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We turned at a fork in the hall, and I momentarily startled at seeing a familiar woman face down on the ground. The woman who had saved me from the prison and led me to Addie. I didn’t know who she was or what her story was, but I owed her my deepest gratitude. She definitely didn’t deserve to die.
I turned my head away before my wayward gaze could capture anyone’s attention.
We moved as a unit, a team, a family, down the blood-soaked halls. I kept a continuous eye on Addie as we weaved through the labyrinth-like basement. Hall after hall. Door after door. Rager after Rager. A few soldiers ran past us, but none of them paid us any mind. Why would they? For all they knew, we were a team ambling these halls and attempting to survive, the same as them.
A door captured and ensnared my attention. Simple, with accentuated wood and a dark knob.
Simple...yet familiar.
I hesitated, weighing the pros and cons of my decision.
I hadn’t realized I had stopped until Fallon tugged at my arm. “What’s going on?”
“I know someone down there,” I said softly, nodding towards the door. Down there, the moldy basement covered in dust with the smell of piss and blood permeating the air, had been my home for the last couple months. The man in the cell beside me had been my...well, not my family, but an acquaintance. I didn’t like him, but he had been the one constant during the weeks of torture and starvation. The weeks when my body wanted to succumb to the darkness pressing in on all sides of me like a moving box.
“What?” Addie turned towards me, the skin between her eyes creased in confusion and her pouty lips puckered.
“Get Addie out of here,” I told Fallon. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Because I knew I couldn’t leave Doug. That wasn’t the type of man I was and wasn’t the type of man I wanted to be.
Fuck, when did I develop a conscience? I blamed it on a certain brown-haired beauty currently glaring up at me.
Doug was wrong about one thing: love was the only thing capable of winning wars.
“No fucking way in fuckity fuck,” Addie cursed, lunging towards me. Her tiny hands were fisted, and she pressed them against my chest. Her eyes pleaded with me, implored me to see things from her perspective. “We’re not separating ever again. Any of us. We’ll go with you. It’ll take - what - five minutes to enter and exit? We do it as a fucking team. Don’t make me revoke your lover privileges and make you public enemy number one...because I will. Don’t test me, Callie.”
I couldn’t say no to her, not when she was staring at me with large, watery eyes. Not when her hands smoothed over my chest, kneading the material of my thin, cotton shirt. Not when her teeth worried the plump skin of her lower lip.
No, I was a damn sucker for her.
Breaking eye-contact, I turned towards Sarge with a question in my gaze. He nodded once, expression cut from stone.
“Five minutes,” he said at last. “In and out. Then, we’re getting out of here. No questions asked, got it?”
We all murmured our assent before lifting our weapons and pointing them at the door.
As we opened it and stepped down the musty-smelling staircase, I couldn’t help the snort that escaped me.
“Home sweet home,” I murmured to no one in particular.
The cells were exactly as I remembered them. Five on each side, totaling ten. A single hanging bulb illuminated the stone walls and floor.
The key I had used was still in my cage, and I grabbed it out of the lock.
“Is that you?” Doug asked, voice breaking on a cough. “Did you come back for me?” Another cough.
I opened my mouth to respond, but immediately closed it when I saw Addie running in the direction of the cell. Her face was pale in the scarce lighting, eyes wide. Fallon called her name on a hiss, but she ignored him, stopping when she was directly in front of Doug’s cell.
Her voice breathy, she whispered, “Dad?”
