The Stranger Beside Me Read Online Free PDF

stabbed again and again. Small drops of blood ran down her hand and over the door.
    When the man’s body went slack she grabbed the keys attached to his waist. She jammed key after key into the locked door before finding one that fit. She had to push hard against the door to open it. The man had fallen, dead or unconscious against it.
    Jo kicked him aside and reached for his gun. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of Madison. She was backed into a corner her hands covering her mouth. The girl was tiny, barely over five feet tall. She had the body of a young girl, but her eyes told a different story. They had the look of a girl who’d seen more than her fair share of how ugly the world could be.
    Still, the way she cowered made Jo wince. The girl was afraid of her. Jo blinked, then looked down at her hands. For the second time in two days they were covered in someone else’s blood.
    She reached out to Madison.
    “Alison please, don’t hurt me. I only did what I had to to save myself- to survive, like you taught me.”
    “I-” Jo didn’t know what to say. ‘Like you taught me?’ She wondered what exactly their relationship had been. Was she Madison’s mentor? “I’m not going to hurt you… as long as you stop calling me Alison. My name’s Jo.”
    Madison looked genuinely surprised. “This is for real, isn’t it? You really don’t remember who you are.”
    Jo raised her hands and dropped them. “Haven’t you been paying attention? I’ve told you repeatedly: I don’t remember anything.”
    “Fine,” Madison said. “What now?”
    “I can’t let you go. You could tell them I’m free. You’ll have to come with me.”
    “Where?”
    “Now who’s the one with all the questions?” Jo said sarcastically. She didn’t wait for Madison to respond. “First, we find John. Then we get the hell out of here.”
    ~
    Jo held the gun low as she approached another bend in the hallway. They were in some sort of underground labyrinth of prison cells. Every room they passed was empty, except for one: it contained three men in black uniforms playing cards and smoking cigarettes.
    Jo and Madison managed to sneak by undetected.
    Jo was less than impressed with this operation. The security was lax; she’d overpowered a guard with little trouble, and apparently, no one had been to check up on her because no alarm had been sounded. She shook her head: it was amateur hour.
    If she’d been running things, she would have posted a guard outside her room, someone highly trained. She’d also have routine checks, an alarm in case of her escape, and multiple redundancies to make sure there were no errors.
    Jo paused.
    “What?” Madison whispered.
    Jo ran a hand through her wild hair and pulled it back in a knot. It was strange the way her personality was coming back to her. It felt like an alien entity, as if she had two people inside her head.
    She rubbed her temples. “Nothing. I’m beginning to think they’re keeping John
    somewhere else.”
    “There’s a few rooms left.”
    Jo nodded. She went from cell to cell. Each door was unlocked, and empty. She
    approached the last door and pulled on the handle: it didn’t budge. Jo took out the guard’s keys. She opened the door slowly.
    “John?” she whispered.
    “Oh! Please, please you have to help me.”
    An older man emerged from the dark. He had wild long gray hair and dark eyes. He wore a pair of broken glasses and a disheveled three piece suit.
    “Shh,” Jo said, “you have to keep it down. Who are you?”
    “Who am I? You don’t remember?”
    Jo felt like screaming. The last thing she wanted was to rehash the whole story again.
    “No. Do you know a way out of here?”
    “I think so, but only if you promise to take me with you. My name is Garrett, by the way.”
    He adjusted his crooked glasses nervously.
    “Come on,” Jo said, “and keep it down.”
    Garrett stepped out into the hallway and took off around a corner.
    “Slow down,” Madison