There was a new guard manning the gate, but Jeff must have given him the rundown on what was going on because he just swung it open when he saw them coming and offered a crisp salute as they passed.
Josh had learned his lesson this morning about not taking the same route twice if it could be avoided. When he hit the other side of the river, he cut through the park at a different angle to come out onto a different street then they had used earlier.
The street they traveled on ran closer to the river and Josh hoped that putting a few city blocks between them and where the gang seemed to be located, there would be fewer people to spot them. They made their way closer to the cross street that would take them to the building he had used earlier, where he had been able to spot Emily from the third floor. They stopped a block away to park the sled behind a dumpster in an alley.
“Josh, there’s a bunch of old cardboard and garbage in the dumpster. Let’s use some of that to cover the sled. Might make it a little less obvious in case someone walks by,” Cooper said as he was taking off his helmet.
“Good idea. You never know if someone will wander by. That’s the bad part about using the sleds. The engine noise is always going to draw some attention.”
The boys looked around to see if anyone was watching them while they quickly threw garbage over the sled. As satisfied as they could be that they hadn’t yet drawn any unwanted attention it was time to carry on. They could both feel that time was running short.
Making their way on foot Josh and Cooper kept their assault rifles tucked inside their jackets so that if they were spotted, they might be able to pass for locals. They kept their heads down with their winter hats pulled low but their eyes never stopped looking in every direction - waiting for the moment that they would run into any of the people who called downtown home.
By the time they reached the building Josh had used earlier to spot Emily, his stomach was rolling with nausea at the tension of just getting there. He could only imagine how much worse it would be once he started to move into the populated areas. They climbed to the third floor and took up position near the glass wall he had used earlier. With the sun up now, he wasn’t worried about being spotted through the glass because of the glare on the outside. They both pulled out the binoculars they had brought with them and started to scan the street below. Josh didn’t really expect to see Emily out in the open but he wanted to get a good look at how the people down there were moving around to help him blend in once he headed in.
A choked gasp from Cooper had Josh jerking is binoculars in the direction that Cooper pointed to. “What? What did you see?”
“Some guy just fell off of the tower!” he said in shock.
Josh groaned. “Oh my God. If they’re using the tower as their base then maybe throwing them off of it is how they get rid of anyone they don’t like but I don’t know how they could do that. I’ve been to the tower twice. Once with my parents and then once on the class trip. There’s no balconies up there so how would they do that?”
“Maybe they made a moon door.” Cooper guessed and then explained when Josh just sent him a blank look. “You know, Game of Thrones? The Eyrie?” When Josh still just shrugged in confusion. Cooper looked back to the tower as he told Josh about the show. “In the show, the Eyrie is this castle way up high on a mountain and in the middle of the great hall, there was an opening in the floor. The crazy family who lives there would throw any of the people they didn’t like through the floor to fall hundreds of feet to their deaths.”
Josh turned away to focus his binoculars back on the tower with a “huh” sound.
“Sounds cool in theory but I wouldn’t want to be up there when it’s thirty below zero with a great big hole in the floor. I wonder…holy crap there goes another one! Wait a minute, this guy isn’t falling. He’s kind of, I don’t know… gliding through the air?”
Cooper was studying the guy through his binoculars but he couldn’t make out what was keeping the guy in the air, sliding at an angle. It took a minute but then it came to him.
“That’s it! He’s sliding! It’s a zip line! They’re using the hole not only to throw their enemies out of but also to get down to the ground faster. That’s actually kind of cool if you think about…Wait, someone else just…looks like a girl this time….Josh… Josh! Is that Emily?”
Josh was frozen in terror as he saw one of his best friends dangling by one arm from what he hoped was a strong wire. He could see her free arm and legs flailing around as she slid through the air towards the man that had come before her on the line. Both he and Cooper held their breath as they watched Emily collide with the man ahead of her on the line. As the man she had attached herself to started to thrash and buck his body, Cooper started chanting under his breath.
“Hold, hold, hold, hold!”
Every part of Josh’s body was clenched in tension as he waited for the moment that his friend would lose her grip and drop through the air to the ground. When all of the sudden the man she was attached to went limp he realized she would make it to the end of the line. He tracked his binoculars to where he thought she would land and it looked like the roof of a parking garage. He shook his head in disbelief when he realized it was the same parking garage he saw her go into earlier.
“I can’t believe she just did that!” Cooper exclaimed in amazement.
Josh shook his head in disbelief when he saw her land safely against a large snow bank.
“So, Alex says – ‘I escaped from a biker gang while tied to hooks on a wall. Beat that!’ Then Emily says ‘Hold my beer’ and jumps off a tower.”
Even though this was incredibly serious, Cooper choked out a laugh at Josh’s words but then he saw another person drop out of the tower onto the line so started to yell through the glass.
“Get up, Emily! Get up!”
When they watched their friend roll over Josh heaved out of breath of tension.
“She’s got this. She sees him.”
He watched Emily push herself to her feet and rush back to the man that she had ridden the line down on before turning, with a rifle in her hands, to stagger across the roof to an exit door.
When she disappeared through the door Cooper asked, “What do we do? Do we try and get down there to help her?”
Josh kept his binoculars trained on the opening of the parking garage. He wanted to charge down to the ground and start shooting a path for her but forced himself to be patient.
“Wait, just wait. We’d never make it over there before she’s either captured again or escapes. We need to see which way she goes next before we make our move.”
Seconds later, her blond hair streaming behind her, Emily rocketed out of the parking garage and headed east on the street.
Both Cooper and Josh dropped the binoculars around their necks to hang from the leather straps and spun to run down the escalators and back to the sled. They both realized that Emily was going to go back to where they were ambushed as it was the only way she knew how to get to the zoo.
Cooper’s longer legs outpaced Josh once they were out of the building and onto the street so by the time Josh caught up to him at the sled, Cooper had already pulled all the debris off of it and was just firing it up.
“Get on!” he yelled at Josh.
Neither one of them wasted any time putting on their helmets. Having their ears exposed would also help them to hear where Emily was headed if she turned off somewhere. They didn’t even try to conceal their presence or try taking the longer route they had earlier to get to the building. Cooper just drove the sled back down the street they had traveled earlier to track Emily and poured on the gas. Intersections were still blocked off like earlier but there were no people anywhere to be seen on the street as they flew towards where they were ambushed. As soon as they hit the intersection that was blocked by the dumpsters that had cut them off earlier, Cooper slammed on the brakes with a spray of snow and Josh jumped from the sled screaming Emily’s name.
He barely heard her when
she called out “Here.” Cooper jumped off the sled right behind him and they both put their shoulders to one of the dumpsters blocking the way to create an opening. As soon as they saw it was wide enough for a sled to fit through, Josh dashed towards Emily who was standing on the other side. He was completely shocked when his brave, crazy friend dissolved into his arms in tears.
He met Cooper’s eyes over Emily’s head with a worried glance and then nodded his head towards the street.
“Go take a quick look and see if anyone is headed this way. We need to know if we have to set up a firing line or if we have time to disappear.”
With one last worried glanced at Emily, Cooper ran past them a few steps to clear the building so he could see further down the road. With his assault rifle up and ready he stumbled to a stop in confusion. Expecting a mob of people or at least a vehicle or two giving chase he was completely surprised when all he could see were a few men heading in his direction, at least five blocks away. Raising his eyes to the sky and sending a quick prayer of thanks, he spun on his heel and dashed back to Josh and Emily.
“Get her on that sled, man and help me. I’m going to drive her through and then we’re going to close the gap again. If we’re fast enough, we can be out of here before they even know which direction we went.”
Josh nodded in agreement and had to practically drag Emily over to the sled he and Cooper had been using. When she clung to him, he had to give her a small shake to get her attention.
“Emily, Em, I need you to let go now! I promise we’re going to get you out of here but I need to help Cooper so no one can follow us.”
His words seemed to penetrate the fog of terror that was surrounding her and with a jagged breath she nodded her head and dropped her arms from around him.
“Sorry, I’m sorry. Go, go help him!”
Emily had left her sled idling so it only took Cooper seconds to hop on and drive it through the gap between the dumpsters. Josh used all his strength to give a mighty heave and slam it back into place, closing off this street, before running back to his sled and jumping on in front of Emily.
“Hold on, girl! We’re going to drive like a bat out of hell!”
Emily didn’t reply, she just tucked her head down against his back to protect her face from the wind. Josh and Cooper drove back through the park towards the river, both of them amazed at what had just happened.
When they pulled up to the gate to the zoo Matthew was waiting on the other side with an almost comical, surprised expression on his face. He just kept shaking his head in disbelief as first Josh with Emily, then Cooper, drove through. He turned to scan the river expecting to see the hordes of gang members racing towards them but there was nothing.
He turned to Hank, whose shift it was to guard the gate. “Pay close attention to that river. There’s no way they went in there and got that girl out without being followed. I’m going to go and call up a few more men to stand watch here with you.” At Hank’s worried nod, Matthew took one more look at the river before turning and jogging up the path that would take him to the garage.
Chapter Thirteen
When Josh and Cooper pulled into the garage Dara and Lisa were waiting for them.
Lisa had woken up from a solid nights’ sleep feeling much better and insisted on going to the garage to wait for her friends. When she had got there and found out that Emily had been captured, she almost lost her mind with the guilt of not being with them when they went on their mission. She and Dara had just begun formulating contingency plans on what to do to find Emily if Josh failed when they heard the sounds of the sleds’ engines. They raced to the overhead door to roll it up and then just stood there in shock as the boys drove in with Emily on the back of Josh’s sled. According to Dara’s watch they had only been gone for less than thirty minutes so this had to have set a record for the fastest rescue yet.
As soon as the sleds were shut off Lisa and Dara raced to Emily’s side and pulled her from the seat to embrace her tightly in relief. When they finally broke apart and took a good look at Emily’s face, Lisa panicked at the amount of blood covering it. She had blood spray all over her forehead and cheeks and her chin was a solid red mess of it.
“Oh my God, Emily! Your face. What did they do to you?”
Emily shook her head in confusion and reached up a hand to wipe at her face and saw it come away covered in sticky blood. She stared at her bloody hand with a blank expression.
“Oh, it’s not all mine. I hit really hard when I landed and bit my lip but the rest is Evan’s.”
“Evan?” asked Dara. “Who’s Evan?”
When Emily just looked down at her feet Dara let it go, relieved that her friend was back with them safely so she turned to Josh with a huge grin on her face.
“Babe, I know you’re good or I wouldn’t be with you, but seriously, how did you rescue her so fast?”
Josh threw up his hands with an amused exasperated look. “I didn’t! She rescued herself! All Cooper and I did was move a dumpster.”
Dara turned back to Emily with a delighted expression on her face. “Of course she did! She doesn’t need a man to rescue her. She’s a badass all on her own!”
When Emily didn’t reply and just continued to hold on to Lisa, Josh answered for her.
“Yeah, a crazy badass. As in, I’m going to jump out of a perfectly good tower hundreds of feet in the air, insane badass!”
Emily shot him a shocked look as the girls gasped.
“How do you know that?”
Josh squinted his eyes at her as if he was scolding her. “Well, if you had given me a few minutes, I was all set to go undercover and do mission impossible to come get you out of there. Cooper and I were getting the lay of the land up in a building when who do we see jumping out of the Calgary Tower but the damsel-in-distress herself.” When tears welled up in Emily’s eyes again, he held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa there, Em. It’s all good. You did good! Cooper and I were up in a building scanning all around the tower with binoculars looking for you. We saw the whole thing. We weren’t close enough to help you but when we saw you rip out of that parking garage on your sled, we triple-timed it back to ours to meet up with you. I gotta tell you Em, after what I saw you do, I kind of feel like I have to hand in my man card. There’s no way I’ll ever live up to a set of cojones like yours.
Emily’s face crumpled in misery. “I didn’t have any choice! It was the only thing I could do to get away. They’ve got women locked up in a pen for sex slaves and I knew that’s what I would be facing. I decided I’d rather be dead than endure that. The scumbag in charge said if we left him the sleds he would let us go, but I didn’t believe him for a second. I mean, he had a girl my age wearing a collar and chained to a pole! I swear to God guys when I slid across the floor towards the opening I never expected to actually survive. It wasn’t so much brave as I just couldn’t stay there. And then, when I realized that I was on the line and I wasn’t going to fall to my death I knew I had no choice but to kill Evan or he would just take me right back up there again. After that it just kind of blurs together. When I found that I was in the same garage that I had left the sled in, I had to shoot the guy who was guarding it and then I just drove back to their gate and sprayed everyone manning it. I made the ones still alive open it and then didn’t stop until I got to where they ambushed us. That’s where you found me.”
Matthew who had come in during the last bit of her story interrupted them. “I’m thankful that you’re safe and sound Emily, but what about the people who took you? Are they going to be coming at us now? Should we set up defenses along the river to fight them off?”
Emily looked past her friends to meet Matthew’s hard gaze. “As far as I can tell they have no clue we were ever here. The guy running things kept asking me what community we were from until I finally convinced him we’re not from the city at all. They saw what I had in the back of the trailer so they believed me when I told them that we had been traveling back and forth on the river
to different hospitals searching for medicine. Nobody said anything about the zoo. I kind of got the impression that they’re not that organized. It almost seems like it’s a few guys under the mayor’s command and then everybody else just does whatever the hell they want. I honestly can’t believe they didn’t come after me. He really wanted our sleds so maybe they don’t have any working vehicles.”
Cooper spoke up then. “I looked along your back trail and it was just some people on foot. You’re probably right that they don’t have any working vehicles or they would have used them to come after you.”
Matthew rubbed his chin while he considered that and then shook his head. “We haven’t seen any working vehicles at all until you guys showed up so it’s probable that they don’t have any. What I don’t understand is how they haven’t seen where you guys came in off the river multiple times though?”
Josh fielded that question. “Well, we were down there right close to them twice now and neither time did we see people anywhere except for on that one street that runs along where the tower is. And besides that, the river curves right at that island park. The one right before that big overpass that we went under. If they don’t have that many scouts, they wouldn’t be spread out enough to see where we went this far down the river. There’s a good chance they have no idea where we are right now. I think we should keep it that way.” When everyone looked at him questioningly, he explained. “I think we’re going to have to find a different route to get back to the hospital. The river made it super easy to get there and back but I think we’ve played that card one too many times and the next time we try we’ll end up busted. It’s better if they don’t even know we’re around anymore.”
STRANDED: Box Set: Books 1-6 Page 105
