The chains rattled when I shifted, their metallic bite numbing my wrists. My arms ached, my skin rubbed raw where iron kissed flesh. Hours had blurred into something unrecognizable, time didn’t move here, it looped, suffocating.

And then something changed.

At first, it was faint. A vibration under the floor, like the building itself had taken a breath. Then footsteps. Not Jason’s. Too heavy. Too many.

Shouts cracked down the hallway, sharp, urgent. Gunfire followed, the muffled thuds ...