by Julia Derek
“I know what will wake her up,” the big goon said. I braced myself for a flood of something cold pouring over my head then, but instead I was unpleasantly surprised by what must be a foot kicking me hard in the side. Pain shot through me. I clenched my teeth hard not to let a loud moan escape my lips, it hurt so badly. An unconscious or dead person didn’t complain when they got kicked. For our hoax to work, I couldn’t allow myself to regain consciousness so quickly again, either. I held my breath in terror, dreading what would happen next. It could be anything, a hard kick to my face, a bullet to my head. Anything was possible. Using all of my restraint, I kept breathing through my nose, determined not to move or moan.
But instead of receiving another serving of pain, I heard what sounded like people hitting each other followed by groans and gasps. I didn’t dare opening my eyes still, or even move. Was Chase finally able to beat up this thug? It did sound like one of them was getting the brunt of the blows.
Please, God, let it be Chase handing out the blows, not getting them. Please, oh, please!
I could hear how they were struggling, and then what sounded like a fist connecting with what had to be a nose or jaw. A disgusting crunching sound, like bone breaking, came next.
I stifled the loud gasp that wanted to escape me. I couldn’t stop myself from imagining that it had been the sound of Chase’s nose being destroyed, not the goon’s. Considering the size of the thug, the likelihood it was the other way around seemed small.
There was a loud thud that made the floor vibrate suddenly. Someone had crashed to the floor. Oh, God, please don’t let it be Chase. Please, please!
God must have heard me because Chase hissed, “Elisa!”
Relief shooting through me, I opened my eyes and turned toward the voice. I soon spotted Chase standing in the middle of the room. There was blood seeping down the side of his face, but other than that he seemed okay. Behind him was a big body stretched out on the floor. Chase squatted low and picked up the handgun that lay a couple of feet away from the thug, who was as always wearing that black, sock-like mask. Getting back to his feet, Chase looked at the gun for a brief moment, smiling a little. Then he returned his attention to me and extended me a hand. I took it and he pulled me to a standing position.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he whispered. He nodded to the gun in his hand while taking another look at the thug on the floor. The big man didn’t seem like he was about to wake up any time soon. “Fortunately, this is a gun I’m very familiar with.”
I did a double take, wondering what Chase might have meant by that last comment. Why was he so familiar with that gun? But I soon had other things to worry about. Things that were a lot more important than if Chase had a secret gun fetish or not.
“What if there are other people downstairs?” I hissed. “Lots of other people? What are we gonna do then?”
Not that it sounded like there were lots of people in the house —it was rather still—but what if they were all just really quiet? It was early in the morning after all.
“I’ll just have to shoot them then, won’t I?” Chase hissed back. “What other options do we have? Would you rather stay here than try escaping?”
“No, of course not. We have to try to get away. You’ll just have to shoot whoever we see.” Oh, God, we might have to actually kill people. I immediately pushed the thought away.
“Exactly. Put on your shoes and make it fast.” He quickly put on his own shoes, while I stuck my feet into my three-inch, black pumps. Not the best shoes to run in, but they were better than being barefoot. When Chase was done, he grabbed my hand. “Let’s go. But let’s be as quiet as possible. Hopefully whoever else is in the house didn’t hear the fight. Maybe we can sneak out somewhere without them even suspecting anything.” He threw a quick glance at his watch. ‘It’s only seven thirty. The rest of them might be asleep. Stay close behind me.”
Together, Chase shielding me with one arm while holding the gun close to his face with the other, we padded past the knocked-out thug and out through the bedroom door, at last leaving the room that had held us prisoners for so many hours.
Oh, God, please let us get out of the rest of the house alive and in one piece.
As we got outside the bedroom and into the long hallway that was open on one side, enabling us to see the bottom floor, Chase and I threw glances in every direction. A white railing outlined the open side of the hallway. Beginning to walk, we almost tripped over a bunch of colorful shards of different sizes that lay on the dull, beige carpet. As I took a closer look at the shards and noticed the side table next to me, it seemed they must have been a pottery pot or something similar at one point. Then it hit me. They had not only been a pottery pot, but they were also the culprit behind what had produced the loud crash when Chase banged on the door like a maniac yesterday and the sleep-deprived thug showed up.
Careful not to step on the shards, we walked past them. The faint sound of a television came from somewhere downstairs, but other than that, there was no sign of life.
The big space that was visible below us had windows covered by dark drapes and a big door that had to be the entrance to the house. Shivering, I sucked in a breath. Freedom was just within reach, so close I could taste it…
Chase and I must have realized at the same time how close we were to getting out, because we knocked our heads together as we turned to face each other, our mouths open to speak.
“Should we try to get out of that door?” I asked as quietly as I could.
“Yeah, I think that’s our best option,” Chase replied in the same quiet tone. “If it’s locked and I can’t get the lock open, I’ll just have to use the gun.”
“Okay.”
Chase kept walking along the carpeted hallway, pulling me along behind him. We managed to get down the stairs without any nasty interruptions. As we reached the bottom floor, which was much bigger than it had looked from the upstairs hallway, Chase stopped and again looked around. I did the same. The sound from the TV had gotten much louder. I discovered then that it was coming from a TV that sat on a black entertainment stand at the other end of the vast downstairs space. The area that contained the stand, something like a sitting room, was sunken by a few steps. There was a big, brown couch facing the TV in the middle of the sitting room. Only then did I realize that someone sat on the couch, probably watching TV. A person who was not wearing a black ski mask because I could see a thick head of dark brown, curly hair.
I froze. The person—I assumed it was a man—was only about five yards away from us. If he turned around, he would immediately spot us as we were standing in the middle of the open space. And I didn’t think he just sat there, chilling out while watching some fun show, but that there was most likely a gun close to him, maybe in his hands even.
Chase was staring in the same direction now, so he must have realized the same thing as I had. He turned around and pulled my head close. I felt his lips against my ear.
“We’re gonna walk toward that front door as quietly as we can,” he whispered, his breath warm against my lobe. “When we’re there, I’ll try to open it. If I can’t get it open, I’ll shoot it open and then we’ll run out of here. It’s our only chance. Are you ready?”
I nodded quietly.
“Let’s go now.”
Keeping me close, Chase padded toward the front door that was about four yards away. As we got nearer, I kept glancing over at the person on the couch, praying that he wouldn’t suddenly decide to stand up and turn his head in our direction right then.
We made it to the door without any problems.
Chase let go of me and turned the lock on the door. Then he grabbed the handle and tried opening the door. It didn’t slide open. Of course we weren’t going to be that lucky. No matter how much he pushed against it, the door didn’t seem to want to leave the doorway. He turned the lock back into its original position and tried opening the door again. But it stayed closed. I heard him suck in a frustrated breath as he
kept trying to get it to open.
“What’s wrong with it?” I whispered.
“I have no idea. I can’t find any other bolts or locks to turn. Can you see any?”
I looked along the edge of the door and couldn’t see anything that appeared even remotely like a lock or bolt. Chase tried turning the lock a few more times, tried pushing the door open. It didn’t move. Then it finally did, just like that, as if all it had needed was for us to work a little, tease us, before it was willing to give up its position.
But at the same time as it slid open, I could hear someone come running toward us. I turned my head toward the approaching person, while Chase pushed the door open all the way.
“Stay where you are or I’ll shoot you,” the wide man with the curly, dark hair and the handlebar mustache yelled at us, coming closer.
Chapter Ten
Chase pulled me in front of him so fast I almost tripped and then covered my body with his. Standing before him suddenly, he pushed me out of the house and into a barren, little front yard. I could hear him follow me closely behind.
“Run, Elisa,” he yelled and gave me another light push to get me going. I needed it as I had become temporarily paralyzed with fear. The sound of firecrackers went off behind us, at least four of them. Because they went off in such rapid succession, I couldn’t tell for sure how many there had been.
Oh, God, he’ll shoot us. We’re going to die now…
A quiet residential street stretched out a few yards before us, and a long line of cars were parked along its sidewalk. No people were on it as far as I could tell as I dashed toward the cars, expecting to a feel a bullet hit me any moment. I heard a man’s voice yell something I couldn’t understand. All I knew was that it hadn’t been Chase’s voice.
“We need to get behind those cars,” Chase yelled at me from behind. “Keep running!”
As I kept running toward the nearest car, I heard Chase stop behind me and fire a few shots. Crackle, crackle. Then he came after me again. I’d soon reached that first car, a beige Volvo that I ran around and sank behind. A couple of seconds later, Chase had joined me.
Sitting on the asphalt, I was leaning against the car, trying to catch my breath. My lungs felt like they were on fire. Chase was squatting next to me, looking toward the house through the car’s windows. I kept waiting to hear more of the firecracker-sounding shots going off, but they didn’t.
“Let’s keep moving,” Chase hissed to me, grabbing my arm. We started crawling along the row of cars, away from the house, moving as fast as we could. Like Chase had already told me, it was clear that we were in a rundown neighborhood. The street was dirty and filled with potholes, and the surrounding houses were old and dingy. The garbage cans were overflowing with trash that stunk. I assumed there were no people out walking primarily because of the early hour, not because people didn’t actually live here. To my relief, no more firecrackers went off.
As we kept crawling forward, Chase stopped every once in a while to glance back toward the house. When we were about ten cars away and at the end of the block we were on, Chase stopped to get another look at the house and the man with the moustache. He turned to me and grabbed my hand.
“I can’t see anyone,” he said. “Come on, let’s run around the corner.”
“What if he sees us and shoots us?” There would be no cars hiding us as we crossed over the wide sidewalk to the corner of the building. “Maybe he’s just hiding.”
“Maybe. But my guess is he’s out of bullets, so he went to get more. Or he went to get reinforcement. Or maybe I got him with one of my shots. Whatever it is, we should use the time it takes him to do whatever he’s doing to create more distance. The farther away we are, the harder it’ll be for him to nail us. Besides, I’ll be covering you with my body. Get up!”
I got on my feet and we took off together across the street. I ran as fast as I could toward the building, sure I’d feel a bullet hit me this time around. But I didn’t and we reached the building and its corner. As we came around on the other side, we spotted a young woman pushing a stroller in our direction, carrying a grocery bag. Her eyes widened with fear as she saw us coming toward her like two maniacs and she stopped moving. We ignored her and just kept running and running block after block, hand in hand now. A few more people came in our way, looking at us, some with surprise and some with unease.
Only when we spotted a subway station that said Parsons Boulevard did we allow ourselves to slow down, both of us gasping for breath.
“Let’s take the subway,” Chase panted in between breaths, pointing toward the entrance.
“Okay,” I wheezed and we continued toward the big hole in the street that made up the entrance, running down the steep stairs. A poorly dressed woman who was climbing them in the other direction yelped in astonishment and jumped aside when we charged toward her.
“Maybe you should hide the gun,” I wheezed to Chase. He was holding the gun up by his face again.
“Oh, yeah, you’re right,” Chase said and gave a strained chuckle. Stopping momentarily, he stuck the gun inside the waistline of his pants, then took my hand again as we continued deeper into the stale-smelling subway station. When we’d reached the bottom, we hurried toward the turnstiles. As I was in front of Chase, I paused, not sure what to do. I didn’t have my wallet with me, not to mention a subway card. Jumping over the turnstile with my pencil skirt was easier said than done.
Chase looked at me. “What are you waiting for? Just climb over it. I don’t think we need to worry about someone catching us hitching a ride,” he added, his voice thin.
“Okay, but how will I do it with this skirt?” I pointed to my skirt.
“Let me help you.”
Chase grabbed my skirt at the hem and tore it so the side of it ended up with a slit that reached all the way up to the top of my thigh. “Now it shouldn’t be so hard.”
I swung a leg over the revolving turnstile while Chase grabbed me around my waist, lifting me up. Clumsily, I climbed over the metal arms, my legs all over the place. A gust of warm air flew up under the skirt in the middle of my graceless climb and ended up right between my legs, reminding me that I wore underwear again. I was thankful for this as there were more people around us now, some of them throwing glances in our direction, which meant they would have gotten a great view of my privates. Two black teenagers with their pants tied below their buttocks, displaying most of their boxer briefs, were leaning against the wall a few yards away. They were both wearing oversized headphones and seemed especially interested in what we were doing. But then they lost interest and started talking to each other instead. I guess turnstile jumping wasn’t all that unusual in this neighborhood.
When I was finally safely on the other side, Chase climbed over the turnstile, a lot more gracefully than I had done. Landing softly beside me, he grabbed my hand again.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s go over and sit on the bench.” He nodded toward the empty wooden bench at the other end of the platform, far away from the two teens with the huge headphones. They were completely ignoring us now, deep in a lively conversation.
We walked over to the bench in silence and sat down. I turned to face Chase. I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. We had done it after all, escaped our captors!
“Wow,” I said, grabbing his hand and squeezing. “We did it!”
He nodded, not looking quite as ecstatic as I was feeling. And he didn’t return my squeeze either. I frowned.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you think we’re safe here?”
Instantly worried again, I looked toward the turnstiles, now expecting to see one or more of the thugs approaching them. But except for an old man entering, the area was empty.
“Yeah, I do,” Chase replied, breathing heavily. “But we’ll be even safer as soon as we get on a train and into the city.”
Only then did I notice that his black dress shirt appeared to be… bloody on the right side, inches above his waist. The material w
as so drenched the blood kept dripping onto the bench we sat on.
I gasped and my hand flew up to cover my mouth. “Oh, my God, Chase, you’re all bloody! What happened?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the two teenagers again, so I lowered my voice, even though I highly doubted they could hear me they were so far away. “Did… did you get shot?”
“Yeah, but it’s not bad.” He shrugged like it was nothing as he looked down at the lower right side of his ribcage. “I think it only scratched the surface.” He squeezed his arm against the bloody part, as if he was embarrassed that he was such a mess more than anything else. I noticed then that there were plenty of blood stains on his charcoal dress pants as well.
He leaned against the platform wall, his face disturbingly clammy. At first I had thought the clamminess had to do with him just having run so fast and so hard. Now I knew better.
“Oh, Chase, it must’ve hurt so much.” I put a hand on his thigh, my eyes returning to all the blood on his shirt. “And you didn’t even say anything, just kept running. Why didn’t you say something? I don’t understand how you were able to run that fast after being shot.”
He gave me a lopsided little grin. “Ever heard of adrenaline? Besides, there wasn’t anything we could’ve done about it, so what was the point of complaining? We had to get away from those fuckers.”
Well, he was right about that. As I looked at Chase’s face now, I realized that he had paled significantly. He must have lost a lot of blood. Jesus, this is so not good.
As if this suddenly dawned on him, he put a hand on top of the large bloody stain and pressed hard against it. His hand was soon becoming red with the liquid and it kept trickling down over his dress pants and onto the wooden bench, some of it continuing to the ground below. I could feel how panic was about to overtake me. I took a deep breath to suppress it and managed to talk coherently. “We have to get you to a hospital as soon as possible.”
