Antidote

Chapter 39

Immediately I bite his hand, causing him to yelp in pain and free me. I turn around, swinging a punch at him. My fist connects with something hard, and he gasps and stumbles back. I send a swift hit to his jaw, and he crumples to the floor, unconscious.

I continue on down the hall, gun pointed in front of me, hand clutching the knife, blueprints tucked in my pocket. I probably look like a Secret Agent right now, sneaking along.

I enter a dimly lit room with cars piled bumper-to-bumper. Must be the garage. Skirting it quickly, I hear a ruffle of noise coming from a door along the side, different from the one I came through. Ducking low, I push the door open with the gun's barrel cautiously.
I feel like I'm running through a dark tunnel towards the light at the end. I don't know why Chace didn't get us all flashlights. I'm constantly vulnerable. Or at least, that's how I feel.

Coming upon another door, the one where the light is coming from, I open it cautiously. Bright light invades my vision, and I have to shut my eyes for a second to adjust.

When I open them again, I see an incredibly strange scene in front of me. Ducking down, I hide behind a sofa and watch everything unfold.

I've stumbled upon the kitchen. In there, Tony and another guy are talking. The guy doesn't look familiar, so he must be part of Blake's gang. Tony is talking low, in a confidential tone, and I imagine he's playing undercover agent. The stranger is wearing a grimy Metallica T-shirt, low-slung jeans, and cowboy boots. A lit cigarette is dangling from his mouth, and I grimace in disgust despite myself.

Suddenly, the stranger takes a swing at Tony. Before long, the two of them are scrapping like cats and dogs. The stranger pins Tony to the wall and holds a gun to his head. I spring up from my hiding position, approaching the stranger's backside on tiptoe.

Tony sees my coming and his eyes widen. I put a finger to my lips and he pretends he doesn't see anything. When I get close enough, I hit the man over the head with the butt of my handgun. He crumples to the floor. Tony gets up, snatches his keys, gun, and walkie-talkie, says thank you to me, and darts off. Shaking my head, I follow my blueprints to the cell dungeons.

***

Cautiously, I push open the door with one hand, aiming the gun with the other. A look into the room says it's completely deserted. A single chair stands in the center of the room, and several coils of rope hang from pegs on the wall. A shiver runs through me as I realize that this must be where they keep their prisoners. I would scream if I had to stay in a place like this! There are no windows, either, just cold, hard concrete.

I back out through the doorway. As I do so, I collide full-force into a chest. A chest with mighty fine abs, might I add. I look up into the face of one of my own. "Hey, Alex," Jake says. "Everything okay in there?" "Yeah," I answer slowly. He catches me by the wrist and starts to drag me down the hall. "Where are you taking me?" I ask suspiciously. "To the other cell dungeons. I learned from the guys that that's where they're keeping Tristan. Also, Chace told me that Zoe and Denny were captured, too." "How does he know that?" I ask.

"He saw it. He was with Denny and they were headed upstairs to investigate some noises, and they saw about five men fighting Zoe. I mean, Zoe's our best fighter, but even she couldn't deal with five guys. So Denny rushed in to help her, but Chace stayed back. In the end, Denny and Zoe were captured, just like Chace expected." I nod. "So, how are we going to free them once we find them?" "I don't know," Jake answers. "These kinds of things, you kinda just gotta wing it."

We come upon the first door. Jake enters first, and I follow. Nothing suspicious, the same thing as the other one. We head back out and down to the next door. "Be real careful," Jake advises me. "Since Denny and Zoe were caught, they know we're here and looking for Tristan." "They already knew," I say and tell the story of Tony and the stranger.

Suddenly, as I'm telling the best part of my story, Jake stiffens and halts. Whirling, he presses me against the wall and says, "Hide! Blake's coming. I'm going to go talk to him." Frightened, I do as he says. I hear the low rumble of their voices conversing, then a THUD! that echoes around the chambers, and finally, silence.

Jake must have been captured, I think. Slowly I rise from my hiding spot and continue down the hallway in search of my love. I hear voices coming from inside an empty room, and I cautiously open the door an inch to peek inside. It's Tristan and Blake! I shut the door quickly, but I must've shut it too hard because the conversation stops and heavy footsteps sound their way across the room.

Whirling, I press myself into the wall, hiding in the shadows. Be the wall, Alex. Be the wall.

Needless to say, that plan didn't exactly work.