Page 77 of Furever Loyal
Nothing happened.
Angrily, she flipped the last two light switches in desperation. Although she’d been prepared for nothing to happen, a bulb flickered. It wasn’t above her, but near what she assumed was the back of the room. It was an older fluorescent tube, likely long exhausted of its gas, but there was a bit left. Just enough for it to flicker.
The strobe-like effect didn’t exactly illuminate the entire room, but it gave her enough to start forming a picture of the place. She was in some sort of office. It was large and only had the one door. Across the back were what she thought at first were mirrors, but after making her way to them, she realized they were windows—overlooking a factory floor.
Haley grinned. She was making progress. Now if she could just figure out a way to get down there, she could maybe find a way out. A way to freedom. To Kincaid. There was only the one door. It was locked, and she wasn’t strong enough to break the solid metal obstruction down.
“I did not get this far just to lose now,” she pronounced, looking around the room with a fierce stare, looking for anything. She could probably break the windows, but where would that leave her? There was nothing she could use to climb down. Jumping and breaking her legs wouldn’t exactly improve her predicament. No, there had to be another solution first.
A slow survey around the room, waiting for the flickering light to illuminate it for her as she moved, produced only one option. There was a large air ventilation inlet against the one wall. It was tight, but if she could just get to the other side of the door, maybe she could get out of there.
Haley spent a few minutes fiddling with the screws, trying to undo them with her fingers, and having no luck.
“Why are you trying to do it that way?” she growled to herself, sitting back and kicking the shaft with her foot. She’d not had any time to grab shoes before being abducted, but she did have thick, warm socks on, and those provided a bit of cushioning. It hurt like hell, but the grille gave way on a corner.
Grabbing it, she grunted and yanked, finally tearing the metal free at last. It was going to be dark and scary in there, and she would be going entirely by feel, but there was simply no other option. It was either that or jump at least thirty feet to the ground below.
“I’ll take the dark claustrophobic tunnel please and thank you.” Decision made, she crawled headfirst into the air shaft, sliding forward slowly.
Bits and pieces of ragged metal scraped at her stomach, her back, her sides, and especially her hands and feet as she slowly moved herself along, but she fit, and that was the important thing. The shaft came to a t-junction, going left, right, and also down. It was a tight squeeze to maneuver herself around the corner without plunging who knew how far down, but she made it.
Twenty minutes later she sliced her palms open bashing in a grate that led into another room. It was dark again.
“This is getting really tiresome,” she complained, forced into feeling her way around the room again. She found light switches, like before. This time though, one of them worked.
“Yaargghhh!” she yelled as bright light flooded the room, blinding her. “Shit, that’s bright.”
It took her at least a full minute to adjust before it stopped hurting. When she finally could open her eyes, she realized that it wasn’t even that bright, it was just light. Actual light.
She was in a hallway. Stairs to her left went down, and she took them without hesitation, emerging onto the factory floor. Some of the light from above filtered down the stairs, but also through several windows in the hallway above where it ran past the office she’d been trapped in. It wasn’t much, but enough to guide her to the exit. She could see the beautiful sign above it, unlit, but reflecting enough of the light to be visible.
To Haley, it was the equivalent of a fifty-foot high flashing sign that saidExit Here. She’d never seen anything so wonderful before in her life. Stumbling forward, she tried not to feel too excited. She wasn’t home free, not yet. Still, she was proud of herself. Proud of what she’d accomplished, of getting herself free without anyone’s help.
It was so unlike her, so unlike anything she’d ever done in her life. Haley was terrified, but truthfully, she also felt like a bit of a badass, like one of the heroes from the movies she’d been thinking about earlier. Captured and at the mercy of her enemies, she was now free, ready to link up with her allies—Kincaid—and stop them from doing anything like this ever again.
“I think in the future, I’ll let Kincaid handle that part, but damn—I’m good,” she said, mentally patting herself on the back as she reached for the bar to push the door open.
“I’ll check it out.”
Haley froze as the door opened before she could get there, letting a voice—and a damn cool blast of air—inside.
“It’s probably just a short of some kind. The whole place is screwy, it’s so old. I—Hey!”
The huge figure, visible only as a hulking shadow outlined by the not-quite-pitch black background, jerked in surprise as it saw her standing there.
“She’s free!” he shouted and lunged for her.
Haley threw herself to the side, trying not to panic as she darted through the barely-lit factory, moving around, under, and in one case evenoverthe machinery, hoping there was nothing that would slice her open and kill her accidentally.
“Come back here, you bitch,” the man snarled, closing on her with every passing second.
“Absolutely not,” she shot back, finding a loose piece of metal on some conveyor belt or another and hurling it backward in the general direction of the sounds.
It clanged into something, and she heard a stream of curse words. She’d hit him!
More doors opened and other men came inside. A half dozen, maybe, there could be a few more or a few less, she wasn’t sure. Either way, they all immediately began closing on her position. Overhead lights started to come on, slowly illuminating the space as they warmed up. Most were burnt out, but a few still worked. Before long, she’d have nowhere to hide.
“Stop running!”
