Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

Harry came to in complete blackness, his years of training registering everything immediately.

His hands and feet were bound. Silence, but for the ringing in his ears, and utter darkness.

A rank odour of burned metal and sulphur filled his nose.

Welding. Something had been welded.

He was in a room, perhaps. No noise from outside, no windows. He was on the floor. Cold, concrete. His head hurt, his teeth, his jaw, his right eye swollen. Not swollen shut, but the skin was tight and he knew his eyebrow was split, sticky with blood.

His skull hurt, headache throbbing, his whole mind heavy and dazed. Concussed, most likely.

When he tried to sit up, pain shot through him. Ribs, cracked at least. His kidneys had been pummelled, and his left shoulder was... yeah, something was definitely torn.

The stab wound at his side screamed as he moved. He sucked back a breath and his chest pulled agonisingly. Sharp and piercing .

Shit.

Punctured lung?

Broken ribs, then.

Not good.

Then he remembered the room when they'd first thrown him here, before they'd kicked and stomped his head and everything went dark. The room was small, a few metres squared, and empty of furniture. Fully concrete. There had been overhead lighting but it was off now.

Not even a buzz of electricity, of any kind, that usually rattled through bunkers like this.

Now, there was nothing, except the ringing in his ears.

His head hurt. Everything hurt.

Then he remembered fists and boots raining down on him while he was defenceless with his hands bound behind his back. Some teeth were loose. Back molars, which told him how hard he'd been hit. Explained why his jaw was sore.

Then Harry heard a gasping rattle and he jerked at the sound.

He wasn't alone in here.

"Who are you?" Harry asked, his voice deep, his eyes straining to adjust to the pitch dark.

A soft groan and another breathy rattle.

Whoever it was, was not in good shape.

Fear struck him cold, his pain now irrelevant.

"Asher?"

Another soft groan and Harry scooted toward the sound. In the corner, he could make out a figure lying on their side. Hands also tied behind their back, feet bound, just like Harry.

Harry scooted until he reached them. He knew it wasn't Asher. Too tall and his hair was too light—he could see even in the dark—but it was a man. Harry had a sinking realisation of who it was. He nudged him with his leg. "Hey," he tried again. "Lucas?"

Another raspy inhale.

Harry knew that sound. A punctured lung. Or two.

Harry knew the position the man was in, on his side, was the best position for breathing. He couldn't assess any other injuries, not in the dark like this. Was he unconscious? Was he dying? Near dead?

That breathy rattle didn't sound like he had much life left in him.

Harry nudged him again. "Lucas. It's me, Harry."

Another shaky breath. "Yunho," he mumbled.

"They have Asher too."

Lucas sobbed and wheezed on the inhale. "No, please. God, no," his English accent soft.

"I don't know where they are," Harry admitted. "They separated us. I think they welded the door shut."

Saying those words out loud... Harry knew what it meant.

They'd been left for dead.

No chance of escape. Left to die and rot like garbage. It wasn't the dark and cold that bothered Harry.

It was the silence.

He could no longer hear the voices, the yelling, the boots on the ground as soldier's walked the hall. He couldn't hear anything.

Except Lucas's raspy, too-shallow, too-quiet breaths.

Harry had no clue if Asher was in another room, beaten and bound, behind a welded-shut door. If he'd been taken somewhere else. Or if he was already dead .

He didn't know how long he'd been out of it. How much time had passed? What had he missed?

He couldn't believe it was going to end like this.

So fucking stupid.

It was all... pointless. What had they accomplished? What had they done but every single thing the bad guys had wanted them to?

They'd fucking walked into this, willingly.

Harry had known something was off with Asher. He was too resigned, too quick to agree. Harry had put it down to Yunho being kidnapped, to being back in Serbia, to where his fucked-up childhood began. He'd found out Daris, his oldest friend, had lied to him and sold him out, was part of some political faction that did all the shit Asher had spent his lifetime trying to forget.

And Asher had found out that Yunho was keeping secrets from him.

So Harry knew Asher wasn't thinking clearly. He knew Asher was scared. He'd never seen him so scared. But there was no way Harry was letting him walk in here alone. Absolutely no fucking way.

And if he could go back, Harry would do the same all over again.

At least that way Asher would know Harry would choose to be by his side, regardless of the outcome.

God, it was all such a mess. None of it made sense.

"What the fuck happened?"

Lucas's breath hitched, rasped. "Caught." More raspy breaths. "Taken."

"Yeah, I know you were taken," Harry said. He had to lean into his side, with the stab wound. And his sore ribs.

The pain was biting, making him sweat .

"What does Istomin want with Yunho? Or did he want Asher?"

More raspy breaths, faster now and getting shallower and more rattly. He didn't speak.

"Lucas," Harry snapped.

Lucas jolted. "Sorry." He lifted his face some, and Harry saw him better, then. Even in the dark, Harry could see the mess that was Lucas's pale and purple face.

Beaten, almost unrecognisable.

Both eyes swollen shut, cuts on his cheek and nose, split and swollen lips, blood drooling from his mouth.

Jesus Christ.

What had they done to him?

"Fuck, Lucas," Harry breathed.

He slumped back down, his head a muted wet thud on the ground. "I never told," he said, barely a grating breath. "Never said a thing."

Then he went silent, his shallow infrequent breaths the only proof that he was still alive.

He never told. Never said a thing.

Harry wasn't sure what that meant. Harry remembered that Lucas was supposedly an MI6 agent. Maybe it was true?

Maybe.

Harry wasn't getting anything else out of Lucas right now. He could try again later, if Lucas woke up again, that was.

It wasn't looking good.

Harry shuffled around and leaned his back against the wall, his legs outstretched near Lucas's head. The darkness, the exhaustion, the pain settled over him and he closed his eyes.

The unbearable grief of knowing he may never see Asher again lodged itself into Harry's heart, and as heartbreak overwhelmed him, silent tears escaped his eyes, and he allowed himself to cry.

The pain woke Harry. He had no clue how long he'd slept. No clue of the passage of time.

Without a window or a watch—in a dark underground room—there was simply no way of knowing.

Lucas was still breathing. His quiet raspy breaths were no better, but they were also no worse.

It took a long while for Harry's eyes to adjust again, for him to see there was nothing else in this room. No water, no food.

A human body could go seventy-two hours without water, right?

He had no idea how long it'd been already, and there was truly no point in starting to count from now.

It didn't matter.

Not anymore.

Not without Asher.

His mind grew dark, his eyelids heavy. Lucas's weak rasps were a lonely metronome. Harry couldn't believe it was going to end like this. He always thought he'd go out in a gun fight or a fist fight, on his feet, at least.

Then, in the last two years, he'd hoped he'd meet his end with Asher at his side, both of them old and grey.

It was a different kind of grief knowing that that wasn't likely now. And instead of being grateful for the last two perfect years with Asher, he mourned the next fifty years they'd robbed from him.

Maybe he deserved this .

Maybe they all did.

Another silent tear fell from his closed eyes. With his bound hands unable to wipe it away, he let them fall.

The next time Harry woke, it was with more clarity. His body still ached and it still hurt to breathe, but his mind was clearer now.

And he was pissed.

Pissed at himself for wasting precious minutes, wallowing in self-pity and unfounded grief.

The old Harry would have never allowed himself that.

Lucas's breaths remained the same, the death rattle persistent but no closer.

Harry had to do something. He had to try.

He still couldn't see much, the room impossibly dark, but his vision had adjusted. It probably helped that the blinding headache was now just a dull thump. He scooted over to the opposite wall, to the door. Mad at himself for not even trying to open it, certain the acrid smell of metal and sulphur had meant it had been welded shut.

And he was sure it had been... but he still had to try.

He pressed his back to the wall, and using his bound feet, he pushed himself up, his torn shoulder protesting loudly. He groaned out through gritted teeth at the pain and exertion, the stab wound in his side leaking fresh blood.

Fuck.

When he was finally upright, leaning his back against the wall, he took a few deep breaths, allowing his throbbing head to stop spinning.

He edged over until he felt the door jamb under his bound hands, fumbling over, searching for the door handle... to find only the hole where the handle should have been.

Goddammit.

Harry tried to ram his good shoulder into the door instead, pain reverberating through his whole body with each slam.

It didn't move a millimetre.

All it did was leave him panting, breathless.

Hurting.

"Wh-what was that?" Lucas asked weakly. He sounded confused.

"Just me," Harry replied. "Checking the door. Pretty sure it's welded shut."

"H-Harry? Harry, is that you?"

Could he not remember?

"Yeah."

"Is . . . Asher . . . here?" He asked, rasping back breaths between each word. "Yunho? Where's Yunho?"

Harry deflated. Any hope he'd briefly had before simply withered away.

"I don't know where they are," Harry admitted. "There's only silence outside. So it's pretty safe to assume we've been left for dead."

Why they didn't kill them both, Harry could only guess.

Maybe they'd be back for them. Maybe their torture wasn't over yet.

"There's no water," Harry said flatly.

Hell, if the door had been welded shut and fully sealed, they had limited oxygen too.

Fuck.

He hadn't even thought of that before now .

He shuffled to the other side of the door, feeling the jamb, trying to feel if a lick of air was coming in.

He couldn't feel anything.

Hopelessness etched around him instead.

He wanted to lash out and scream, and maybe pummel the shit out of something, but there was no point.

He pulled against his arm restraints. He wasn't even sure what they'd bound him with. Zip ties most likely. They felt thin and bit into his skin like a zip tie.

He tried straining his wrists apart, his torn shoulder screaming with pain with the effort. But because of the size of his wrists and his arms, Harry imagined it'd have taken zip-tie cuffs and a third zip-tie chain-linked between them.

It was ridiculous how effective those cheap plastic things were.

Harry hated that he was subdued by something so simple.

Normally he wouldn't have been subdued so easily. If his shoulder wasn't so pained. If he hadn't been stabbed in the side. If his ribs weren't broken, and if it didn't hurt to breathe, or think.

Fuck.

He hated being so pitiful.

The old Harry wouldn't be so fucking useless...

"You know what?" Harry grumbled to himself.

"Huh?" Lucas croaked.

"I am the old Harry," Harry said. "I'm not useless. And I refuse to fucking die with my hands behind my back."

Then, with a strength Harry didn't even know he had, he strained to pull his hands apart. Pain ripped through his shoulder, his ribs, the stab wound at his side. His jaw and teeth hurt from clenching with the strain. Starbursts shot behind his eyes .

He roared through the pain, through this one final attempt.

Until one of the zip ties gave way, snapping free.

His hands fell forward, muscles spent. He had to cradle his left arm because his shoulder... Jesus. His fucking shoulder burned with pain. The shoulder joint, the muscles across his chest and down his arm and back.

But he got his hands free.

The zip ties around his wrists were pulled so tight, cutting into the skin, he couldn't even get a fingernail underneath them.

"Harry?" Lucas rasped.

"Yeah," he panted. "Just got my hands free."

Then he quickly sat down, feeling around for the broken zip tie. Once he found it, he set about using the tip to unlock the ties around his ankles. He only needed to do one...

And presto!

His feet were free.

Harry scrambled over to Lucas and, using the same technique, freed his hands.

Lucas groaned, each breath an effort, as he struggled to bring his arm underneath him. He could barely lift himself up enough, his lungs rattling, and he lay back down, panting as if he'd run a marathon.

"Thank you," he wheezed.

Harry set about untying Lucas's feet. He was barefoot, Harry realised, though his feet were tacky, sticky, and Harry looked at his fingers. It was too dark to really see, but Harry knew it was blood.

Christ.

"What did they do to you?" Harry hadn't meant to say those words out loud .

Lucas only answered with ragged breaths.

Harry shook his head, frustrated and helpless. But he could stand now, and figuring Lucas had probably lapsed back into unconsciousness, Harry went back to the door.

He couldn't feel any cool air around the door jamb. The door handle was gone. There was no light switch, no window. He looked up, squinting at the ceiling for an air vent or ducting.

They were basically locked underground in a dark sealed box.

Just fucking great.

The wet pang at his side reminded him sharply that he'd been stabbed.

With any luck, he'd bleed to death before he died of dehydration or suffocation.

Heavy weariness settled over him once again. Every ache burned, every pain receptor buzzed. He went back to the wall by Lucas, and slid down, his back resting against it.

His thoughts turned to Asher. How he'd sit on the back veranda of their house with Mala, how he'd smile with the forest behind him. The sound of his laughter, how he'd let fly with a string of Croatian curse words at Harry when he was mad. How he'd pout and complain about putting on a few kilos and Harry had kissed him, telling him he'd never been sexier.

How he'd cried at the ruined buildings of his terrible past just this morning—was it this morning? Yesterday? Last week? Harry wasn't sure. But Harry was glad he'd been there with him, to hold him, to tell him he was loved.

And if this was their end, then Harry was glad Asher got to let go of that demon before he died.

Harry was just pissed he hadn't had the chance to kill that asshole who'd done god knows what to Asher as a boy.

Harry wanted to break every bone in that man's body, peel his skin like a fucking grape, and squeeze his head so hard, with pure rage, that it popped.

Lucas groaned on the floor beside him, coming in and out of consciousness.

"Hey," Harry said loudly. He wasn't going to ask this before. Lucas had clearly been through enough. But now Harry needed to know. If they were about to die, then Harry wanted to know. He wanted to know for Asher. "Hey," he said again, giving Lucas a nudge. "It's me, Harry."

"Mm," he mumbled.

"Answer me, yes or no. You working for MI6?"

Lucas's breaths grated in and out of him, slow and painful. Harry thought for a moment that Lucas was out of it again and maybe he hadn't even heard the question.

But then he answered.

"Yes."