Breaking Away (Delta Force Strong #3) - Elle James Page 0,26

covering her head and the ties binding her wrists.

Once she was seated in an upright position, she scooted across the dirt floor, searching for a wall, a chair, anything she could lean against. Within seconds she bumped into a wall.

The rough bricks helped to snag the fabric of her hood, allowing her to scrape it from her head. Once she was free of its mustiness, she sucked in deep breaths and cursed a darkness so complete, she couldn’t make out anything. Not a door, window or anything else in the room.

Turning her back to the wall, she scraped the zip-tie across the roughness of a brick. She took off a layer of skin before the plastic tie finally broke, freeing her wrists.

Pushing to her feet, Kylie rubbed at the rawness of her wrists before laying her hands on the wall. Inch by inch, she felt her way around the small room that had a dirt floor and brick walls. The door she’d entered through was the only opening. When she reached up, she could touch the low ceiling. Besides the walls, ceiling and dirt floor there was nothing else in the small room.

If she wanted out, she’d have to leave through the door.

Kylie felt the door for a handle, knob or latch, finding none. When she pushed on it, the door held firm. With nothing to pry it loose, no handle to pull, no lock to pick, she would have to dig her way out of her cell with her bare hands.

Despair hit her square in the gut. What was hardest to accept was that she could do nothing to help Mac, Blade or Josh. Had they been delivered to similar cells?

“Mac,” Kylie called out softly and strained to hear his response.

When none came, she tried again. “Mac?” Her voice shook in the silence.

Nothing. Not a single sound.

“Blade? Josh?” she called out, raising her voice a little. No one responded.

“Anyone?” she cried, leaning her forehead against the rough wood door. She’d come to rely on the Deltas to keep her safe. Now, they were in as dire a situation as she was. They might not be around to help her out of this. Which meant she had to figure out some way of extricating herself so she could help them.

Kylie straightened, squared her shoulders and ran her fingers along the edges of the rough-hewn, wooden door, searching for a way to open it. Perhaps she could remove the hinges. Her search revealed that the hinges weren’t on her side of the door, nor was the handle. The only way she was getting through that door was if someone opened it from the other side.

Fine. She ran her fingers up the rough wall, bumping into a low ceiling. Maybe she could force her way through the roofing material. She pushed on what felt like material similar to the walls. Scratching at it with her fingernails, she tested the hardness.

The roof and walls weren’t going anywhere without a knife, pick or jackhammer. Which left the dirt floor.

Kylie dropped to the floor and dug at the dirt with her hands. It, too, was hardpacked and difficult to move. But it was easier scraping away the dirt than it was to break up the bricks in the walls.

With nothing else to do with her time and the safety of the Deltas on her mind, she dug, inch by inch, breaking her nails and rubbing her fingers raw in the process. At one point, she stood and kicked at the dirt with the heel of her boot, working it loose so that she could move it away with her hands. After what felt like an hour, she’d created a shallow depression in the far corner of her cell. At the rate she was working, she might dig a hole big enough to fit through by the time she turned forty.

She hoped and prayed the guys were having more luck getting free.

A couple hours later, she sat with her back to a wall, her hands aching and hope diminishing with every breath she took. There had to be another way.

Footsteps and voices sounded outside the door.

Kylie sprang to her feet and raced to the door. She pulled off one of her boots and held it in her hands ready to use it as a weapon as soon as the door opened.

Mac, didn’t come to until he was dropped onto a hard dirt floor. The jolt brought him back to consciousness with a vengeance. He jerked away