A Glimmer of Hope (The Avalon Chronicles #1)(24)
She turned back to the door and kneeled down in front of it, staring at the lock and remembering the hours and days of lessons with her father. Continuously practicing unlocking locks of all different shapes and sizes. By the time she was nine, she could open pretty much anything. The lock in front of her was something normally seen on cell doors. Picking it would require something a bit more robust than anything she had on her, and even then she wasn’t sure she could actually pick it. She needed a key. And she doubted that she was going to be able to get her hands on one anytime soon.
Layla rested her forehead against the cool metal door and wished she could think of a way out. She walked over to the rear wall, searching for any way to escape. Considering they were a considerable distance underground, she wasn’t exactly surprised at the lack of windows, but at least they would have given her some hope.
There was a stone slab just in front of the wall that was slightly raised in comparison to the rest of the cell. She stood on the slab and it wobbled, as if not quite set.
At this point, she would be happy to take anything useful, and she tried to dig her fingers into the side of the stone, but there wasn’t a big enough gap, and the stone was far too heavy for her to lift alone. She looked around the room, desperate to find a solution, something to use as a lever, but there was nothing. She wasn’t really sure what she’d expected; just because the stone was loose, it wasn’t like she was going to dig herself to freedom. She got up from the floor and walked over to the sink, ran the tap, and washed her hands free of the dirt and mud. She watched as the water disappeared down the plughole, which was really just one big hole with no grate.
In her haste to clean her hands, she’d forgotten to remove the silver ring her mother had given her on her sixteenth birthday, and she watched it drop down the plug into the darkness beyond.
Layla screamed as the frustration of what had happened to her threatened to overpower her senses. She took a deep breath, stepped to the side of the sink, and kicked the white plastic waste pipe that ran into the wall. She kicked it over and over, dislodging the pipe from the sink, spilling water all over the floor. She grabbed hold of the pipe and moved it from side to side, until she heard something crunch and she ripped it free, along with part of the wall it was attached to, causing her to fall back on her butt.
She stared in the pipe and found a mass of gunk at the end furthest from the plughole, where the pipe was attached to a wooden board that had been painted to look like concrete. Presumably it was the idea of whoever had done the plumbing, so that if anything did block it, the people here didn’t have to smash open concrete to get to the problem. Layla pulled the mess of stuff she didn’t want to think about out of the hole, and the ring fell onto the floor with a satisfying noise. It was a small thing, but it had been her happiest moment in days.
It was immediately followed by a glimmer of hope as she saw the hole where the pipe and wooden board used to be, on the wall. She dropped the pipe and moved over to the hole she’d created, gagging at the smell of stale water. There were no plumbing pipes, just a big hole that went down into the darkness beyond. It was big enough for her to climb into, although it would be a tight squeeze. Even so, it was go down there into who knows what, or stay in a cell where she would be forced to help murderers and monsters. There was barely any decision to be made at all.
She grabbed hold of the piece of pipe she’d just broken and dropped it down the opening, listening to it bounce around like a pinball on its way down. She was about to try to squeeze into the hole when the door opened and a creature walked in.
Layla glanced back and paused, watching the thing enter the room, its red eyes staring at her with anger.
“What are you doing?” it demanded, dropping the tray of food onto the floor with a clang, spilling some sort of mashed potato or vegetable onto the concrete.
“There’s no water,” Layla said quickly. “There’s part of the pipe missing.”
“Move.” The creature walked over to the sink and began to look into the hole.
The creature wasn’t human, Layla was certain of that, but it was humanoid. It had mauve skin with blotches of darker or lighter purple across its bare arms. Long brown hair flowed from the top of its bumpy skull and across its shoulders. It wore deep red, leather armor, and carried a vicious sword at its hip the likes of which Layla hadn’t ever seen outside of a fantasy film. The sword was black, curved, and had the appearance of something used solely to cause pain. From the look it had given her upon entering the cell, Layla got the impression that causing pain was something the creature enjoyed.
The creature’s black eyes looked up at Layla, checking that she’d moved far enough back. It smiled, showing a row of razor-sharp teeth, each one a small red triangle.
“Move and die,” it snapped, and went back to looking in the hole.
Layla darted forward, and as the creature looked away from her, drove her knee into the side of its head. The skull bounced off the enamel sink, and she drove her knee in once again, crushing its nose. When it moved she took hold of its forehead and repeatedly smashed the back of its head against the sink, causing black blood to spill out from the wound. She let the creature fall to the floor, before stomping on its face several times in an effort to knock it out.
Layla grabbed the sword, pulling it free from the creature’s side, and was about to drive the blade through its chest when she paused. She couldn’t kill, she just couldn’t. She wouldn’t be like her father. She spun the blade and smashed the hilt into the side of the creature’s head. It finally stopped moving.