The Shift: Book II of the Wildfire Saga (11 page)

"All right, all right, settle down.”
 
Cooper could see through his green-tinted visor the sincerity written on the good doctor's face.
 
The man was not going anywhere without first visiting his lab.
   
Cooper sighed.
 
“We'll take you to your lab."
 

C
HAPTER
6

C
HAD
WOKE
WITH
A
start when he heard something against the door to his cell.
 
He opened his eyes and glanced around the dim room.
 
Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.
 
There was nothing in the room besides the cot he occupied and the 5 gallon bucket he used as a toilet.

Muffled shouts in the corridor preceded a faint vibrating rumble that made its presence felt through the legs of his cot.
 
Chad sat up.
 
It sounded like an explosion.
 
That was new.
 

He flexed his arms and grimaced.
 
Once again, the guards had loosely strapped a cable-tie around his wrists.
 
He bent his elbows and winced at the familiar ache that told him he had already survived the day’s bloodletting.
 
The question was, what day was it?
 
In planning for his escape, he lost track of time–all the more reason he needed to make his move as soon as possible.
 

Confused shouts out in the corridor suggested his guards were distracted.
 
Hope flared in his chest.
 
It was time to act.

Idly wondering if he would have any veins left in his arms, he swung his legs over the side of the cot.
 
He braced himself on the floor, preparing to break his bonds.
 
Chad rolled his neck, loosened his shoulders and took a few deep breaths.
 
This was it.
 
The moment of truth.

He stretched his arms straight out in front of him, twisted his wrists parallel to the floor, and gripped his hands into fists.
 
He felt the plastic cable-tie start to tighten.
 
In one quick movement, he jerked his hands toward his chest and pulled his elbows back beyond his body as far as he could.
 
The expected snap of the plastic cable-tie holding his wrists together did not happen.
 
Instead, Chad cried out in pain as the restraint bit into the skin around his wrists.
 
It hadn’t worked.

Chad cursed as he adjusted the fit of the cable-tie around his wrists and stretched his arms out again.
 
After the pins-and-needles sensation stopped, he took a few more deep breaths and whipped his arms back toward his chest as fast as he could.
 

This time he
did
hear a snap.
 
The pressure on his wrists was finally gone.
 
He sighed, closed his eyes, and rubbed the soreness from his wrists.
 
He was able to freely maneuver his arms for the first time in what he guessed was a week.
 
He rubbed the aching muscles of his shoulders and stretched.

The voices outside grew more insistent.
 
He wasn't sure, but he thought he heard the distant popping of gunfire.
 
Chad shuffled over to the outer wall of his cell, opposite the door.
 
He placed his ear against the cool utilitarian surface.
 
There
.
 
Another muffled
pop-pop-pop.
 
It
is
gunfire…
 

He shook his head.
 
His hands were free.
 
Great—now what?
 
The truth of the matter was, he was still trapped inside his little prison cell, in the dark and he was weak from blood loss.

He heard some shuffling and what sounded like someone struggling outside the door.
 
In a panic, he crossed the room and hopped back into his bed, placing his arms close together as if he were still restrained.
 
He rolled on his side and faced away from the door.
 
If he was lucky, whoever opened the door would think he was asleep.
 
He hadn't had time to figure out what
 
he would do next.

The door crashed open and he heard the familiar bickering between Boris and Yuri.
 
But there was a new, muffled voice that sounded a little too high—

Something heavy crashed into his cot and he heard a distinctly female grunt.
 
Yuri laughed again.
 
Boris mumbled something in Russian and the door slammed shut.
 

Chad counted to ten before opening his eyes.
 
He strained to listen, pretending to sleep.
 
Just on the edge of his hearing, he detected the sounds of someone breathing through their nose, as if they were trying to force air through cloth.
 
It didn't make any sense.
 
Slowly, wincing at the sound of creaking cot springs, Chad rolled onto his other side.

Silhouetted against the dim light from underneath the door, he could see the outline of a body on the floor.
 
As his eyes adjusted once more to the darkness, Chad could see that this person was bound not only at their hands but at their feet.

Great, he thought.
 
A cellmate.

Chad swung his feet over the side of the cot again, careful to not step on his guest, and knelt next to the body.
 
He reached out a hand and gently touched what he hoped was a shoulder.
 
Wait a minute… Either that's the softest shoulder I've ever felt or—

A grunt of surprise caused him to snatch his hand back.
 
Chad sat back on his heels and practically toppled over on his ass.
 
The woman in front of him struggled and lashed out with bound legs and arms like some kind of giant, drunken worm.
 

Chad held both his hands up.
 
"It's okay, I'm a prisoner, too!
 
I'm not going to hurt you.
 
I'm sorry, ma’am–I didn't mean to touch you there—I thought that was your shoulder.”
 

At the sound of his voice, the woman in front of him relaxed and lay still.
 
He could still hear that muffled breathing and realized she was gagged.
 
"Okay, ma'am, you got something tied around your face, right?
 
Want me to take that for you?”

There was a brief pause, then Chad heard a muffled boom from outside.

"Shit…something is
definitely
going down out there.
 
Okay–just hold still."
 
Chad got back on his knees and crept closer to the woman.
 
"I'm going to apologize right now–I can't really see what I'm doing, so I hope this is your head...”

The woman grunted.
 
Chad could see movement and a white streak in the darkness as she tried to move her head.
 
His hands found a handful of soft, silky hair.
 
Long hair.
 
He moved his fingers from the back of her head and found her face.
 
He felt a slender nose, high cheekbones, and there it was—the roll of cloth roughly tied around her mouth, wedging her lips apart.
 

One hand on her mouth, he slipped his other hand behind her head and found the crude knot.
 
After a couple seconds of testing the knot, he was able to untie it and the strip of cloth fell away from her face.
 

She began speaking rapidly in a language that Chad couldn’t understand.
 
Who the hell was this woman?
 
She certainly wasn't speaking Russian—definitely not Spanish or French, either.
 
It almost sounded German, but softer.
 
When she stopped, it was obvious to Chad she was frustrated at their inability to communicate.

He sat back on his heels and sighed.
 
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I have no idea what you're saying.
 
Now, if you're saying ‘thank you’, then you can consider yourself welcome."
 
He cleared his throat.
 
“Would you like me to try and remove the rope they tied around your wrists?"

The woman didn't answer, but Chad heard her move and felt her bound hands bump into his forearm.
 
That was good enough for him.

He traced his hands down her upper arms past the elbows and smooth-skinned forearms until he found the ropes that had been tied around her wrists.
 
He noticed immediately that they were significantly tighter than the expedient cable-ties that the Russians had used on his own wrists.
 
A frown creased his face as he noted how tight they had bound her arms together.
 
There was almost no way for her to move her arms apart.
 
It had to be painful.
 
He found an impressive knot on the underside of the cords that traced from her wrist halfway up her forearm.

"Well, here's the knot…and it's a doozy."
 
Chad scratched his head and was about to begin worrying at the mass of coiled rope around her wrists when the woman started talking again.
 
She shifted her arms just enough for her hands to grasp his and said something again.
 
When she got no immediate reaction from Chad she squeezed his hand gently.

"Your voice sure does sound pretty, but I'll be damned if I know what you're saying.
 
I'm gonna guess that you want me to keep trying, though…" Chad looked around, an instinctive movement that almost caused him to laugh.
 
There was no light in the room, so even if there had been anything in the room for him to see, the gesture would not have done any good.
 

He tried to take stock of his possessions in an attempt to find anything that might be useful to free the mystery woman.
 
He wore jeans, a short sleeve shirt, boxers, socks, and hiking boots.
 
The Russians and taken everything else from him, including his belt and his watch.
 
He didn't even have so much as a pocket knife.
 
In the room, there was the metal-framed cot, the musty mattress, one sweat-stained sheet, and one crusty blanket.
 
The other side of the room held the shit pot.
 
That certainly wasn't going to help.

"Stay here for a second," Chad whispered.
 
He grimaced.
 
Stupid—as if you're going anywhere hog-tied like that.

He gently released the woman’s hands and stood up to make his way to the door.
 
He crouched down and felt along the edge of the bottom of the door looking for sharp corners or anything that might be useful in cutting the rope.
 
When he realized that even if there was something sharp down there, there’d be no way for him to get her arms close enough to do any good, he sat against the door and sighed.
 
There just wasn't anything in the damn room that he could use.
 
He supposed he could make a rope out of the sheet and blanket, but that wouldn’t cut anything.
 
The metal frame of the cot wasn’t good for anything—

"The frame," he muttered to himself.
 
Chad got up and shuffled back to where the woman lay on the floor.
 
He could see the movement of her head as she watched him in silence.
 
He wondered what she looked like in the light.
 

Feeling along the edge of the cot, he was disappointed to see that everything was smooth.
 
It was like one long piece of metal had been twisted and folded into shape.
 
There were no sharp edges anywhere that he could feel.
   
"Come on… There’s gotta be
something
…" He traced his fingers along the cool edge of the metal frame, found the foam-filled mattress—that wouldn't be of any use—and then traced his fingers down the legs.

The legs!
 
He tossed the mattress and sheets to one side and then rolled the frame over.
 
It was light—lighter than he’d expected.
 
Must be aluminum.
 
He ran his hand over the bottom of each leg.
 
At last!
 
Something sharp.
 
The tubular legs had been cut at the factory without much sanding.

But the bottom leg edges were circular–he didn’t know how well that was going to work.
 
Chad braced the frame against the wall, so that the legs pointed toward the door.
 
He stood next to one of the legs and stomped as hard as he could at the base of the leg.
 
He felt satisfying movement under his heel as his boot connected with the metal leg frame.
 
Chad smiled as he bent to touch the flattened leg.
 
Instead of a circular tube, it had collapsed into two thin layers of sharp-edged aluminum.