Caden bounces on the floorboards that have too much give. He stoops down and pries open one of the wooden slats.
“Hello?” Caden bends farther down and calls to where the sound of voices echoed for help.
I lean down and pull two more boards with him. “Give us a hand!”
Sawyer and another soldier work the boards loose, one by one, to find four women trapped in the darkness, covered in dirt and filth.
“Paige?” I don’t see any sign of her.
“Sir,” a younger guard, Giovanni, says. His voice holds a hint of a quiver.
“What is it?” I don’t so much as look over my shoulder. We rip the last of the floorboards away to lift the girls out from their prison.
We don’t have time to dick around. Any moment more reinforcements could be on their way, and we still have to locate Paige.
“There’s a bomb.”
My stomach knots. None of us know a damn thing about disassembling a bomb. “Is it on a timer?” I ask Giovanni.
My attention remains on the blonde under the floorboards. I lay down on the wood floor and hold out my arms, pulling her up. Sawyer does the same to help the youngest girl who can’t be more than twelve.
What the fuck is wrong with Vance?
Why would he take a child from her home?
I know the answer, and bile rises to my throat just thinking about the monster that he is, selling women and children to marry off.
It’s disgusting.
“Yes. There’s a minute and thirty-five seconds, Sir.” He starts counting down.
Caden yanks another girl in her early twenties from beneath the ground.
There’s one girl left.
“Get out of here!” I demand.
The little girl just stands there, shivering in shock. Sawyer lifts her and carries her out the front door.
“Give me your hand.” I won’t leave the last girl behind. It doesn’t matter that we’re running out of time.
“I can’t. Save yourself,” she says.
I plop back down on the floor and extend my reach, stretching my arms down to help lift her out. It’s clear her arm is already dislocated, and that’s why she’s hesitant to use her arm to let me lift her.
It’s a struggle to pull her up, not to mention the bomb just a few feet away.
The moment I have her lifted, we barrel out the same way I came in, heading for the open door.
Boom!