Page 45

Chapter 45

?Joe

Joe tries to ignore the alarm blaring around him. He tells himself to focus, to stay alert. In his hand is a mop, its head ripped off, the only weapon he’s managed to find and fashion from the utility room beside the locked basement door.

He watches as the door slides open, bracing for whatever lies behind it to emerge.

When it’s fully open, he steps forward to peer in. Inside is only darkness. He pulls out his mobile phone and turns on the light.

The space beyond the door is cavernous, an empty white room. Nina is not there. Then as his light swings across the back wall, he sees another doorway leading deeper into the house.

Joe looks behind him to the stairs, unsure what to do, but a certainty hits him: no one is coming to rescue him, or Nina. He is the rescue mission, he alone, and if Nina is going to get out of here he will have to go in and get her.

He licks his lips, his phone in one hand, his weapon in the other, and steps into the darkness.