Page 48 of Wicked Love
My heart sank. It could be even worse than they were implying. We’d done a hell of a lot of illegal things in the past few years, not least of which wasmurder. It’d be a little hard to prove that the few deaths on our hands had been in self-defense now.
How much did our enemies know about our past crimes? Was this just a distraction, or had they found a potential way to destroy us without having to do any of the dirty work themselves?
We all knew that if we let ourselves be caught, it might be game over. Prison time, or at the very least trapped in a holding cell for who knew how long. We couldn’t let that happen, not when the same psychos who’d arranged this were gunning for Madelyn.
Oh, hell, where was Madelyn? Had the assholes sent someone else after her?
There wasn’t time to check. The thump of running footsteps carried from behind us. All we could think about was avoiding capture if we wanted to be around to protect Madelyn after this.
We hustled around the end of the aisle, and I spotted an exit sign farther down the wall up ahead, its glow dimmed.
“There!” I said, pointing, and pushed myself faster. My pulse was thudding so hard I could practically feel it in my feet as they pounded against the carpeted floor.
The sign was over a secluded stairwell with a plaque that said MAINTENANCE ONLY. We ignored that and pushed past the door. As it banged shut in our wake, we rushed down the stairs we found on the other side.
“Any idea where we’re going, Dex?” Slade asked in a tone that wasn’t demanding, only curious.
“Away from the cops. That seemed like the right direction.”
Logan let out a huff of agreement. “We can figure out the rest later.”
The stairwell ended at a basement level with another door. We shoved that open and came out into a dreary gray hallway that looked like it stretched forever into the distance.
“Let’s get more of a head start on them,” Logan said, propelling himself forward. “They’ll probably figure out which way we headed before too long.”
A sickly smell of industrial cleaner hung in the air, and pipes groaned somewhere in the distance. The florescent lights overhead flickered. Slade glanced up at them and grimaced. “Feels like a scene out of a horror movie.”
“There have to be other exits,” I said. “We just have to find one and get out.”
Several other halls branched off from the one we were in. Logan took the first left and then a right at the next branch. The walls and floors looked identical with every turn. Through a couple of doors that stood ajar, I spotted dusty plastic storage bins and cardboard boxes.
“Seems like everything the university doesn’t have a use for anymore is stashed down here,” Logan said.
It definitely didn’t look as if anyone had come by in quite a while, though the smell suggested that the janitorial staff had supplies down here too. The halls themselves appeared clean enough though eerie in atmosphere.
The sameness of the halls made it hard to keep track of our turns. I kept my ears pricked, but I couldn’t make out any sounds of pursuit behind us. That didn’t mean the cops weren’t on their way, though.
“What do you think happened to Madelyn?” I asked.
Logan checked his phone and growled. “No signal down here, so no way to ask her—or let her know what happened tous.I hope we can get out of this fucking maze soon so we can find out.Shehasn’t been involved in anything major. The cops can’t have anything real on her.”
She had been with us at the warehouse where we’d ended up killing the two thugs in self-defense, though. And she’d come with us into more than one building where I’d picked the lock so we could enter. He couldn’t know for sure they didn’t have evidence of that.
A sense of gloom descended over me, making my stomach clench. The seemingly endless halls only added to my growing uneasiness. What if therewasn’tanother exit after all?
Another doubt crept up so insistently that I couldn’t help saying it out loud. “Maybe we shouldn’t have run. If they catch us now, we’ll end up in even more trouble than if we’d talked to them and tried to address whatever they were concerned about. We had no idea what they actually wanted to talk to us about.”
Logan shook his head. “No way. Everyone knows you don’t talk to cops unless you have to. Especially when they look like they’re ready to break out the handcuffs already. They’ll grab at any reason to pin something on you so they can call the case closed.”
“And we have no idea what they have on us—or think they have,” Slade put in. “Given what this Doom’s Seed psycho has pulled off already, I wouldn’t put much of anything past him.” He paused. “Of course, we’re screwed no matter what if we can’t find another way out of here without getting caught.”
What would happen if we ended up confronting the cops down here? Did Logan have that gun he’d gotten from the chop shop on him? Would we end up in some kind of shoot-out—become cop-killers on top of everything else?
I could feel my thoughts spiraling into a panic, but I couldn’t seem to rein them in. A shiver ran down my back as visions of sprawled, bloody bodies flashed through my mind. Like that first one—that night at the abandoned strip mall when I’d—
“Hey.” Slade came around in front of me where I couldn’t avoid looking at him, his voice softening. “I was just kidding around. I know we’ll figure this out. And even if the situation gets worse, we’re in this together, right?”
My breath hitched. I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “We’re only in this because of me.”
