Resist

41

Essie'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.

"Jack's not going to be here," I told Will. "Xavier would never keep him in one of these nice rooms."

"I know Essie 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," Andre 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?" Will 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 Jack, I don't think it will be here. We should see what's below us," I suggested. I could see Andre in my peripheral vision nodding.

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

"Jack'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. Will 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," Andre said, shouldering up beside Will 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.

"Essie, it's pointless," Will 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 Jack 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.

Tucker'S POV

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

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

I breathed a sigh of relief, Jack'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 cheekbone 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.

"Tucker, we have to get that manacle off," Bower told me as Leighton arrived too, having heard Bower's shout.

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

"Sounds good," Bower answered, backing away to give me room to swing the weapon. I lifted it behind my head and then brought it down on a series of chain links between the wall and Jack on the floor, smashing them against the stone. The one that had taken the bulk of the blow broke, cracking on one side but not creating a gap wide enough to unlink the chain through. I brought down the ax again, aiming for the same one. I hit it, also putting a sizable dent in the floor, and it burst into two pieces, both sides of the now severed chain jumping back from the force with a rattle; Jack was free.