Free Burn by Sarah Fine

tap—three quick, three slow, three quick. SOS. It’s just an impulse, a shot in the dark, but when your hands are cuffed behind you and you’re in a windowless room, even the most primitive means of communication are better than nothing.
    As I’m musing about this, tapping away, I realize that the sounds I’m hearing aren’t echoes of my own taps. I curl my fingers against my palm and close my eyes, focusing on the faint sounds. Quick-slow-quick-quick . . . quick . . . slow-slow-slow.
    L-E-O.
    I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he knows Morse code. Somewhere in this building, he’s heard my SOS. He taps out two quick, two slow, two quick. A question mark. He’s wondering who he’s talking to. I start to type out the first letter of my name . . . and then I wonder if I’m talking to Leo at all. I pause.
    I-T-S-M-E, he taps out. It’s me. I almost laugh. I tap out my name, and his response comes immediately: knew it.
    Where? I tap.
    Basement. Next to stairs.
    And then he taps out something that makes the breath whoosh from my lungs. With C.
    My fingers are unsteady as I tap hurt?
    No, comes his response. I hunch over in my chair, the relief heavy.
    My mom, I tap.
    Unknown, he replies.
    My relief is gone. H2? How many.
    Six. Suddenly his taps come so quickly I can barely make them out. Outside, he taps. Then it’s a jumble of noise and I lose the thread and all I can make out is the final words: more here. He’s maybe trying to tell me something or someone is approaching.
    I have to get out of here. I have to get them out of here.
    I scoot my chair back to the middle of the room. “Hey!” I call out. “Hey!” Each word hurts as my aching stomach muscles tighten.
    After a few moments, the door squeaks open, and Graham pokes his head in. “What?”
    “I need to use the facilities.”
    He stares at me. “Hold it.”
    “Seriously, dude? I’m not joking. Whatever you guys shot me up with is hell on my stomach. Oh, and I probably swallowed a lot of blood when you rearranged my face.”
    He rolls his eyes, then disappears for a second, but his fingers stay curled around the door. And I smile. He’s most likely been left alone to guard me, and he’s looking up and down the hall to see if anyone can help him figure out what the hell he’s supposed to do. He looks only a few years older than me. I’d bet good money he’s related to Congers, too. Maybe his son, because he was looking at Congers in a way that was all too familiar. He’s eager to prove himself and doesn’t want to mess up. Which means I can mess with him.
    “Please? I swear. I’m going to shit my pants if you don’t help me out.”
    From the hallway, there’s a sigh. Then Graham walks in briskly, pulling the handcuff key from his pocket. He unlocks my feet first, then quickly unlatches my cuffs—but re-cuffs my hands in front of me when I stand up. He pulls his gun and presses it into my back.
    “To the right,” he says in a clipped voice. “And, Tate, I can’t kill you, but there are at least five places I could shoot that are nonfatal but extremely painful. Please don’t fuck around.”
    My muscles go tight. He might be green, but he kind of reminds me of . . . me. “Got it.”
    I’m a very good prisoner as he escorts me down the hall to the bathroom. For the first several steps, I’m testing my balance, trying to rid my head of the wooziness that comes along with being pounded upside the skull. I’m not at my best, but I can do damage. And I’m going to have to if I want to get out of this. I use my next few seconds to assess my surroundings. Sprinkler system, stairwell six doors from the bathroom. Leo and Christina might be in one of the rooms between here and there. I look over my shoulder at Graham, noting a stairwell far behind him. “Eyes front,” he snaps.
    I comply. But now I know there are two points of exit. I wonder if they’re locked.
    And I wonder if Graham has the key.
    He keeps his weapon nestled