by Amey Zeigler
Andy placed her hands on the cool glass. It hummed gently under her touch. Colored fish swam by, flashing a tail, darting in and out.
Some part of her wanted to shake the stand, knock over the fish, to let them flounder as their gills fill with oxygen, to be shaken up, spilled out and gasping. Like her.
She sank to the floor, burying her head in her hands. Then she spotted something.
A small corner of a piece of paper.
“What’s this?”
Her finger pinched it to the carpet and pulled it free. A sticky note.
She read the sticky, memorizing it, and tucked it in her bodice.
Flashlights beamed around her. She ducked behind the tank.
“Who’s there?” someone called behind her.
Security detail.
Without comms, Tyler warned her not to leave, but she couldn’t stay either. As silently as she could in her ruffled dress, she hurried through the doorway after Tyler.
“There!” Another security agent called behind her.
Andy’s heart lunged. Caught. She raced through another room filled with desks and computers to another doorway at the other end. She had no idea where Tyler had gone and no way to connect with him. There was no way she could take two armed security herself.
She ran into another room, but the locked door at the end stopped her. Frantically, she searched for another exit through another hallway, her hair slipping from the millions of bobby pins, blocking her sight. She tucked back some strands spying another doorway to her left. Footsteps sounded closer.
In a second, she darted through the doorway and realized it was the stairwell again. Once through the doorway, someone grabbed her from behind, hand over her mouth, pinning one hand behind her. He was strong, and he got the drop on her. She was only disoriented a split second until reflexes kicked in.
She chucked her elbow with all her anger and might into the assailant’s gut. An “oof” escaped his mouth, but it didn’t loosen the grip on her hand. She bit a finger over her mouth and stomped on his instep. Grabbing her attacker’s hand, she twisted herself around and faced…Tyler.
“It’s me, Andy,” he said. “I have something to tell you.”
“No time. We gotta run. Security.”
Andy hit the stairs in a run, spiraling downstairs. Tyler followed her, their foot falls echoing on the walls. Their pursuers climbing after them. Andy just had to focus on her feet going downstairs, one misstep could be dangerous at the speeds they flew.
Her calves burned. Sweat pooled under her armpits, her hair lay completely limp and hanging on her bare shoulders from the humidity in the non-ventilated stuffy stairwell.
Chilled air greeted them at the bottom. She and Tyler both hit a door at the same time opening it to another blast of cool but foul-smelling air. A few florescent light bulbs cast shadows on old tables, tablecloths, broken chairs, chandeliers, and office equipment.
“The basement?” Tyler asked hitting a shelf. “Where are we supposed to go from here? We’re trapped down here.” He knocked on the cement wall. “On the other side of this passes the largest river in North America.”
Andy scanned the room and breathed, calming her breath, thinking of her options amid the shelves of storage. “Is there another exit?”
“Why couldn’t you have gone up? Haven’t you noticed in the movies, they always go up?”
“Up?” Andy breathed, wrinkling her brow, still breathing hard. “In a dress? I would’ve tripped over the skirt a thousand times.”
“But if we were up, there would’ve been more avenues for escape.”
“Do you have a B.A.S.E. wingsuit under your tux?”
“No.”
“Repelling equipment disguised at a bow-tie?”
“We probably could’ve used your skirt as a parachute.”
Before she replied with a terse har, har, footfalls echoed in the stairwell. Without a word Andy disappeared between the rows and rows of shelves. If they couldn’t run, they could hide.
Gun shots rang out.
****
Tyler ducked behind a row of shelves.
More shots. Andy dove beside him, her skirt cushioning her fall.
Tyler whispered, “I’ve been able to follow your every movement just by listening to your flounces. As far as stealth goes, you get an F for the day.”
Andy gave him a disgruntled glare.
“Are you going to take your skirt off?” he asked.
“Are you propositioning me?”
He resisted the chance to banter. Any other time, her question would have turned him on. Okay, if he was being honest with himself, it did turn him on, but he couldn’t think about Andy undressing right now. Not with those goons hot on their heels. And he didn’t want Andy to know how great her frilly pink dress would look, lying on the floor next to—he had to stop himself.
Focus.
“No, you’re going to get us killed. It just sounds like the rustling of a tornado in here, plus,” he added, smoothing the skirt away from him with annoyance as it foamed up around his suit lapel. He couldn’t think about how it accentuated her feminine curves. Girls didn’t usually distract him. Andy was the one girl who could get him killed. “It’s getting in my way.”
“I can’t. I have too much stuff stashed in here.” She grabbed the hem of her dress, lifting up to reveal quite a bit of leg, Tyler noticed, and rows upon rows of pockets sewn into her petticoat. With a flick of her wrist she fished out a flashlight on a lanyard, clicked the button and flashed the small LED beam, slipping it around her neck. There were other things he caught glimpses of, a pocket knife, duck tape, floss, rubber gloves, and throwing stars.
“Nice, what is this?” he asked. A red string dangled from somewhere in the back.
“Don’t pull the cord. It’s a flotation device. Self-inflatable.”
“Really?”
“Hey, you’ve got to be prepared. I couldn’t very well waltz in here with my huge bag. This was a clutch-only event.”
“An ice pick? I thought I was being poked.”
“Funny, I thought that was you.”
Tyler smiled.
“Okay, let’s find a way out of here,” he said.
Andy paced the perimeter of the basement. Black and orange mold bloomed around the lower edges where the river licked the bottom of the building. It smelled like rotting forest, making her nostrils sore, her lungs ache. The damp mustiness made her claustrophobic. On the other side of the foot-thick concrete wall churned the Mississippi River dangerously fast.
Tyler tore off his jacket, thrusting it to the ground. “We’re like trapped mice down here.”
“I’m not giving up. There has to be a way out, a dumbwaiter or something.”
Tyler kept his hands to the walls.
Andy turned up her nose. “This orange, slick, oozing mold reminds me of somebody’s Sunday morning sick attack.”
Tyler ignored her. “Often in these old buildings there is something useful.” He ran his hand along the wall as he paced.
“What are you hoping to find?” she asked. But Tyler ignored her as he was stalked away from her.
He ignored everything but the banging at the door, causing his heartbeat to rise to his throat.
“Tyler,” she hissed. “Where are you?” She drew closer, her flashlight beam finding him. “They’ve found us. We’ve got to hurry.”
He returned into the light. “Okay, you go to the left, I’ll go this way. We’ll meet at the front.”
“Tyler.”
He raced along the wall in darkness, his hand along the concrete, feeling rather than seeing. The faster he ran, the faster they could get out of here. Then a shelf overturned making a terrific noise, and Andy screamed.
He tore toward the sound. He found Andy, unconscious, lying on the floor, in a puddle of dress, a gallon of paint can nearby. He lifted her gently, in case she had hurt something. Her face was so sweet when she was relaxed.
His gaze flit to her lips,
defined with lipstick. They parted slightly when he tilted her head upright. There was something about her skin, smooth and a little glistening, her cheeks flushed red. All around her hairline were beads of sweat, the crown of her head matted with blood. He held her head in his lap, a bright stain spreading across his shirt. Her eyes blinked open.
“Hey, are you all right?” he asked. Andy just stared at the paint can, then at a shelf leaning toward the wall. Tyler checked her for a concussion.
“My skirt.” She winced with pain. “It knocked a feeble shelf.”
“I knew it would be the death of you.”
She smiled.
Tyler breathed a sigh of relief. “Can you stand?”
“I think so.”
Tyler lifted her to her feet, Andy winced more and grabbed his chest, falling into him. He held her close, even if it meant blood stains on his tux. A crash sounded nearby. They froze.
Footsteps flooded the aisle. Tyler’s hope failed. There was no way he could escape with a wounded girl, or attack all these men and keep Andy safe. The two of them together, at their best, could possibly take them all, but Andy was like an abandoned baby zebra on the grasslands.
Tyler just had to think. He needed a plan, a strategy. Smelling her scent so close, he couldn’t concentrate. Tyler inspected the walls. And there he spied it. A little door painted over with thousands of layers of paint, but it was what he wanted, at least he hoped it was.
“Andy, you’re brilliant.” He might have missed it circling the perimeter so fast. But Andy hurt her head right underneath it. “The coal chute.”
He stood to examine it, but it was no use. They were upon them.
Tyler immediately jumped into action. His foot caught one man across his cheekbone, smacking his head against the shelf containing more paint. Another man lunged and leaped onto Tyler’s back while a third man approached to throw a punch. Tyler swung the man on his back, walloping the other, knocking them both down to the ground. More men spilled down the corridor of shelves. Tyler glanced behind him. Men in suits. He surveyed in front of him. More men in suits. He breathed a huge sigh. This wasn’t going to be easy. He shot a glance at Andy fading as pale as her bodice. They had to get out of here.
A man tackled Tyler against a shelf, spilling a flashlight, batteries, and cases of light bulbs in boxes. He wrestled the man to the ground by grabbing his shoulders and then kneed him in the chest. With the wind knocked out of him, he should be out of commission for a while. Tyler stood and blocked another uppercut from another guy. Holding on to his opponent’s wrist he pulled it upward, then around until it snapped in a joint lock, then Tyler flung him on to another oncoming man.
He stood, pleased. His actions ebbed the tide of flowing men.
Andy’s eyes fluttered. “Just leave me, Tyler. Run.”
“I can’t leave you,” he said.
“Now’s your chance.”
“No.”
“Tyler—”
Blood from his lip, mixed with saliva, sprayed as he faced her. “I won’t leave you.”
More footsteps.
Tyler had been in tougher situations, Djibouti, Jakarta, Senegal, a Somalian pirate brig, less maneuverability, more men, but tonight he was worried about time. Andy was bleeding out. He readied himself to attack again, but the group of men only gathered at the end of the corridor of shelves, the foremost man retrieved a gun from under his jacket.
“Enough,” he said, leveling the gun right at Tyler’s heaving chest.
Tyler was a duck in a gallery, and he knew it. The man had a straight shot at ten feet, bodies blocking a way for Tyler to even reach them. Breathing hard, blood dribbling from his lip, Tyler held up his hands to surrender.
“Take them,” the man said. “The boss wants them alive.”
Scattered men on the floor began to rise, shaken, with firm grudges fixed in their eyes against Tyler. Two of them apprehended Tyler, none so gently, one on each arm, holding him fast.
Two others yanked Andy to her feet. Pain shot across Andy’s face, and he wanted to hit the guys again.
“Let’s go,” the man said. “And no funny business.”
The small entourage marched around the lines of shelves to the basement stairs. Following them, the man with the gun stayed close.
At the elevators, the gunman and a man in a brown tux chatted. “Are they working, Bobby? Cuz I’m not hiking up no thirty flights of stairs.”
“Yes, take them up,” Bobby replied, clicking the button. “He’s expecting them. I’ll be up after I take care of a few things.”
If Tyler ran, they would just shoot him and haul his corpse back. And Andy couldn’t follow him out. No, if they broke out, they broke out together. Never leave a man. Or a woman.
A familiar face flashed in his mind. A friend. Bleeding, his receding hairline flapping open with a gash. Christiaan had offered his hand, but it wasn’t enough.
BING!
Tyler’s eyes flew open at the sound of the elevator, his heart pounding. The two men forced him inside the elevator car, Andy beside them.
The button for the PH lit up. Tyler’s stomach lurched when the car began to ascend. Upward. To Tyrone.
Tyrone.
They would not be welcomed warmly.
Andy leaned against the wall as the elevators opened, eying the man who kept his gun firmly to Tyler’s head. The men forced her out of the elevator and into the lush apartment.
With the abundance of antiques, Andy would’ve enjoyed seeing the apartment under any other circumstances. It was a pity she was there as a quasi-prisoner/medical patient.
She followed behind Tyler who strode confidently across the marble floors, straight to a dining room table where Tyrone sat.
“So you’re here,” he said, concentrating on his food.
His face reflected in the polished inlaid wood, over which glowed two chandeliers. To his right was a professional kitchen, gray granite, white cabinets, and subtly hidden stainless-steel fridge.
Behind him a wall of glass revealed the speckled lights of the city.
Without glancing up, he gently patted his lips with a napkin and drank red wine from a goblet. “You know it’s extremely rude to interrupt a man’s meal.” When his beady eyes met Andy’s, his eyebrows raised as he grimaced. “This is a pleasant surprise,” he said. Andy faced Tyler hoping for some clue. He had none to offer. Tyrone continued. “It’s not every day the person you are searching for marches to your doorstep. Welcome. Andrew Baker, is it not?”
Andy’s heart lunged. Her head throbbed as her heartbeat quickened.
Tyrone’s eyes narrowed. “I owe you a little something, don’t I?”
Andy didn’t know what he was talking about.
Tyrone’s eyes widened, his fingers placed on his fork and knife. “Did you know in historical times in ancient Korea, cooking for the king was a sacred privilege?”
Andy didn’t understand what he was talking about. Either she wasn’t all there or Tyrone wasn’t.
“Food controls destiny. How many people do you think had their fate changed through the food they eat?” He leaned forward. “How many kings were poisoned to gain control?” His eyes narrowed. “I could kill you right now.”
Tyler remained confident, cool, despite the gun at his back. “You can’t kill us. We have powerful friends who know we’re here. You kill us; they’ll track it down to you.”
“Yeah,” Andy blurted out. “Don’t mess with him, he’s FBI. You don’t want to tangle with the US government.”
Tyler flinched.
“I have a great interest in the US government.” Tyrone gave Tyler a more thorough inspection, regarded him as he would a suit he was interested in purchasing. His eyes pinched together scrutinizing him anew, white puss weeping from the corners. He returned to his meal. “No, this man has deceived you. He is not FBI.”
Andy’s heart stuttered.
Tyler remained confident. “He’s just trying to introduce doubt, Andy. Don’t list
en to him.”
“Don’t listen to me?” he shrugged. “I know every FBI agent assigned to this area. I pay for them to be, shall we say, myopic, on certain occasions. This man is not local FBI.”
Andy’s head throbbed, her mind hurt. Her heart ached. She was confused, and she didn’t like it.
“What do you want with us?” Tyler demanded.
“You come in here, threaten my security, set off the fire alarm during my daughter’s engagement party, and my men find you sneaking around my building. I should ask you, what do you want?”
They didn’t set off the alarm. Or Tyler lied.
Who was the man running out of the room? Something didn’t add up.
Tyrone rose, strode to his kitchen and extracted knives from their case with the sound of metal against metal. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
“Why not use a gun?” Tyler asked.
Tyrone laughed. “Guns? Guns are for the weak. It’s much too easy. And mostly painless.” Tyrone pitched forward. A knife flew through the air. Tyler blocked it, slicing his hand. Tyler, bent, attempted to grab the knife, but another one whizzed through the air, landing next to his foot.
“You get the idea. If you twitch, I hurt you. But don’t worry, I won’t kill you this way. Too messy to clean up. I prefer,” he paused, “other methods. Now tell me, why are you here?”
Though his aim was accurate, his knives sharp, he had only a limited supply of them.
In a flash, Tyler removed both knives and ducked for cover behind a huge black pillar as Andy kicked her captives with a mule-kick followed by a quick side-kick, rolling to safety behind a second black pillar. No plan, just survival.
Tyrone, surprised, hesitated, unsure where to throw his knives—at his enemy in the big dress with blood overtaking her or the unstoppable man. His mark was on the man. He threw a knife at Tyler. Bright red soaked through Tyler’s shirt, blood spilling on wool carpet.
They needed to get to the elevator. A knife glanced off the wood. Andy prayed he wasn’t coming closer. When she ducked around the corner, she saw the elevator. The elevator dinged announcing its arrival. She dug into her skirt for her fireman’s key.
