I pressed my body against a wall as I tried to focus on the task ahead.

  I had gone through the trouble of recovering the data-stick, not a job I wanted to repeat in a hurry, and now I had it on me. I had re-clothed myself in Mr X’s combat fatigues and although a couple of sizes too big, they were better than trying to escape this place bare-ass naked.

  I didn’t know where I was.

  After I was kidnapped by Gregory, he had bundled me in a car and we had travelled through the back streets of Paradise Lost until we had reached this building. In a lot of ways, I was thankful he hadn’t taken me on board a ship or to some other far-flung planet, which would have made escaping next to impossible.

  The pain from the beating I had endured was still hot and sharp, but I did my best to put it in the back of my mind. Getting my wounds treated and wallowing in self-pity would come later; now I needed to get out of here before they found me.

  I peeked around the corner of the wall I was leaning against and ran as fast as I could forward, which resulted in a zombie-like shuffle, probably no faster than power walking.

  I heard footsteps up ahead before I saw who was making them.

  I halted in my tracks and pressed my body against a corner out of sight, waiting for whoever was coming to pass me by. I clutched a hammer I had taken from Mr X’s torture supplies and allowed the weight of it to calm my nerves.

  “How long do we have to stay on this shithole?” said one voice that sounded like gravel.

  “Not sure,” replied another voice, which was high and whiny, “but the sooner we get off this planet the better. It feels like you can catch something, just by looking at the girls here; every idiot walking the streets is either crazy, a psychopath, or some criminal.

  “You know Drew got stabbed by some meth-head yesterday because, and I quote, he smelled like the devil’s ring piece and no man should continue living who smelled like that.”

  Laughter echoed along the corridor as the footsteps got closer.

  “Serves him right for trying to help the dirty fucker in the first place,” said Gravel Voice.

  “Speaking of something smelling like a ring piece, what is that smell?” asked High And Whiny.

  “What? I can’t smell anything.”

  “You can’t smell that?” said High and Whiny. “It smells like someone took a shit in this corridor.”

  “Could just be the sewer from outside; Gregory complained about the drains overflowing. And it looks like there was a group of homeless sleeping in the alleyway out back.”

  “Yeah, yeah, maybe. God, I hate this—”

  A shaven head appeared in front of me and I reacted before any thought passed between my ears; swinging the hammer down with all my strength I hit his skull with a loud crack that caused the person in front of me to stumble forward. I swing again and grimaced as blood squirted on my face.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  The person I attacked fell to the floor in a heap as a shout of panic went up beside him.

  “Fuck!” screamed Gravel Voice, who stared at me in panic.

  I didn’t give him time to think as I rushed forward and swung the hammer his way.

  He ducked underneath it, causing me to hit the wall he stood in front of, taking a chunk out of it. I swung back around and slowly made my way towards him, backing him up step by step. He stared at me wide-eyed; I could smell the fear on him.

  I enjoyed it. For once I was the predator and he was the prey.

  “Hey, man, look, I don’t know what the hell is going on here but I was just brought on as security—whatever fucked-up shit they did to you was none of my doing.”

  As he spoke his hand continued to move towards the computer on his wrist. “Stop that.”

  He nodded his head as if he had heard but his hand kept on drifting towards its target.

  “I said stop that!”

  I rushed forward and took another swing at his head, but he ducked low and dropped for my hips, rugby tackling me to the ground. His shoulder knocked the wind from my lungs as he landed on top of me.

  His hands wrapped around my throat and squeezed as I looked for my hammer. I caught it out of the corner of my eye, and I tried to reach for it but it was too far away. Once again my vision was going black in what had been less than a few hours. I looked up and could see his smug face looking down on me.

  The same smug expression Gregory had given me.

  The same smug expression Mr X had given me.

  And it pissed me off.

  I had come too far to die like this, to allow this hired killer to stop me in my tracks. Pulling my feet close to me I hip bumped him off me and got to my feet in a wild panic. He tried to follow me up but I kneed him in the face, shattering his nose upon impact.

  He grabbed for me, but I slapped his hands out of the way and grabbed the back of his head and repeatedly drove my knee into his face until it became numb. I allowed him to drop to the floor and walked over and bent down and picked up the hammer I had dropped. Lifting it up I slapped the hammer against my palm as I turned around and walked back toward him.

  His face was a mess of blood and broken bone.

  He was still breathing. Bloody snot bubbles grew out of his nose and popped over his mouth.

  I looked down at him and lifted the hammer but hesitated; I drew my arm further back prepared to deliver the killing blow but something in my gut stopped me. Allowing my arm to drop to my side, I turned away just as an alarm sounded throughout the building.

  Red light flashed along the ceiling as the alarm grew louder and louder.

  Not wasting another moment I ran forward taking one corner after the next. I could now hear shouts mixed with the sound of the alarm. As I slipped on something on the floor and collided with a wall, my shoulder struck it first, causing me to bite down on the pain that I felt. Pushing off it, I turned as I heard footsteps behind me.

  “Stop!”

  A man dressed in fatigues sprinted towards me. I did the only thing I could think of and swung the hammer his way; he lifted his arms to defend himself, but the hammer broke through his defences and cracked him on the jaw, dropping him to the floor.

  I didn’t wait to see if he would get up but spun on my heel and sprinted forward, taking more lefts and rights until I saw an emergency exit up ahead. Head low I sprinted forward and barrelled into it, bursting it open.

  The frosty night air hit me in the face, waking me up as I ran down a flight of rusty metal stairs and found myself in an alleyway. One way lead to a dead end, the other appeared to lead to a main street. Not wasting any time I ran forward and found myself on a road with electric cars speeding past. I turned left without thinking and just kept running, jogging, walking and stumbling forward—whatever I needed to do to create distance between myself and the building I had been in.

  I didn’t know how long I walked for, but it was long enough for me to begin to relax, long enough for the stress to disappear from my shoulders, long enough for me to stop looking over my shoulder, long enough for me to feel like I had escaped.

  That is, until I felt a hand land on my shoulder and I turned around to come face to face with an officer of the law.