Cut & Run (Cut & Run #1)(114)
Author: Abigail Roux

Zane frowned a little. “He seemed okay when he was talking with us,” he murmured. “Huh.” He shifted and slumped in the chair a little. “So.

What’s the story on you two?” he drawled, looking between them.

Both agents looked back at him with suddenly unreadable expressions. Finally, Sears smiled slowly. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” she answered.

Zane immediately broke out in wheezing laughter. “You’re joking, right?”

“Come on,” Sears wheedled with a grin. “I’ll spill on my partner if you tell me about yours.”

Zane snorted and peered at Sears as Ross protested noisily. “Watch out,” he told the woman with a smile. “I’ve seen how Grady behaves around a woman. He’s an utter bastard.” He sighed and some of the amusement died away. “As for me,” he said quietly, dropped his eyes, and looked at his ring thoughtfully, “I can’t see another woman without thinking of my wife.”

The teasing dropped away, and Sears smiled softly. “I’m sorry,” she murmured in the tone of voice that said she knew Zane’s wife had died rather than left him.

“You girls finished getting your nails done?” Ross asked with a huff.

“Fuck off, Ross,” Zane bit out, aggravation showing.

“Boys, boys,” Sears murmured as she stood and rolled her eyes.

Ross snapped his mouth closed and gave Zane an infuriating smirk.

“You look a little restless, Garrett,” he observed with false sympathy.

“Henninger told us about your Poe theory when we demanded to know why he needed us here. Why don’t you explain that one to us if you need something to do?”

Rolling his eyes, Zane glanced over at the wall of bookshelves nearby. “See if you can find a copy of Poe over there,” he requested. “We’ll see what we can find.”

THE sound of scraping and the musty smell of something old and wet were the first things to batter Ty’s senses. He groaned involuntarily and his head lolled, his chin resting on his chest as if he were upright rather than prostrate.

Slowly, with more effort than he liked, he forced one eye open. His eyelid was too heavy, though, and he soon closed it and raised his head to let it rest back against the cold, rough surface behind him. He was upright, he realized, but he didn’t understand how he was capable of standing, or even sitting up. He was soon aware of labored breathing that wasn’t his own coming from somewhere close, and then more scraping sounds came with it.

There was an odd, wet sound, followed by a few thuds that echoed hollowly, and more scraping.

“Grady? Special Agent Grady, are you okay?” The unfamiliar voice echoed in the darkness, bouncing around in the damp and distorting in a surreal manner.

Ty wasn’t even sure he had really heard it. “Okay?” he echoed with difficulty. His tongue felt swollen and dry, and his throat was scratchy and painful as he spoke. His head pounded as if his ears had been filled with concrete. He blearily recognized the aftereffects of chloroform, and a cold fear began to twist in his chest.

“Yes, you’re okay. I thought you might talk to me while I work.

Make the time pass faster.”

Ty raised his head slightly, forcing his dry eyes open again and blinking in the weak, flickering light of a candle that was sitting on the floor next to him. It was dark otherwise, utterly so. Not a bit of natural light flowed around him, and the cold and damp gave him the distinct feeling of being in his grandmother’s root cellar.

“Work,” he repeated as if testing the word. He swallowed painfully and then cleared his throat. The odd scraping noise stopped for a moment.

“Well, yes. You get to hang there and rest while I’m working.

Doesn’t seem very fair, does it? But I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t cooperate otherwise. Which is why you’re tied up.”

Ty let his head rest against the cold surface behind him again. It was rough, like brick or hewn rock. He had thought his limbs were just too heavy to move, but he tugged at the restraints on his arms with the sinking realization that he was restrained. A sound like a chain clanking met his ears, and he frowned in confusion. He was chained to a wall? Seriously? He realized, after hearing the man’s words, that there was a rope of some sort wound under his arms and around his chest, holding him upright even as he slumped, and there were shackles around his ankles as well, keeping him pinned to the wall.

He squinted back out into the flickering darkness. The man seemed to be working by candlelight as well. Ty glanced down at the candle sitting in a pool of melted wax at his feet. Staring at it, he remembered tidbits from his childhood that had never really surfaced in his adult life. The old miners in his hometown in West Virginia had always told stories about the candles they carried with them underground, as well as flashlights. When the light died, you had to hustle your ass out of there because the oxygen was either going or gone and you were next. It was cheaper than a canary.

“We’re underground,” he stated stupidly.

“Very good!” the distorted voice said sarcastically. “You must be shaking it off quicker than I expected. Luckily, I planned for that.”

Ty frowned harder and turned his head to the side, groaning as the motion caused his head to swim. “Did you kill the kid?” he asked the man with a tinge of anguish he was ashamed to let creep into his voice.

The man responded with a short laugh. “You’ll find he’s just fine,” he answered drolly, then paused as if in thought. “Actually, no, you won’t. But someone else will. Perhaps your partner.”

Ty closed his eyes at the lance of pain that went through him at that thought. Zane. His mind was foggy, and he tried desperately to rally.

“Garrett’s not gonna be amused by this,” he told the man, trying in vain to squeeze his hands through the antique shackles. They were far too tight, though, and the rough metal cut at him as he tugged. “You picked the wrong one to play with.”

“I don’t think so,” the man answered, his voice bouncing off the subterranean walls. “You’re much more dangerous than your partner, you see.

He’s an addict and an alcoholic, and you were the only thing keeping him from f**king himself into the ground. You and I both know it.” The voice sounded oddly pleased.

Ty felt himself go cold as he listened. The man knew them well, almost as if he had been with them through their personal struggles. And Ty knew this man had no intention of leaving Zane alive, either. Ty had just been picked off first because Zane was hurt.