Uncharted: The Fourth Labyrinth by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online Page B

their narrow corridor arrived at a pair of double metal doors with an exit sign glowing above them and a warning placard stating the door was for the use of staff only.
    Drake slammed through the door and found himself on a stairwell landing. Jada skidded to a halt beside him, looking first up and then down.
    “Which way?” she asked, her hazel eyes alight with fierce determination, her magenta bangs framing her face.
    “No way to tell,” Drake said. “And we’d be fools to try guessing. We’ve gotta get back to Sully and get out of here.”
    “What?” Jada snapped, turning on him. “Dr. Cheney’s our one lead, and he’s back there dying. If we catch this guy, we could make him tell us—”
    Drake shook his head. “We’re not gonna catch him. He’s got a head start, and we don’t know where he is or what he looks like. Whether he went up or down, by now he’s mixed in with employees or with visitors and is on his way out of this place. Best thing to do right now is get you the hell out of here.”
    Jada’s eyes narrowed. “You think I’m in danger?”
    “You were hiding out in a friend’s apartment because you thought you were in danger,” Drake reminded her. “It’s just that now I believe you.”
    “Nice,” Jada said. “Didn’t you used to be charming?”
    “Yeah. Strangely, I’m not in the mood today.”
    Jada’s flinty exterior gave way, and for a moment he saw the pain and vulnerability beneath.
    “Come on,” she said. “Let’s move.”

    She ran back down the sawdust-smelling corridor. Drake followed, wondering where it would all lead. He and Sully weren’t bodyguards or private detectives, and they sure as hell weren’t cops. This wasn’t a job for them, but Sully would never see it that way, and Drake had the feeling that he himself was already in too deep to walk away.
    Jada had left the door to the Minotaur’s alcove partway open, but when they went back through it, Drake closed it tightly and wiped the knobs on both sides, his mind racing ahead. The police would be there any minute, and then all their options would be taken away from them. Whatever happened after that would be decided by the detectives running the case.
    They ducked and went through the low-ceilinged passage, emerging just a few feet from where two security guards stood by Dr. Maynard Cheney’s body, one of them on his cell phone, reporting the crime, and the other just scratching his head in dismay.
    When Drake and Jada came in, the guards turned and one of them reached for the Taser at his side.
    “Whoa!” Drake said, putting his hands up. “We’re with them, pal.”
    The guards looked over to Sully and the graduate student, who sat against the wall a short way down the corridor.
    “It’s okay,” the woman said. “They were with me when I found him.”
    The guards ignored Drake and Jada after that. They looked quite shaken, and Drake thought they would be very relieved when the police arrived.
    He glanced over at the body. Dr. Cheney lay in the same position, still bleeding, flesh turning paler as the blood drained from him. The man’s chest had ceased to rise and fall. One glance at the graduate student’s red-rimmed eyes and her tears and the way Sully held her—self-conscious and awkward at the intimacy of her grief and the comfort he offered—and it was clear no ambulance would be needed. Not that Drake had needed confirmation. The moment he had seen the extent of Cheney’s wounds, he had known the man’s fate was sealed.
    “Uncle Vic,” Jada said softly, her eyes beginning to well up at the sight of the dead man. “We need to go.”

    Sully gave a shake of his head, cautioning them to be wary of what they said around the guards. He leaned in and spoke to the graduate student in gentle tones Drake rarely had heard from him.
    “Gretchen,” he said quietly, “tell them what you told me. And quickly, please. We don’t have a lot of time.”
    Apparently the graduate student had a name,