is a palpable thing.
And then Fuse speaks. His voice, casual and chilling, drifts up to my perch. "Prez! I think your property tried to take a walk."
That is my cue. I push my chair back and open the door, stepping out from the shadows of my office onto the landing. I don't look at Fuse. My eyes, burning with a cold, terrible fire, are locked directly on her. She freezes, her body a statue of shattered hope, her eyes wide with the soul-crushing horror of her failure.
