Escape (Chronicles of Hart) by Kat Murray

corners. They sped recklessly through the back country roads and as Hart checked their progress he frowned at the time passing quickly on his diamond encrusted watch.
    “Faster,” he demanded shouting over the wind as he reclined back into the plush leather of the back seat. The driver nodded to him in the rear view mirror, pressing his foot down as the car accelerated forward. Hart’s hair whipping into a wild frenzy in the wind as the man beside him struggled even harder to breath. Hart smiled lacing his fingers behind his head he crossed his left foot over his right knee lazily.
    “Yes sir,” The driver yelled back over the torrent of wind.
    ***
    Ethan and Grace scratched desperately at the walls in the dark. A light was slowly becoming visible up the stairs, causing Grace to scrape at the wall in a panic. She would claw through the wall if she had to. Ethan pulled at the bricks beside her, fighting hard to resist the urge to punch the wall in frustration. It would surely break his hand if he did. Instead he followed Grace’s lead, feeling the brickwork over in the most obvious spots where a trigger could be concealed; the mortar between the bricks. He searched for gaps and holes, bricks that might give way like the trigger in the cavern that had filled with water. Nothing seemed to pop out to him and Grace was breathing heavily with panic. Her fingers were bleeding from clawing at the wall like an animal trying to escape when her finger stuck in a narrow slit. Feeling around with her other hand she found an identical slit beside it.
    Noises on the stairs grew closer. Grace shoved her index finger into the slit. Wiggling the two fingers, she triggered a release by pulling down on two levers within the wall simultaneously. Her hand pulled with the wall as it swung open. Her fingers were stuck in the small openings.
    “Yes,” Ethan exhaled as the wall began to move under his hands. He couldn’t see from the angle of the approaching light how Grace had become tangled in the wall. Both of her hands stuck against the moving brick wall and she was tugged forward into the new space.
    “Got ya ,” exclaimed a voice behind them as the light came into full view.
    Two guards grabbed Ethan and Grace from behind. The one holding Grace fumbled in a bag for a moment, pulling out a handful of zip-ties. Grace was too weak to fight back as they bound her wrists in front of her while she struggled to get her fingers free from the wall. Ethan was quickly held down to have his hands zip-tied together as they dragged him and Grace up against a wall.
    ***
    Walt was relieved, finally they had caught up. Maybe he would live for another day, if Mr. Hart was in a good mood and willing to compromise. Looking at Grace, he felt pity as guilt rose up in his chest. She looked malnourished and wore scraps of filthy clothing that would be considered rags to most. He and Steve had been responsible for upholding that horrible lifestyle for her and they still had no idea why she was being held captive. She sure didn’t look dangerous to him. Her frail petit figure shivered in the wet and cold of the tunnel. Her ribcage was visible through a tear in the fabric of her shirt. He looked to Steve with concern, should we give her a coat? He wondered. The look on Steve’s face said no.
    “Here,” He offered her the last bottle of water from Steve’s pack. They had reached the other side of the wall safely, watching it click mechanically back into place with a resonating final squish against the thick muck lining the bottom of the doorway. A wave of water splashed against their feet as they stepped out of the large puddle covering most of the floor on this side of the marker.
    Grace looked at Walt with disgust. Rundown after all these years imprisoned, her face remained innocent. Walt looked quickly away feeling guilt coursing through his veins again. He sat her down gingerly looking at his hands as he twisted the top of the bottle off, placing it back