Eternal [HS]

Chapter Forty-Five

TINY HOLES POKED IN THE MANHOLE shine light down into her eyes.

Her face is pressed up against one of them to see if there's anything to be made out through the space, but nothing can be seen from this angle, so she reaches up to raise the iron cover out of the way. From the sound of it, there isn't anyone in the area directly near the entrance to the tunnel. If there were, Niall and Mitch would be yanking her back down into the darkness before she could dare to climb out.

Two pairs of hands hold onto the backs of her thighs to keep her in place while she lifts her hands from where they were clutching the ladder to lift the cover up and to the side painstakingly slow. If she were to move it any quicker, the sound of it grating against the cement floor would be too loud to pass off as anything other than an intruder breaking in. The edges of her teeth grind down and up against each other through the process of moving the manhole aside until the circular opening in the ground is left uncovered for her to see up into the building and others to spot her head poking out of the ground.

Now is when she decides to dart up and out of the tunnel as swiftly as she can. There isn't anything standing in her way when she lands both feet on the floor decorated in ashes that flutter around her shoes like flakes of snow. Unlike the house she entered the tunnel through, there is nothing to hide this entrance, except maybe the ashes that covered it before she just disturbed where they rested.

Perhaps that's why they hadn't discovered it. Perhaps the ground was covered so thickly in ashes from the decaying structure that somehow still stands around her, they didn't see anything there except for smooth ground to walk on.

She doesn't spare the men coming up the ladder behind her another glance before setting off in search of Harry. If she looks, it would feel too much like she is getting a final glimpse of them in case things go wrong, and she doesn't want that. She doesn't want to feel like she's looking at her friends as a goodbye, so she keeps her eyes trained on the path ahead with a determination nothing can falter.

There are various decaying objects scattered about the room to remain hidden behind, it isn't all one empty place despite its status of abandonment. Machinery stands as the skeleton of the warehouse that operated not too long ago, likely to be bought and sold again and turned into something new sometime soon, and it provides shelter for her.

Sprinting from one room to the next, the objects left in the exact places they were at the time of the fire are her saving grace, because the sentry standing at the other end of the room she just ran into would've seen her if not for the pellet racks stocked with abandoned goods. Though she no longer breathes, she almost wants to hold her breath while hiding behind it.

Jo peeks in between gaps of the shelves to see where the man is or if he even picked up on her presence. And much to her luck, he hasn't. He crouches with his back facing her and sharpens his knife under the moonlight that filters in through the broken windows lining the walls.

This man has a build and size that mimics the other sentries she killed from the rooftops for their own backup to replace in case things dissolve into chaos down here.

He isn't intimidating, though. Despite his height and toned muscles that are visible from afar, nothing except for Harry's death is capable of scaring her at this moment. Strong men armed to kill her at first sight are no sweat off her back if it means it brings her closer to rescuing someone she loves, so much so that she almost takes pleasure in it.

She doesn't feel anything when she unsheathes her dagger inch by inch until it is freed from its place along her thigh because of his involvement in this sick kidnapping.

As fucked up as it is, knowing that this man is guarding this building against people like her who seek to free Harry from them and subsequently free all of their future human victims from their grisly fates removed any layer of remorse from the situation.