I sucked hard, gasping for breath. Then I remembered my cell phone.
Slowing my breathing, I retrieved it from my bra, and powered it up. It provided just enough illumination for me to identify an eight foot drop down a narrower shaft.
Taking several more deep breaths, I considered my limited options. One, slide down the shaft and hope I didn’t crash through; two, scale down with my back on one side and my feet across from me.
“Chloe, is that you?” A female voice filtered up the duct, sending my adrenaline soaring.
“Deb?” I asked my voice shaky. “Where are you?”
“In a shaft above the basement. Don’t jump!”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” I confirmed, striking off option one as an alternative for my descent.
Confirming my chosen travel mode, she instructed, “Put your back against one side and your feet on the other; keep pressure on your feet and lower one leg, followed by your back, and then another leg. You can do it,” she encouraged.
Terrified, but without another choice, I followed her directions.
Eight feet felt like twenty as I inched my way down. At the halfway point, something gouged my lower back. Pain seared through my right side.
“I think I’m bleeding. Oh, God, it hurts,” I whimpered.
“Chloe, don’t stop. You’ve got to keep moving.”
She was right, but I knew if I didn’t alter my course, the sharp protrusion would damage more of my back.
With great care, and extra encouragement from Deb, I slid sideways, away from the source of what had become an agonizing intrusion to my escape.
Descending with greater caution than before, I managed to reach Deb, who was stretched out on her belly. Our faces almost touched.
“Thank God you’re all right.” She reached around and managed a half hug with us lying down.
She pulled her arm away and grabbed my cell phone, shining the light on her hand. I saw the blood the same time she did.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“How —?” It was her voice I’d heard from the room, and I was desperate to know what’d happened to her and Connie.
“I’ll explain when we’re out of here, for now, keep your eyes on the prize,” she encouraged.
With her mutant agility, she was able to maneuver into a new position with ease, her feet now in my face. But before I could complain about her shoes so close to my nose, she began her advance, using a strange army crawl to slither through the duct like a snake with appendages.
I followed her example to the best of my human ability and tried to keep up.
She could sense when I’d fallen behind, and slowed her pace to accommodate my lack of dexterity.
Sooner than I’d expected, we reached a grate. “This is it,” she said, sounding excited.
All I felt was relieved.
I heard the grate rattle before she tugged it off. She shimmied through the small opening and dropped to the floor.
“You made it!” Connie said from below.
Another flood of relief rushed through me at the sound of her voice. They were okay. But where was Dillon?
“Come on, Chloe. Stay on your stomach and lean through the opening. We’ll do the rest,” assured Deb.
Once my feet were on solid ground, I turned to embrace Deb, then Connie. “Thank you.”
“Here, sit down.” Connie led me to a card table with folding chairs around it. Several decks of cards were stacked on the table’s otherwise clean surface.
“What is this, the custodian’s lair?” I asked, surveying the room full of cleaning apparatus and supplies.
“None other.” Deb gave me a lopsided grin that belied the tension barely contained beneath her cool exterior. “Connie, grab the first aid kit. It’s on the shelf over there.”
While they cleaned my wound, which thankfully, wasn’t too deep, I learned where my friends had disappeared to. Although they were safe, Dillon hadn’t fared as well.
He was dead.
Chapter 47
Dillon’s killer was none other than the monster attempting to make mince meat of my door.
Connie, once she was assured of our current safety, reverted to silence, allowing Deb to share the details of Dillon’s death and their escape. Connie’s grief was palpable. There was nothing either of us could say to comfort her.
According to Deb, once they realized Dillon wouldn’t fit through the shaft, she and Connie had decided, with his insistence, to go on without him, but he’d wanted to try one final alternative before they separated.
Jazmine’s guards had locked them in the lower level room following their deliberate distraction. She’d been suspicious of their squabble and wanted all three locked away until later