Wings

Chapter 42: Locked In

**No edit this chapter, I'm sorry! I ran out of time to make one because I edited this in the morning and we are leaving for a hike in about two minutes (the joys of camping and trying to keep your fanfic updated haha)**

KARI'S POV

The bedrooms in the hallway where we had entered all seemed to be vacant, dust covering the furniture and no personal items adorning the surfaces of the luxurious furniture. The beds were crisply made with near military corners, never slept in by the looks of it.

Room after room we opened, swept through, came up empty handed, and left.

"Harry's not going to be here," I told Louis. "Strazier would never keep him in one of these nice rooms."

"I know Kari but it can't hurt to check seeing as we have to wait to leave with the others anyways."

"But these rooms are so untouched," Andy noted. "Any disturbances in this hall will raise alarms. I feel like no one comes here." He had a very valid point.

"So what do you suggest?" Louis asked, stopping and turning on his heel to look at us as we trailed him down the hall.

"As much as I want to find Harry, I don't think it will be here. We should see what's below us," I suggested. I could see Andy in my peripheral vision nodding.

"I think that seems logical," Louis agreed as well. "Ness?" he asked, "Does that seem good to you?"

"Harry's not going to be here," she agreed.

And with that, we skipped the rest of the doors and went to the end of the hall. There, another door stood that we hoped lead out of this wing. It was darker wood than the others with heavy metal hinges on it. Louis reached for the knob and turned. The door did not open.

"No..." He said, not wanting to believe it. He tried again but the door was not moving.

"Let me," Andy said, shouldering up beside Louis and yanking on the knob. He then used his weight against it, pulling with all his might; it did not budge.

"We are not locked in," I said, "No no no no no." I moved between the two boys, grabbing the doorknob and pulling, then pushing, and twisting, and trying anything I could think of.

"Kari, it's pointless," Louis told me as I threw my full weight against it. "We're locked in, that's why these rooms are so untouched, no one can get in here."

"But we need to search below here and find Harry and meet up with the others and all get out safely," I rambled, bowing my head and resting my forehead against the door in defeat.

"Well, I have a plan forming but I don't know if you guys will like it..." Nessa began. Despite her uncertainty, she still had my full attention.

LIAM'S POV

"He's not...?" Stan asked as he came up behind me, looking down at the still Harry.

"No, thank God," Ed told him. "I checked his pulse."

I breathed a sigh of relief, Harry's appearance having made me assume the worst. His face was bruised but fading now, a line of purple down his jaw remnants of the day he'd been taken. A cut lay across his cheebone too, his face overall just completely battered. His shirt was torn, his torso almost bare it was in such shreds as he lay upon his back. His wrist was bleeding beneath the manacle as the earlier dead man's had been, having pulled mercilessly upon it for hours in an attempt to break free.

"Liam, we have to get that manacle off," Ed told me as Olly arrived too, having heard Ed's shout.

"Just break the chain?" I asked, already removing my ax from my belt, "and then worry about the actual manacle later?"