In the middle of the night, Seth woke up and found himself hugging Sasha tightly—her back turned to him. He stifled a yawn and carefully removed his arm—quietly getting out of bed to head to the bathroom and pee. It still felt surreal that they'd been in captive for nearly 48 hours—a part of him wanted to device a plan and escape, but he wasn't so sure how in the hell he was going to do that. After flushing the toilet and washing his hands, he stepped out and was puzzled to find a piece of paper on the floor near the stack of empty trays and dishes a few inches away from the door. Seth stared at it for a few seconds. Had it always been there? Or was it slipped through their door while they were sleeping? Picking it up and turning it around, he read the note written in scratchy handwriting.
"You need to get out of here. He's going to kill us all."
Feeling his heart drop to the pit of his stomach, Seth read the note three more times before wondering who had sent it. He rushed towards Sasha and gently woke her. "Sash, you need to wake up."
Groggy, she squinted her eyes and looked at him. "Huh?"
"We need to get out of here fast."
"Huh? But how? What's happening?"
Hesitating whether or not he should show her the note and scare her all the more, he decided to hand it to her and just manage it. She read it carefully, seconds passing before she started breathing heavily—a panic attack hitting her hard. "We'll be fine," Seth enveloped her in his arms and rubbed her back up and down. "That is not going to happen," he assured—referring to what was written. "I'm not going to let it happen."
"How are we getting out of here?" Sasha asked him through tears, wiping them away quickly as she tried her best to give a brave front.
"There's got to be some way," Seth looked around the room. The windows were barred with steel and screwed tightly by bolts, but maybe he could find a way to break through it? Or maybe just maybe they could device a plan and escape through the door—but that sounded even riskier. Either way, both options were huge risks and from the looks of it, they needed to pick one. Fast.
"Let's search the room. There's got to be something in here that can help us."
Sasha nodded and helped Seth—opening the closets to inspect it, before moving to the bathroom and opening all the cabinets. "Seth!" she called out, pulling out a bottle from one of the cabinets under the sink. "I found muriatic acid for the toilet."
"Nice," Seth took the large bottle from her and studied it. "I don't think this will melt the steel, but it might be able to make it rust after a few hours. And if it rusts—"
"You and I can Crossfit the shit out of it?" Sasha suggested, feeling a bit of hope as a small smile formed on her face.
"That's my girl," Seth winked and grinned at her.
Pouring a bit of the acid all over the bolts and the metal steel, and then soaking one of the shirts in the closet, Seth wrapped the shirt around the bars and bolts alternately.
"What happens now?" Sasha asked.
"I guess we'll just have to wait," Seth shrugged, taking Sasha's hand and giving it a squeeze.
At seven in the morning, Bayley received a text message from Hunter. "Chief of police wants to meet us at 8am."
She jerked up immediately from her hotel bed in Brooklyn and dashed towards the bathroom to take a shower and change.
At exactly 7:45am, she arrived at the station and found Hunter, Vince, and Stephanie already seated in a hallway and waiting to meet the chief. "Are there any leads?" she asked hopefully.
"Let's hear it from the chief himself," Hunter tried to smile at her reassuringly as they entered his office.
"I've got good news and I've got some bad news," the chief started, gesturing for the four of them to take a seat.
"Let's start with the latter," Vince McMahon said in a serious tone, his wrinkles more protruded than usual.
"We found Seth's watch on the bottom of the Susquehanna River. From the looks of it, it may have been snatched away from his wrist."
"What?" Bayley was the first to react, her heart pounding hard against her chest, she was sure everyone in the room could hear it.
"We searched the whole vicinity but there was no sign of them. But the good news is that this narrows down our search to nearby cities in Maryland and Pennsylvania. We've already started going door-to-door, interviewing passersby, and trying to track down where the watch could have come from."
"Wait a minute—how did these people know that we were using Seth's watch to try and track them down?" Bayley stood up. "Just yesterday, that watch was our hope in trying to find them, and all of a sudden, you're telling me that it was found on the bottom of a river. It doesn't make sense to me."
The chief sighed. "We have reason to believe that someone may have tipped them."
"Who?!" Bayley bellowed.
"Bayley," Stephanie stood up, comforting the young woman, and placing an arm around her.
"That's a separate case we need to investigate."
"If you have a mole in your team, then what are the chances that we are ever going to find them?" Bayley seethed.
"Bayley, you need to calm down," Vince McMahon stepped in. "With all due respect," he addressed the chief of police, "She makes a valid point. How can it be guaranteed that we'll find both superstars when we have a double agent lurking around?"
"I trust my men with my life," the chief stood tall while telling them earnestly. "I can assure you that none of them would pull something like this off."
Bayley fought back her tears as she hugged Stephanie.
"We're doing everything we can to speed up the search. None of us will stop until we find them," the chief continued.
Bayley quietly nodded and excused herself from the room.
Right before breakfast was served, Seth made sure he had removed and hid the shirt wrapped around the steel bars of the windows, and returned the bottle of muriatic acid under the sink. Sasha covered up the stench by spraying the Lysol she found inside another cabinet in the bathroom. A smirk formed on Seth's face when he noticed small patches of rust building up on the bolts and bars—it was working. Their idea was actually working. Another round or two, and maybe it could weaken the steel even more. And so they did the same thing before and after lunch—soaking the steel in acid and covering up the stench with Lysol. Right after dinner was served, Seth did a final round of soaking—ultimately finishing the bottle.
Taking a new cotton shirt from the closet, Seth ripped it in half and created a makeshift rope to tie it around the bars. "Ready?" he asked Sasha, as both of them held on to it.
"Ready," she nodded and took a deep breath, the thrill of escaping making her anxious.
They pulled and they pulled until slowly, the rust on the bars began to deteriorate. It wasn't instantaneous but with their combined strength, the bars moved around. It was the hardest workout they ever had to do—worse than the torture sessions they went through with their Crossfit coach, Josh Gallegos. After a while of pulling and tugging, Seth grabbed the steel forks and started using them like knives to help loosen the bolts and cut through the bars better. It was a slow and excruciating process, it almost made them want to stop and give up. When the blisters started forming on both their hands, Sasha prayed that they were close to finally breaking it. A few more hard tugs using the shirt with Sasha's blisters popping and bleeding, the bars bent all the way in, before finally breaking off from the middle.
"Okay, I think I can take it from here," Seth gestured for Sasha to step back. Wrapping his palms with a ripped part of the shirt, Seth used all of his strength left to bend each bar open one by one.
"Holy shit, it worked. It actually worked," Sasha stared at the window in disbelief. Unlocking it, they studied how high the second floor was, making sure the sharp edges of the broken bars were open and safe enough that both of them could fit right through. Taking both their bedsheets and flat sheets, they created a makeshift rope and threw it out of the window.
"I'll go first, then follow my lead," Seth instructed quietly, testing the strength of the sheets by tugging them hard before starting to climb down the window. Sasha followed him shortly, imagining just another Crossfit session with him. As soon as both her feet hit the ground, she felt Seth suddenly grab her and wrap his arms tightly around her, before taking her hand and leading them silently towards the long stretch out of Abbott's property, not knowing that a pair of eyes had been watching them from the first floor the entire time.
A/N: Please send me your reviews! Your thoughts and suggestions have been so helpful in pushing me to continue writing this story.
