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“Won’t they be looking at the servant’s entrance?” I asked.
“Not this one, this is hidden at the back, and they won’t even realize that we’ve left yet,” Ryker said, explaining in further detail. “I went out this entrance myself a couple of days ago. It’s hidden behind a dumpster and a pile of cardboard. It’s impossible to see from the street. You really have to know it’s there.”
“I think it’s a solid plan,” I said. “I wish we had a car, though. I always feel better when we have a vehicle. Especially something with bulletproofing. So they can shoot their little guns at us, and I can flip them the bird as we drive off into the sunset.”
“You realize that’s so American, right?” Valen said, exaggerating his British accent. “We’re in Europe. Here we prefer a classy getaway through the dumpster and onto the street where we promptly look for a posh shop to buy nicer clothing in.”
I laughed and felt like this was going to work. We were going to escape whoever Ilya had sent for us, and we were going to make it to the Czech Republic and kidnap Maksim’s spoiled, stupid ass.
We took the first set of stairs with ease, of course, and the access panel wasn’t even that bad. I went after Ryker and Kingston but before Valen and Archer. Smack dab in the middle of the ladder, just where I loved to be in the bed.
It wasn’t horrible. The ladder was metal and hard on the hands, and the passage was dimly lit with dull yellow lights, but I could handle it.
Until I couldn’t.
After about ten minutes of climbing down, I thought my arms were going to fall off. I wanted to let go and slide down, thinking it might not be that far. My legs would only be a little broken. Anything to ease the burning pain in my shoulders and the trembling weakness in my hands.
“Are you okay, Evie?” Kingson called up to me.
“I’m okay,” I said, but my voice was a dead giveaway. The minute I said the words, I immediately regretted it. “Okay, I’m not okay,” I continued. “My arms are killing me. I don’t know what workout I have to do in the gym to get stronger shoulders, but clearly I should have been doing it.”
They all started yelling exercise names at me, and even that was torture. I didn’t want to know what I should have been doing the last five years to prepare for this. I wanted them to comfort me, not coach me at that moment.
“I think we’re making it worse,” Ryker said, looking up at all of us. “She needs encouragement. I’d carry her myself, but there isn’t enough room in this fucking shaft.”
I looked down to see his face glowing in the ugly lights, and then the unthinkable happened.
I heard him exclaim in fear, heard the squeak of his hand slipping, and saw him fall into the darkness below us.
Ryker was gone.
CHAPTER16
“What happened?”I shrieked. “Where the fuck did he go?”
What happened?” I shrieked. “Where the fuck did he go?”
“Fuck!” Kingston bellowed into the depths below us. “Fuck!”
Archer and Valen had similar responses. All of us were surprised, horrified, and afraid.
“Ryker?” I called down after a moment of silence, with all of us listening. “Are you down there?”
I thought I heard a muffled sound, like him trying to talk and failing. A thousand different scenarios flooded my head, everything from Ilya snatching him all the way to supernatural explanations, like ghosts or aliens.
None of them made sense, but that was the thing with extreme panic. When you were in the midst of it, nothing had to make sense. All you felt was the flood of adrenaline while your body exploded with responses that were beyond your control.
“Yo, Ryker!” Kingston called down and held out his phone. He turned on the flashlight, and we could see quite far down. At the bottom of what felt like an endless pit, I caught a glimpse of something white, the color of some logo on the back of Ryker’s black hoodie.
“Was that him?” I asked desperately. “Go back!”
Kingston panned the light back where it had been, but nothing showed up for us.
“We have to move!” Archer said from above. “We need to find him. If he’s knocked out or injured, we have to get to him as soon as possible.”
“Good point,” Valen said. “None of us are at a hundred percent yet, and Ryker had injuries he wasn’t talking about. Let’s find him and get him out of here.”
We kept descending after that. We’d been just at the halfway point when Ryker had disappeared, so I knew it would be a long, painful way down to get to him.
