Cut and Run 1 - Cut and Run

sense of calm. He was going to die here. In the dark. He swallowed past the tightening of his throat and watched the candle. The flame had weakened alarmingly, and now its circle of light didn't even reach Ty's feet. As Ty watched it, the flame went blue, stuttering in the growing darkness.
    Ty took in a deep breath of the stale, damp air.
    His head shot up at the sound of a voice echoing faintly on the other side of the wall. Was he hallucinating? He could have sworn that he'd heard a shout somewhere in the distance. He stared at the brick wall in front of him, shaking convulsively with cold and encroaching shock. At his feet, the tiny flame spit and flared violently, then sputtered one last time and died.
    He tried to call out for help, but his voice was gone.
    The desire to simply close his eyes and let sleep take him over was almost overwhelming. Ty cocked his head as he heard the sound again. “Zane,” he whispered to the hallucination, the sound barely a word as his head spun and he gasped for the nearly nonexistent air.
    * * * *
    Zane emerged into the darkened basement, lit only by a couple of bare, hanging light bulbs. He was shaking again, this time with manic energy instead of pain and exhaustion. The drugs had taken hold quickly and adrenaline and chemicals shot through his body at warp speed. He walked past the large furnace, looking around quickly, gun in his hand. He had no idea if Henninger had an accomplice or not. He came upon a long, ill-lit hallway that had doorways covered by chain-link fence on each side. Storage units.
    "Ty!” Zane yelled, his voice echoing through the large space as he moved down the hallway. The echo was the only thing that answered his calls. Finally, he spotted a darker hole in the wall at the end of the hallway, one that wasn't lit at all. Tunnels, Henninger had said.
    Zane couldn't see into the rough-hewn passageway, and he quickly started patting his jacket pockets and found his lighter. Thank God he'd talked Ty out of making him stop smoking. Annoyed with the restraining sling, he pulled his arm out of it and dropped it, then held up the flaming lighter and looked down at the dirt. It was gray, just like Henninger's shoes.
    "Ty!” he yelled again, heading into the catacombs, bypassing the insets filled merely with old crates and construction debris.
    Walking in long strides, hurt arm raised to shelter the flame, Zane almost kept going before he noticed that he had passed a space of wall where an inset should have been. Backtracking, his heart plummeted as he saw a square of clearly new brick in the wall.
    "Ty.... Ty!” he yelled, running to the inset and touching the wall. The mortar was wet. He pulled out his knife and started prying at a brick with one hand and pushed it in. He heard it thump to the ground inside the little alcove, accompanied by the rattle of plastic. Then he dislodged another, and another.
    From inside there was a clank of chains and a soft groan.
    Zane frantically started pulling at the bricks, easily ignoring how they scraped and cut into his hands. The bricks reluctantly pulled loose; the mortar was closer to setting than not. When he had a rough opening, Zane leaned over with the lighter.
    "Ty?” he rasped, pulse pounding with adrenaline.
    Ty was strapped to the wall of the tiny alcove, his hands stretched out to the sides and above his head, blood running down them and clotting at his wrists. His feet were spread shoulder-width apart, shackled to the wall so that he couldn't even kick out, and a rope around his chest kept him from sagging forward. Everywhere the restraints touched him, there was blood. His head was bowed, his chin resting on his chest, and his fingers hung limply from his shackled hands. He didn't move, but a small groan told Zane that he was still alive. Barely.
    Glancing around inside the alcove, Zane saw the plastic and the bucket of mortar. He cursed under his breath before seeing the candle and a rusted set of iron keys. “That son of a bitch,” he breathed. Leaning over the bricks, he reached to light the candle so he could pocket the lighter and start digging at the bricks again. The drugs filtering through his system built up his manic concern, and he worked feverishly, heedless of the pain or his ever-increasing heart rate and lightheadedness. Once the hole was big enough that he could get a leg in and duck under, he did so, which put him right up against his partner. There wasn't much room. There wouldn't have