Caged

Chapter 6

Shade stared up at Cage from her spot sitting on the floor. He hung by his fingertips part of the way up the wall. Most people would have given up by now and crawled into a corner where they would wait to die. Not Cage. She had a feeling that he was like that with everything he did, that he had that kind of attitude toward things. Something that was constantly pushing him forward, a tenacity that allowed him to continue to fight when others would have given up. It was an advantage in this situation. She sighed. Or perhaps a disadvantage, depending on how one looked at it. The false hope of freedom could be damaging to your mental state.

He had been working his way up the wall each day by free-climbing his way to the top. He accomplished this by moving slowly, chipping mortar from between the bricks as he went to create niches for him to use as handholds, it made for slow progress but it was progress. It was the only way they were going to be able to make it to the top.

"You should probably come down, the lights are going to go out soon!" she shouted. She found it interesting that they could predict when the lights were going to go out. It was as if their minds were keeping track of the time subconsciously.

"Give me another minute," he called back.

She sighed and watched as he chipped away at the mortar between two stones above his head and slightly to his right.

"That should do it for this one." He shoved his stone tool into his pocket and started to climb down. He'd only move downward a bit when the lights went out.

"Told you!"

"Don't worry, I've got this."

She didn't worry he would fall, he'd managed the climb in darkness a few times. He seemed to instinctively know where all of the little niches in the rock were. Though there had been a couple of times he missed getting his foot into one of those little spaces and nearly fell. The last thing they needed was for him to fall and injure himself or worse yet, kill himself. She doubted the voice would care and she didn't want to be trapped in here alone.

She heard him hit the ground when he jumped from the last set of holds and sighed in relief.

"See, back on the ground," he said from across the room.

"Come on, let's eat," she replied.

"How far up do you think I've gotten?" he asked as he joined her on the mattresses.

"We can't see anything, so you know as much as I do."

They ate in silence. He finally set his tray aside. "Do you think this time will be different? That we'll actually get out."

She blew out a breath. "I don't know."

"Are we fooling ourselves? Is this a completely wasted effort? Should we give up? That bastard doesn't seem to want us to find a way out." His laughter was bitter.

She settled her tray on top of his. "I have no idea if you're right. Maybe he is leading us in circles. But we can't give up without trying everything we can think of. What does it say about us if we give up and lay here waiting to die?"

"I don't want to be that guy, Shade, I want to get out of here but it seems hopeless."

She gave his arm a little pat. "You aren't that guy and we will get out of here."

"You can't know that for certain."

"No, I can't but the fact that you've tried so hard to find a way out of here is enough for me."

***

Cage climbed carefully. "Hang on and watch where you put your fingers and your toes. Go slow and steady. All right?" he told Shade without looking down. "When we get closer to the ceiling I'll have to stop and knock out more holds, I didn't get all the way up but we'll be close."

"Slow and steady," she murmured.

"You can do this, Shade."

She wasn't as certain as he was but if it got them out of here she'd climb until she couldn't anymore.

Cage had torn the knit sweater she'd been wearing into strips so they could wrap the fabric around their hands to help protect them from the rough stone as they climbed.

She followed him slowly up the wall, concentrating as she felt for each little niche he'd carved into the joints between the stones. As she placed each foot into the hold she gently put her weight on it to be certain it held her weight. It didn't matter if he'd already gone up and it held, it still worried her.

"You're doing great," Cage called down.

"How would you know, you haven't looked down once!"

He chuckled. "Because I know you and you never give up."

She grinned and shook her head. She settled her right foot into the dent in the wall and reached up to feel for the next handhold, when she put her weight on her toes the top edge of the stone crumbled and she lost her footing. She released a frightened squeal and scrambled for the handhold above her.

"Shade?"

"I'm good, the stone gave way but I found the next handhold."

"You sure?"

"I'm fine, Cage, promise. We have to keep going, we need to get as far up the wall as we can before the lights go out. I don't want to be climbing far in the dark," she told him.

"Right, of course." He continued upward.

They had to get as high as they could before they lost the light. He prayed that higher up there was at least a small amount of light so they would be able to see where they were going. It was a small hope considering how dark it was when the lights were out. If there wasn't light they'd have to climb slower and simply go by what they could feel in the dark, which meant a slower climb which would increase the possibility they would tire and fall.

"Hey, I think I see the ceiling!" He couldn't help the excitement that leaked into his voice.

"Thank goodness, my arms feel like wet noodles!"

"Just hang on, we're almost there!" he called down to her. The lights went dark and he groaned. "You okay?"

"I'm good. Am I seeing things or is there light up there?" she asked.

He pulled himself up to the ceiling with a small groan. "There's a metal grate in the ceiling. I guess that explains how he got us in here. There's a piece of plywood over it." He held tightly to his little niche in the wall and reached out with the other hand to push on the grate. It gave a small metallic whine but didn't move. "Shit, why did I think this would be easy?"

Shade pulled the small shard of stone he'd given her and chipped away at the mortar between the stones until she could work her way around so she was beside him on the wall. "Let's do it together, all right?"

"Okay. One, two, and three!" They shoved up on the grate at the same time. It groaned and screeched as they pushed it upward. It creaked, hit its apex, and fell downward onto the floor inside the room above them.

"Ready?" he asked her.

"It's our only option. Let's do it."

He pulled himself up to look into the room. It looked much like the rest of this dismal place. There was nothing for it, he pulled himself up through the hole in the floor. He crawled up into the room and then reached down to give Shade a hand up. Once they were both in the room, he stood and looked around. "Holy shit." The walls here had been painted black as well. It wasn't much of an improvement from the cell below.

"Hello, boy, I seeyou've managed to find a route out of the cell. It's too bad for you that itwasn't the correct choice." The man sitting in the cheap rolling desk chaircackled. "Welcome to my roost."