Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Stumbling out, he looked around at the buckets of black oil and red blood, got assaulted by gruesome memories, told himself to get the fuck over it.
That entity or whatever it was would not lose any time finding the stairs. What was going to save Evan, if anything did, was whether or not there was a fire door that he could barricade. If he could just secure this level, and if the trainer could come back, then—
Evan’s body wheeled around on its own and started moving fast, his feet shuffling and then running properly toward a dark corner.
“Wait, wait, wait—”
His head bobbed on the top of his spine as he kept looking back over his shoulder. But as much as he commanded his legs to change direction, and take him to that door with an EXIT sign, it was as if he were on autopilot.
And then came the same popping noise from where the main entry had been breached upstairs.
Over in the opposite corner, a flare of light and then the banging sound of a door once again flattening itself on concrete announced that Evan was officially out of time.
“No!” He began to hyperventilate as his feet stayed their course into the shadows. “Oh, God, no—”
He might be in the dark, but he wouldn’t be able to hide there for long. His heavy breathing was making too much noise, and—
His arm ripped forward with such strength, it spun him around, and before he could fall on his face, he threw a hand out and made contact with something that was cold.
Instantly, a keypad glowed blue at waist level.
“I see you,” the thing with the explosives said from across the basement. “And I’m coming for you, lesser.”
“My n-n-name is Evan,” he called out. “I don’t know you—”
His free hand went down to the keypad, and against everything that made any sense, he punched in a seven-digit code. Or maybe it was eight? He didn’t know. Immediately, there was a hiss as a vapor lock released, and he found himself gripping a cool, vertical rod and leaning back with a sharp pull.
The vault-like portal was oval shaped, and it revealed a well-lit metal-walled corridor. Without missing a beat, he jumped over the lip, spun back around, and yanked the heavy weight behind him. The instant it was in place, there was a click and a whirring sound.
Tumblers falling into place.
He was breathing so hard he was wheezing, and as he contemplated a tunnel that seemed a mile long, he didn’t understand how he had known it was here and had gotten access. The autopilot had saved his life, however.
It would take a ballistic missile to get through that portal.
With a shaking hand, he touched the burnished silver wall. Then he knocked on it with his knuckles. Steel? Who made an underground tunnel out of—
His feet pulled another turn-and-burn, pivoting his body around and falling into a jog. As his arms started to pump and his strides became more sure, he wondered where the hell he was going—although clearly whatever was taking over had his survival in mind.
What was a lesser? he wondered.
And what about this speed? He hadn’t had it last night when he’d been bolting around the city in the dark. Because he’d never been athletic.
So this running, as the tunnel continued on ahead of him, shouldn’t have been a thing. Yet he had no soreness in his muscles, and his heart rate and breathing slowed down as his fear lessened. It was like he had an engine inside of his body, and one that was a car, not an electric bicycle, his thighs and calves, his respiratory system, more machine than human.
And what was weird was that the harder he went, the stronger he felt—until he was sprinting, his heavy snow boots pounding down onto the steel floor, the impacts a thunder echoing around and reminding him of that freak snowstorm with the lightning.
Back when all this had started.
What the hell was a lesser… and who was his enemy?
He was still wondering all that when the end of the subterranean pedway finally presented itself. He must have run a mile or more and he could have gone a hundred more—he was breathing like he was sitting on a couch, and as for sweating? What sweat.
The awareness of his newfound strength was a kind of intoxicant, and he was so distracted by cataloguing his capabilities that he barely noticed as his forefinger square-danced with another keypad and another oval door was released from its locking mechanism.
Pushing things open, he peered out into…
A basement apartment, it looked like. And a shitty one at that.
Worn furniture and dust in the corners. Trash scattered everywhere. A dripping faucet in a kitchen sink that had probably been white, but was currently stained with mineral deposits and God only knew what else.