Adrenaline

⌊Chapter 7⌉

Rich, Atlantis, and Jayla made their way down the subway tracks, quietly and carefully. Rich led the way, staying up close to the wall and listening for anything in the distance of the corridor. Joe didn't seem to be trying too hard to hide from Rich and the criminal underworld, but so far it hadn't seemed like anyone found him yet. Or maybe they didn't want to try. The criminal underworld hated Joe, kicked him out a little over a decade ago, so Rich was surprised that Joe wasn't dead. He thought Matt would have killed him by now, especially for stealing the 48. The 48 in question was likely one of the last of its kind, as they were banned a long time ago because they were far too overpowered to use. How Matt got his hands on one, Rich didn't know, but he would rather Matt have it than Joe. Still, Matt wouldn't get it, but he was more trustworthy than Joe in his own, weird way.

The criminal underworld had always been spoken of bitterly by Andy. Rich had no desire to get involved with it, but he did sometimes wonder what they might have done to Andy to make him hate them so much. Then again, Andy was also just a very protective man - and if Rich got caught up in the criminal underworld, he would drown pretty quickly. Being around so many people who would be akin to Rich in some way would give him that strange feeling of acceptance he didn't feel otherwise. He kept telling himself that it wasn't the way to go. The criminal underworld was full of awful people. Rich was a criminal of sorts, but he wasn't as bad as a lot of others. Rich hadn't even killed anybody before, while 95% of the criminal underworld had. That was a statistic that didn't settle too well with him.

Joe didn't used to be the Joe people knew now. Rich didn't know much about his life before he turned down the 'creep' path, but he had heard bits and pieces about him that he wouldn't have guessed. He used to be quite charming, but he didn't age very well. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for the people who may have gotten attracted to someone who was more than likely certifiable. He used to work with Matt, but then he got a little too evil in his ways that even Matt wanted nothing to do with him and shut him out of the underworld. Joe had been in hiding since then, being his odd, chilling self.

Rich didn't want to have to deal with Joe tonight, but the 48 was just too dangerous to be in his hands. The corridor kept crawling forward, but there was eventually a door visible on the other side of the tracks. There was a small window by the door where the control panel would be under. There was no light coming from the room, but that didn't mean no one was there. Rich tilted his head to gesture to the girls to follow him across the track. Their dark silhouettes ran quietly across before making it to the door, which was locked. Rich was about to just break the knob and locking mechanism, but Atlantis took the reins, pulling a bobby pin from her hair.

Atlantis inserted the pin into the locking mechanism, twisting and turning it around inside before it clicked and she opened the door. It creaked moderately, but it likely wasn't able to alert anyone underground further. The trio entered the rather small room, Rich shutting the door behind him. He watched out the window as the corridor flooded with lights, a subway speeding by only moments after.

"Dodged a bullet there. I thought you said a train wouldn't come through," Atlantis said.

"I said a train probably wouldn't come through. I never put too much certainty into the things I say, Comera. Makes me seem less like a nitwit," Rich answered, moving to the corner of the cramped room and kicking some dust away with his boot. He moved aside anything on the ground to reveal a cutout in the cement in the shape of a square. Well, a cutout filled with a block of plaster that would need to be lifted to reveal whatever was underneath. Rich cracked his knuckles and crouched down to the ground, digging his fingers into the crevice of the cement, and making his way to feel the bottom of it. He would have been able to just barely lift it up on his own, but Atlantis and Jayla quickly joined the effort and they moved the block away from its holding place in the ground, leaning it against the wall.