Get Out If You Can

Diego | We're All Hearing Things

I should've known. The whole thing was a farce.

Maybe I did know. That's why I've already formed a plan in my head. I do these things involuntarily; I don't have a clue how — but as far as it goes it works to my advantage.

Now only if Badeaux would stop goggling at me and go do something.

I turn around, maybe to scream at her again if she's there. But she isn't. Okay, that's good.

One thing I don't understand is this. Mom. The call she made was never answered. She thought — she still thought — her intuition would work, and she'd be able to use me to seal a little million-dollar agreement once more.

She was wrong and it's probably going to cost me my life. God knows how long they'll keep us in here.

But who is they? Like, to be very honest, I don't think we're going to die. I just think we've got to use our brains or something, and we'll be able to make it out of here. You never really do know, however — but I've a feeling they'll let us go.

I get my attention back to the grease below the door. If I could get a little of it to the lock, and smear it in, a little hairpin work would get us out of here. I find it very stupid that this place has the usual, customary lock, considering they'd actually required my DNA to get in here.

It probably was just up there for show, but I won't let that thought dampen my hope.

Considering I've lost a lot of it. If the lock isn't the way out, then I have to do a recce of this place and search for vents and hidden pipes or something. There isn't much chance of an air conditioning vent, this place was probably built in the eighties — and kept that way.

I've looked around the place for windows we could break — but there are none. I studied the floor plan they'd left in a corner — surprisingly, it was in a different position now than when I first saw it — and I saw that there were no windows we could jump out from and live to tell the tale. Every single one of them was a minimum of twenty feet above ground, and none of us are ninjas. So it doesn't help.

I'm glad I've taught myself to work calmly. There's no sweat on my forehead, no hair flying everywhere like Hunter's is — and now that I notice, he's being even more useless than Emilie. If he could only shut up about how terrible this all is, he'd do us a favor. It isn't something we don't know about.

I busy myself with the lock again. Holy crap, this place's lack of air conditioning is getting to me. My greasy fingers leave their work at the sides of the doorframe and take off my black suit jacket.

I take it in my hands, and immediately regret it — Mom wouldn't like my finest Armani all greased up like this.

You know what? Fuck that. Pleasant malice takes up my brain space as I deliberately smear a greasy hand across the expensive material, and stuff the suit away somewhere inconspicuous, so I wouldn't be lying when I told Mom I'd forgotten it.

If I got the chance to talk to her again.

My fingers involuntarily move to my phone, but that's practically useless. Hunter said there wasn't any service. Well, he hadn't explicitly told me or anything; he hasn't indulged in conversation with anyone except himself. And the fact that he's yelling, still, doesn't make it any better.

"Can you shut the fuck up, Mason?" I yell, and my voice sounds strangely majestic as it bounces off the walls of the empty room. "I'm trying to work here."

I hear a very audible grunt, but that's the last thing I hear.

I force a smile. Sometimes you've just gotta ask nicely, don't you?