Free Forgotten by Kailin Gow

you to know that I love you, though, and I’m not giving up on you.” He looks down at the ruins of the handcuffs. “I think it’s pretty obvious we have far too much chemistry for that. I’ll see you once we get out of here.”
                I shake my head. “I’m coming with you. Johnny knows me better than you, and I’ve spent more time in this place. You’ll need my help if you’re going to get him out, Jack. You know that you will.”
                Jack looks like he wants to argue about that, but I cut him off before he can.
                “Where would you prefer I was?” I ask. “Out there somewhere with Grayson, or right by your side helping you?”
                Jack pauses, but it’s obvious that he knows I’m right. After several seconds of hesitation he nods.
                “I shouldn’t do this,” he says. “The priority is your safety.”
                “Ignore the priorities,” I say. “Let’s concentrate on what’s right. Do you want to leave a little boy able to see the future with a father who’s so determined to stop him doing it he wants to fade his memory?”
                Jack shakes his head.
                “Then come on,” I say, and step out of the room.

TEN
     
     
     
     
    W e leave the room where Senator Hammond has been holding us and head out through the hallway outside. There are rooms on either side, all with the kind of sliding security doors on the cells. Those don’t appear to have locks, just buttons to open them. I guess Senator Hammond isn’t too worried about people being let out, and I know from having spent the night in one of them that there aren’t any controls on the inside.
                Jack presses one of the buttons and a door opens. We don’t step inside, because after the way Grayson got trapped with us it doesn’t seem like a good idea, but we do glance around. It’s another apartment, similar to the one that they’ve been keeping me in. It’s large, well furnished, and empty. Is it intended purely as a comfortable prison? It seems unlikely that anyone would go to that much trouble. So maybe there is a way to get the doors open without help, and this is just a place for Hammond’s employees to stay.
                That seems to make more sense, especially once Jack starts opening more doors. There are more apartments behind each one, and they’re mostly empty. A whole block of empty apartments. The one time we do run into someone, it’s the woman who brought food for me and Grayson. Jack spins her to the ground and clamps a hand over her mouth, extracting a zip tie from inside his jacket and using it to tie her hands.
                “Now,” he says, “I’m not planning on hurting you, but I need to know where Senator Hammond and his son Johnny are.”
                “Why?” she asks. “What are you going to do to them?”
                “We’re not going to do anything,” I say. “We’re trying to help Johnny, here.”
                “He’s such a sweet boy,” the woman says. She swallows. “The senator will be angry I spoke to you.”
                “You don’t have much of a choice,” Jack points out, in a cold voice that I know he’s putting on deliberately to scare her. At least, I hope he is.
                “Please,” I say, partly because I’ve watched too many cop shows, and I know how the good cop bad cop thing goes, but mostly because it seems like the right thing to say. The woman looks over at me.
                “They’ll be on the top floor. The senator keeps an apartment in the penthouse, and Johnny’s always nearby.”
                “Thank you,” Jack says, and then gags her with a length of duct tape also taken from inside his jacket, leaving her there as we go. I know it’s probably the best thing, because we don’t