Read Dragonfury 02 - Fury of Ice for Free Online Page A

took the minute she needed, she might get caught. So as much as it killed her, she would wait. When she was safe in the elevator, she’d slice through the cuffs. For now, she needed to swallow the fear and keep a hold of her impromptu weapon.
    But, man, the metal handle wasn’t cooperating.
    Slick with Lothair’s blood, it kept sliding between her palms, defying her will to control it. Angela tightened her grip on the cutter and scanned the hallway stretched out in front of her. Empty. Nothing but peeling paint and uneven floors. Her luck was holding. For how much longer? She didn’t know.
    “No sense sticking around to find out,” she murmured to herself.
    As crazy as it seemed, talking to herself helped. Hearing each word kept her straight and moving, instead of scared and paralyzed. ’Cause, yeah, inaction wasn’t an option. Later, when she found a way out of the madhouse, she would rant, rave…cry, scream…whatever. But she couldn’t give in to the pressure threatening to geyser inside her. Not right now. Not when she still had a chance.
    Glancing over her shoulder, she stared through the bars and listened hard. Nothing. No shout of alarm. No moans of pain. No sound at all.
    Pushing to her feet, Angela sprinted down the corridor, each of her footfalls light. Fluorescents flashed overhead, the long tubes buzzing, pointing the way to the elevator. Breathing hard, she paused at the mouth of the corridor. Bingo. One Otis, dead ahead, waiting with tarnished steel doors to take her to freedom.
    Her heart thumped a little harder as she closed the distance, reached forward and—
    Oh, God…no. The miserable sons of bitches.
    There wasn’t a button. Just a blank cement wall. Nothing she could push to bring the elevator down to her level.
    “Shit,” she said, mind whirling as she tried to think. Where to go? What to do? How much time did she have left before Lothair came to and found her gone? “Double shit.”
    Panic clogged her throat for a second. The cop in her shoved it aside. She didn’t have time for BS. There must be another way out…a rear entrance or something. No way the Razorbacks would build a bunker without a backup plan. The bastards weren’t that stupid.
    Pivoting on her bare feet, she looked left, then right. The corridor stretched in both directions. Yeah, the Otis might be the center of the underground complex, but something else lay deep in the maze. So now, the million-dollar question…which way should she go?
    Instinct told her to head right.
    Angela listened without hesitation. Intuition was a tool, one that always needed to be heeded. Her partner had taught her that and—as much as it sometimes annoyed her—Mac was rarely, if ever, wrong.
    Sending another silent prayer his way, she ran hard, searching for a door, another elevator, anything that might lead her out of the underground warren. Another intersection. Another decision. She kept to the right and—
    “Thank God.”
    Her chest so tight she could hardly breathe, she stared at her salvation. Doors. At least a dozen of them marching down the double-wide corridor. Six to a side, the same color as the walls, each blended into its surroundings, as though the Razorbacks hoped to hide them with a coat of paint.
    Grasping the cutter with her teeth, Angela freed up her hands and checked the first one.
    Locked.
    Crap.
    By the fifth, desperation took hold. Tears in her eyes, she moved onto the next. The knob chilled her palms as she grabbed hold. Praying hard, she twisted and…
    The lock disengaged with a snick.
    Her heart went loose inside her chest as she cracked the door and peeked inside. A solitary light flickered, casting eerie shadows across pale walls. She scanned the room. An old table with mismatched chairs. A bank of cabinets with a sink and stove. A fridge. But other than that? Not a soul in sight. Thank you, God. With one last look in either direction, she checked to make sure the corridor was still empty, then slipped inside