Floor to ceiling he scanned the walls, moving anything that could hide a vent. The wall by the door was clear, and it was pointless to look at the wall housing the doorway into where she kept her hideous mutated children, as this was only a dividing wall.
That left the wall opposite the door to the tunnel, and the wall against which the restraining bench and operating table stood. He began with the far wall.
Nothing. So the vent had to be somewhere along the wall where he had been restrained. Dean set to searching with a renewed purpose, ignoring the small voice in his head that asked if the vent was too small to get through.
A metal cupboard and filing cabinet stood at the angle of the two walls. A drab olive green, they looked as though they were military salvage, possibly from the redoubt. They were standing free of the wall, very deliberately pulled away from the concrete.
Dean knelt, ignoring his protesting thigh muscles, and pressed his face to the gap. There was a faint draft of cold air.
Dean stood slowly, his energy renewed and increased by the knowledge that he may have found his escape route. This gave him the strength to fight against his protesting body as he struggled with the cabinet and cupboard. They were full and heavy to move, screeching on the concrete floor with every inch gained. The boy’s muscles, sore and strained, filled with lactic acid at every exertion, betraying the urgent effort he put into his work. He gritted his teeth and redoubled his efforts, sweat pouring into his eyes, his heart racing with every screech in case it attracted Jenna or Harvey if they should be approaching.
He stood back, panting. They were far enough away for him to get behind them. He dropped to his knees and crawled into the space between the metal and the concrete. The light was dimmed by shadow and enclosure, but he could see that a metal grille covered the opening of the air vent. Groping blindly, he couldn’t believe his luck when he found that the screws had rusted in their plugs, and it took only a little maneuvering for him to pry the grille loose.
Snaking around, tearing his already sore flesh on the corner of the opening, feeling the metal of the cabinet scrape on his already bruised ribs, Dean was head and shoulders into the vent.
It crossed his mind that he had no idea if the vent would narrow suddenly or take a steep upward curve that would be impossible to follow. Perhaps he would be so tightly enclosed that his already protesting body would cramp and spasm, refusing to move.
He put such notions out of his head. Instead, he focused on a single-minded determination to get away.
He had no other choice.
RYAN WALKED across the main hall with echoing footsteps. He wondered what Harvey had waiting for him. The sec chief had excused himself and hadn’t accompanied the one-eyed warrior. J.B. and Jak had both wanted to accompany Ryan, but he had refused, instead ordering that his friends hurry to the baron’s chambers after a ten-minute gap. Ryan figured he could keep it together that long, if necessary, until reinforcements showed. It was deathly quiet in the main hall. The inhabitants of Raw were still too busy putting their own affairs in order after their return from the battle to yhink about celebrating another victory. That would come later.
It did seem ominous to Ryan that he could hear nothing from the baron’s chamber. Not a sound, almost as though whoever was behind the heavy drapes was consciously keeping silent.
Every nerve ending in his body sang with the tension. The empty socket of his left eye ached beneath its patch, the scar tingling, a reaction he always had when trouble was imminent, and it was the time of tension before action.
Ryan reached for the drapes and pulled them back.
“Alien?” he said in a level tone. “You wanted me?”
“That fool may well do, but I want you even more,” came a sibilant female tone from the shadows.
The dimmed lamp increased in brightness, illuminating the chamber.