Page 47 of Heresy
"The main stairs are a kill box," I say, my voice steady, analytical. "They'll be waiting at the bottom."
I point to the back wall of the cell, my mind racing, latching onto a sliver of an observation, a half-memory. "That wall," I say, my own voice laced with uncertainty. "It's hollow in one spot. When the prospect brought me food, I heard an echo from behind it. A dripping sound.There might be a maintenance shaft. Pipes. I don't know for sure.It might lead nowhere. But it's a better chance than that."
He stares at me, his chest heaving, his entire body trembling. He is a king being asked to stake the life of his last bishop on the guess of a pawn. The silence stretches, every gunshot from below a tick of a clock counting down to our deaths.
A low snarl rips from his throat, a sound of pure frustration and desperation.
"Fine," he growrows, the word a surrender and a command all at once.
The alliance is forged in the heart of a burning kingdom. He has the strength, but I have the plan. And for the first time, I am not just a liability to be contained; I am his only hope of survival.
He doesn't wasteanother second. He moves to the back wall and slams his boot into the spot I indicated. The drywall groans. He kicks again, harder, and it shatters, revealing not a clean passage, but a dark, narrow space choked with a century's worth of dust, thick cobwebs, and a tangle of ancient, corroded pipes.The air that spills out is foul, thick with the smell of mold and stagnant water.
"Go," he grunts.
I don't hesitate. I squeeze through the jagged opening, scraping my side on a piece of metal lath. The shaft is barely wider than my shoulders. He follows, his massive frame filling the space, his body a wall of heat at my back. We are plunged into a vertical tomb.
The descent is a nightmare. There's no ladder, only a treacherous lattice of pipes, some thick and sturdy, others thin and rusted, all of them slick with a foul-smelling condensation. He goes first, his heavy boots finding precarious purchase, his body a shield. I follow, my smaller frame allowing me to squeeze past conduits he has to break.
Ten feet down, the main vertical pipe we're using ends, opening onto a three-foot gap of sheer, crumbling brick before it continues below. It's too far to jump. We're trapped.
"Now what, photographer?" Hex hisses, his voice a low snarl of frustration in the dark.
My eyes dart around the cramped space, searching. I see it. A thick, parallel water main, rusted but solid, about four feet away. "There," I whisper, pointing. "Swing. You have to swing."
He looks from me to the pipe and back, a flicker of disbelief in his eyes. But there is no other choice. He reaches out, his good arm straining, his fingers locking around the cold, wet metal. For a terrifying second, his boots slip on the corroded pipe he's standing on. My heart stops. But he holds, his muscles straining. With a guttural grunt, he swings his body across the gap, landing with a heavy thud on the pipe below. He immediately reaches back for me.
"Come on," he orders.
I take a breath, close my eyes, and leap, my hand catching his in a bruising, desperate grip as he swings me across the abyss.We are crammed together in the dark, the sounds of battle a muffled, constant thunder, our ragged breaths mingling in the suffocating air. We are no longer captor and captive. We are two animals in a dark hole, and the hunters are closing in.
We reachthe bottom of the shaft, a solid wall of concrete blocking our path. A low vent near the floor offers a view into the back hallway of the first floor. Hex peers through it, his face a grim mask in the swirling smoke.
"It's bad," he says, his voice a low growl. He places his good hand on the wall. "Stay behind me."
He draws back and slams his boot into the drywall just beside the main support beam. The wall groans, then shatters inward. He kicks a second time, creating a jagged hole big enough for us to crawl through. We emerge from the darkness of the shaft and into hell.
We are behind enemy lines. The hallway is littered with shell casings and the bodies of two Sin Santos bikers. At the far end, where the hall opens into the main room, a few of his remaining loyal brothers are using an overturned pool table as a barricade, laying down suppressing fire. It's a desperate, last-ditch firefight.
The door to the infirmary is open, and the scene inside is a nightmare. Rook is on the floor, propped against the wall. His shirt is a shredded, bloody mess, and Zero is on his knees beside him, his hands pressed hard against a gushing wound in Rook's chest, his face a mask of frantic, desperate concentration. Doc is there too, trying to get an IV started, his movements swift but his expression grim.
But my eyes are drawn to the firefight. To a single, horrifying detail.
Grizz. The man with the red beard. The traitor.
He's at the edge of the barricade, firing his rifle, but his aim is off. He's not firing at the attackers flooding in from the front; he's firing toward his own brothers on the other side of the barricade, deliberately creating an opening, a kill zone for the enemy to exploit.
I see the betrayal. But Hex sees it faster.
Hex's movements become chillingly calm, the eye of the hurricane. He doesn't shout a warning. He doesn't scream an accusation. He moves with a silent, lethal purpose, walking up directly behind Grizz as the big man reloads his weapon.
Grizz must sense him, because he starts to turn, a look of confusion on his face. "Prez, we're getting?—"
He never finishes the sentence.
Hex raises his pistol, presses the muzzle directly against the back of Grizz's head, and pulls the trigger.
The shot is a single, definitive CRACK, shockingly intimate amidst the broader chaos of the firefight. Grizz's body goes rigid for a second before he collapses behind the barricade like a puppet with its strings cut. The justice is swift, brutal, and completely unhinged.
