Page 112 of The Chain House

I can hear you, she thought. Emily’s voice through the wall. But was it real? Was any of this real?

“Beth …”

Her voice was different from her late twenties’ voice from decades ago, deeper, a bit rawer, but it was her.

She was alive.

“You’re alive, Beth. Get up. Get up and scream for help before he comes back.”

“Help!”

It came out louder this time, like some of the fog had been shaken off. “Help. My name is Beth Hawthorne!”

CHAPTER68

TREVOR AND LIZZIE followed the voice.

Too many voices cried for help at once, from every direction, but it was the voice that had just announced herself as Beth Hawthorne that they followed first, and with haste, ducking under and stepping over chains that ran across the hallways like tripwires and limbo poles, opening every door until they found her in one of the end rooms off the third-floor hallway.

She was wobbly on her feet, and bleeding from a head wound at her temple.

“Beth Hawthorne,” Trevor said, still gripping the baseball bat.

“Yes,” Beth said weakly. “And Emily … she’s alive … in the next room.”

CHAPTER69

SAM SAID, “THEY have her, Governor. Beth is safe. And your sister. She’s alive too.”

Governor Hawthorne collapsed to his knees, crying.

Another text came in from Sam’s father: The vehicles that left here, it looks like they’re less than a mile from the prison at Twisted Tree.

“Shit,” Sam said, showing the text to Jennifer, and then the governor, who’d made it to his feet again and now looked ready to tackle a heavyweight prize fight.

“We’ll see what the government’s response is,” said Hawthorne. “And how quickly it comes.” He stood with them at the window overlooking the execution, where Agent Givens was running across the yard, shouting toward Warden Wren, who turned toward the commotion. Governor Hawthorne checked his watch. “Thirty seconds.”

But it was only five seconds later before the first shot was fired.

Early.

CHAPTER70

TREVOR DIDN’T KNOW how much time they had before anyone might return, but he wasn’t leaving here without freeing every one of the prisoners.

To their relief, they found three keys hanging on hooks inside the spotless kitchen, and what had apparently made their captor’s life easier, having one universal key per floor, with several copies of each, made their job of freeing the prisoners that much faster, and one by one they unlocked the padlocks on the chains, starting with Beth and Emily Hawthorne and working their way down the hallway and down to the lower floors.

Those who could walk, walked. Those who couldn’t were helped.

Trevor thought, Who’s the Breaker of Chains now, big brother?

And then he wondered if Sal was still alive.

Midnight had passed thirty seconds ago.

He’d worry about that later. Now, he needed a way to get these people to freedom.

Trevor called their trucker friend Todd, who had promised to wait up next to the highway in his rig, and asked for one more favor.