The Countdown (The Taking #3)(25)

The glow from my eyes intensified, and I heard . . . no, felt the buckles at my wrists vibrate. I glanced down at my right hand and realized the buckle was loose, not fastened at all. The tiny silver pin had never been secured into the leather strap. It only took a little jiggling for me to liberate my one hand.

And then use that one to release the other.

Without waiting for an alarm, or for someone to cry for help, I groped for the restraint at my neck. It was another buckle, easily undone. My feet were just as simple.

Like that, I was free.

The fog in my brain cleared in an instant as I yanked off every wire and probe and electrode attached to me.

The game had just changed.

Despite the darkness, I could see with perfect clarity and I made my way to the doorway. The sign outside the door read room #14—giving me that same strange sense of déjà vu.

Fourteen.

The hallway beyond my room was long and wide with crumbling brick slabs and broken-out windows high overhead. There were mounds of discarded furnishings, broken chairs and splintered tables.

There was no one around. Not a single person in sight—not Blondie or Natty or Ed. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn the entire building was deserted.

Spasms continued to rack me, and my legs were all rubbery like I’d just finished sprinting several miles. I had a hard time staying upright, but I didn’t have time to be unsteady, so I heaved myself toward one of the walls, using it to support myself.

I still wore the flimsy blue-green hospital gown, which only added to the surreal sensation I had that I was some sort of escaped mental patient. This whole situation was just that, insane. Being kidnapped from the diner, held hostage in this crumbling building . . . being shackled and tortured.

Finding Natty . . . here.

It was more than crazy.

My feet were bare, so I walked as carefully as I could, but it was impossible not to step on shards of broken glass and jagged chunks of cracked concrete and brick. There were even split tiles with edges sharper than any knife. It was like navigating a razor blade obstacle course.

After just a few steps I had deep gashes in the soles of my feet and ankles that made me wince. It didn’t matter that they healed almost as fast as they occurred. That didn’t stop them from hurting like a mother.

I refused to give up, though. I couldn’t afford to coddle myself, no matter how incredibly-horribly-brutally painful it was.

This might be my one and only chance to escape.

My pulse thrashed, propelling me forward, and I was hyperalert as I searched for signs that someone had noticed I’d awakened and was trying to get away.

So far though, it was still just me.

If someone came around the corner or anywhere in my line of sight, they’d surely see me—the glow from my eyes would be a dead giveaway.

All I could do was run . . . across the carpet of glass and broken tiles beneath my exposed feet.

I passed several open doorways, each one another glimpse into the asylum’s past. There was so much old junk—trashed hospital beds and gurneys, old-fashioned wheelchairs, outdated medical equipment and instruments discarded in piles and heaped in corners. Graffiti streaked the walls, which meant this place wasn’t entirely out of reach, the way Blondie had led me to believe. But I had no way of knowing how long ago anyone aside from my captors had stepped foot in here.

I saw no way out, though. There were no exterior doors, and the windows I did see—even the smashed-out ones—were barred.

Claustrophobia crept in on me, a sensation I was far too familiar with, as I realized I might never get out. Each breath become harder and harder to find, and the walls began to narrow just as the ceiling suddenly seemed like it was pressing right on top of me.

I told myself it was all in my head—the hallway hadn’t changed—but I ducked all the same.

I had to get outside.

I had to feel air . . . real air . . . fresh, nondusty air . . .

My feet continued to tear and heal . . . rip and repair . . . split and mend in an endless rhythm. I tried to concentrate on that rather than the part where I was suffocating.

I reached a corner near the end of a seemingly endless corridor, and stopped as something caught my eye.

Ward 14 was painted high on the wall in faded blue paint. I’d probably passed other wards and never even noticed the numbers.

My heart bucked when I heard something. A voice.

I waited, to hear it again. For someone to shout for me to stop, or to call for reinforcements.

Instead, when it finally came again, it was ragged and weak and not at all a cry for backup. It was one tired simple word: help. Just that, “help” coming from behind a doorway I’d just passed.

I froze, trying to convince myself in a million different ways to keep going, to . . . ignore it. It wasn’t my problem. I couldn’t save anyone if I didn’t save myself. Someone else would come . . . someone else would help.

Not. My. Problem.

But who was I kidding? What kind of person would I be if I sneaked away and pretended I hadn’t just heard that? What kind of monster . . . ?

I dropped my chin to my chest and took a step back. My feet bled as the cracked tiles beneath me sliced them again, and I had to hope whoever was in there wasn’t human, or else I’d already sentenced them to death—maybe not this second, but within a day or two. And knowing the way Tyler had suffered, they’d be begging for the end to come.