Diego moved to the window with care, avoiding the famously creaky board in his kitchen that he claimed every week he would fix and then promptly ignored each time. She stepped over it as well, moving with as much grace as she could muster for herself with how tired and frazzled she still was. She followed behind him where he gently worked at unlocking the window. It would squeak when they opened it, there was no doubt about that. So once he got it unlocked and lifted, they would have a very short window to jump out and get down the fire escape before the police realized what they were doing.
One lock clicked open. Then the other. Now Diego turned to look at her as if asking for permission. This was the last moment she could be passive. If he opened that window and if she crawled out after him, she would be an accessory, a guilty party. She’d be abetting a criminal and obstructing justice. They’d probably find several other sentences to throw at her before they were done. It would be nothing compared to Diego’s life sentence for his terrorist activities. But she’d get a very short end of an already crappy deal. She also had a choice here, to turn back and give herself up. If she stepped forward and said she had nothing to do with it, that she was willing to open the door, give them any information they needed, cooperate fully, she’d probably go free. He’d lied to her, she hadn’t known what was going on. She could easily claim she didn’t come forward with information before because she was scared. She could easily get free of this, go back to work, continue her life and budding career.
But God help her she actually felt something for that man looking at her with pleading eyes, trying to make a getaway as a wanted terrorist. She finally understood those women who stuck by serial killers or married death-row prisoners. Sometimes she just couldn’t help who she loved, who her heart decided she would risk her life and livelihood for. She wouldn’t give herself up and she couldn’t bring herself to abandon him. Not now.
God, she hated herself. She nodded. He turned back to the window and lifted his hands, pulling the window up with him. The dreaded whine from the ungreased window frame came after about five seconds of movement. It never seemed to be a bother in all the years that Andrea had dealt with it. Sure, it could be annoying and rouse someone from a nap. Now it was her worst nightmare, her biggest enemy. As soon as it went off, it sounded like that fabled shot heard around the world must have.
It went off. And then they were out the window. Diego went first, scrambling through it with such grace, she was sure this wasn’t the first time that he’d made an escape like this, which didn’t exactly comfort her but she ignored it, for now. She followed after. She wasn’t exactly quick or good at it, but she was small and limber enough that she could move through the gap without too much trouble. On the other end, he waited with open arms to pull her through. Once her feet were firmly planted on the metal grate of the fire escape, his hand stayed on hers.
The banging from the front door was loud and angry now. They’d heard. They yelled. Time to go.
Diego pulled Andrea’s hand hard, yanking her arm and the rest of her body with it. They moved across the metal platform until they got to the first gap in the floor. He kicked at the ladder until it dropped. They moved down quickly to the second landing. One more to go. They performed the same ritual, kicking the ladder down and practically sliding down it to freedom below.
Their luck, naturally, ran out at the last ladder. It was stuck.
“Dammit,” Diego hissed, kicking at the ladder, but it refused to drop.
“We’ll just jump,” Andrea said, shoving him out of the way and moving to the gap.
“And break our legs?”
“Maybe but we know if we stay here, we get arrested and go to jail for life.”
He didn’t argue. She slid through the gap and hung down off the bottom rung, as far as she could go to the bottom. The fire escapes were designed to prevent anyone at ground level from reaching the bottom and crawling up. That left her with quite a bit of room between her and the ground, even as she hung at her most stretched and straight. She took a breath. She dropped.
She didn’t break her legs. In fact, the only thing that really hurt was the brush burn from the sidewalk she could feel already working its way across the skin of her palm. She hadn’t exactly landed gracefully, but her feet were firmly planted on the solid concrete underneath. She took off, hearing a thud of Diego jumping down behind her. He yelled after her but she just kept running. She was running from a lot of things, more than just the police. Maybe she was even running from Diego. She wasn’t sure. She just knew it was like last night, running was the only thing that made her feel safe.
So, she took off into the early morning air, making wind around herself as she moved, legs already burning from the forced effort so early in the morning and without an ounce of calories in her system to help sustain her. Diego was still behind her, not far.
“Andrea, stop!” he called.
She didn’t. She was petrified. Her life had been turned completely upside down and she didn’t know what to do except run away from it. That’s what everyone did when things got rough. She ran away from her problems and didn’t look back at all. That was adulthood, right?
Her great escape was cut short when Diego used the last of his energy to sprint up to her and launch. He tackled her. Now that hurt. She had a few more rashes from the ground thanks to that and turned around wildly ready to smack him for it, but he was on his back, huffing and puffing as his chest fought to get air in his lungs. He coughed quite a bit.
“We’re safe,” he said. “You ran like a fucking bat outta hell.”
“Yeah well, when it was clear I might go to jail for associations with a terrorist, I kind of gave myself a kick,” she said.
He didn’t say anything, he just kept gasping for air, laying there on his back. He was never the athletic one and now she felt a little smug for all those times he made fun of her when she asked if he wanted to go with her for a run. Joke was on him now.
“Well, that was an exciting wakeup call,” he said, rolling over to his side and pushing himself up.
Andrea sprang to her feet. She dusted herself off and checked to make sure nothing looked permanently damaged. She’d have a far bit of scraping to explain to her friends and work, but for the most part, she was put together well. So, she started walking away.
“Where are you going?” Diego asked from his spot on the ground, now struggling to get up.
“Away,” she said. “We did our miraculous escape but now it’s time to go.”
“But—wait—”
“This wasn’t a make-up night, Diego,” she said. “I was angry and it manifested a little differently than how I imagined it in my head, but now we’re back to normal. It was a one-time thing. No breakfast the next morning or cuddles.”
“You can’t just walk away.”
She spited him by doing just that, moving down the street and away from him. Behind her, she heard him groan and force himself up to his feet. She heard him scrambling behind her, still out of breath, but now up to a standing position and trotting behind her. She rolled her eyes. This was exactly how things always went with him, persistent and hard to shake. He said it was a trait he inherited from his Mexican immigrant parents who had to toil every day to get the things they wanted. Andrea just thought it was his way of being frustrating.
“Diego, I’ve got a lot to do today—”
“This is more serious than just running from the cops because we got caught egging someone’s house,” he said, catching up to her and holding onto her shoulder tightly. “You won’t be able to just waltz back home.”
“Why? It’s not like it was me they were after.”
“It won’t take them long to connect the dots. They’ll look into my family, my relationships. One of the cops from today could have ID’d you.”
She was very quickly losing her patience. She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed loudly. “All right, what do you propose I do then, smart gu
y?”
“Come with me,” he said. “I can take you somewhere safe. You want to leave after a while, we can. But at least give me the chance to get you somewhere safe.”
She wasn’t in a position to argue.
Chapter 6
He led her across town. He insisted they move on foot because they would be harder to track. And where they were going required stealth. Andrea knew as soon as he said that she regretted going with him. This was just getting deeper and deeper into a hole she already dug for herself. She could still take off running, still get away from Diego and all the lunatic things she’d learned he was up to over the course of the past few days. Or she could dig deeper and see how far it all went. She knew very little about shifters, about their world, about their life.
But was curiosity worth the price she could pay in the end? Plenty of people were curious about North Korea but that didn’t mean they went tunneling across the fence just to see what there was to see.
“We’ll be there soon,” he said as they crossed yet another dirt road. They’d left the main street long ago.
“That could mean literally anything.”
“It means before next week, for sure.”
“You’re an asshole.”
She heard him snort and was sure she could even sense the roll of his eyes. But she ignored him. She was in the position of power here. She had less to lose if they got caught and he knew that. She wasn’t entirely willing to go to jail just to mess with him. But she also wasn’t above milking this for all it was worth.
This was where the regret set in. This was where she cringed a little too much at how she had lost all sense of control and not only fell into bed with him. She completely pushed him into bed herself. She really couldn’t blame that on bad planning or even impulse. She’d made a poor choice. He wasn’t about to pull at that thread though and she was grateful, but she’d never show it.
When they finally stopped walking, it was in front of an old shed. Fantastic. She stood there with her arms crossed and sighed loudly while Diego walked forward and performed an odd sort of knock on the door. Then, like something out of The Goonies, the door opened. Someone awaited inside. A gatekeeper.
“You know we don’t allow outsiders.”
“There’s been a situation.”
“Damien won’t like it.”
“He’d like it even less if we let her get away after what I have to tell him.”
Let her get away. That was a phrase that Andrea didn’t exactly appreciate. Diego had taken on a different tone, a different way of carrying himself here. He stood up straight, spoke louder. He didn’t shrink away as he had with her. They were outside a hideout of his shifter buddies. That much was clear. This certainly was digging much deeper into something incredibly dangerous.
“This won’t be on me if he’s pissed,” the man in the shed said.
“I know. If he’s pissed, we’ll both end up dead and all you’ll have to worry about is burying our bodies.”
Nope. Definitely not something that Andrea was interested in. She wanted to back away. She almost stepped back to move and do just that. But then Diego was right there and the man in the shed looked at her as well. She was trapped under their gaze. She had no idea what could happen if she ran. Maybe they’d have guard dogs. Maybe these guys were the guard dogs. Maybe instincts completely took over when Diego let out his wolf. Maybe the last thing she would ever see would be the shine of his white teeth, the bare of his gums, the smell of raw meat on his breath, and the look in the eyes of a man who didn’t recognize her at all.
She stepped forward because she had to. She had no choice anymore. Maybe she never did.
#
The shed, like any hideout, led down into the ground. They’d dug out a network of tunnels, the entrance to which was covered by the shed. They walked into the small structure and met with a hole in the ground attached to a ladder. They made Diego go down first. Then the gate man looked at her and nodded sharply for her to follow, closing and locking the shed door behind them.
It was the descent into the underworld. She was poor Persephone, dragged down by Hades into his underground world and winter would sprout up on the earth above while it waited for her return. The question was, of course, if spring would ever return after this.
Damien.
She knew that name but she dared not trick herself into thinking there was a chance that it was the same one she read about. That man was terrifying and powerful even in YouTube videos. She could only imagine what he would be capable of in person. She swallowed down a tacky gulp in her throat.
The tunnels were carved out as if by a large animal. They were lined with various types of lights: fairy lights, emergency lights, virtually anything they bought at a store and strung up on the walls. She wondered how far it went, how deep and complex they were capable of digging. But they were shifters. Of course, they could tunnel themselves something big and hidden. She heard the claw reach of a dragon could measure over a foot. She imagined it as a shovel and it wasn’t that hard to imagine.
She tried so many times to catch Diego’s eye. She had so many questions she wanted to voice but she was so afraid that if she so much as coughed, then it would be the last sound she ever made. She had gone from her smug lording over him to completely reliant on his good graces and friendship with her. His protection might be the only thing that would rescue her from God knew what down below. She was more than out of her element. She was in another world entirely. This wasn’t a place she was welcome to nor was it friendly to her. She was a stranger in a strange land. Who knew that strange land would be right in her own backyard?
They led them into a room, segmented off by thick curtains that pulled to cover the opening. That gave Andrea a little bit of comfort. She wasn’t so completely locked in. It wouldn’t be her tomb. Nothing about the curtain stopped anyone from hurting her or killing her. But, in her mind at least, there was an escape. Though she knew, realistically, there was absolutely no escape for her. If she wanted to try to run, they would take her down. They would shoot her, maybe someone would maul her.
But a curtain was better than a steel door.
They were brought into the small room with garish lights and nothing in it except two chairs sitting in the middle of the space as if they had been waiting for them. They walked in and their escort left without a word, snapping the curtain shut behind him. They were left to sit there alone. Diego immediately dropped into the seat, but Andrea was less than willing to so quickly turn over.
“It’ll be easier if you just take a seat and calm down,” Diego said, sighing and brushing his sweaty palms out on his pant legs.
“Yes, that’s what I want, to make my imminent death a little more convenient for everyone,” she huffed and he made another face.
“Suit yourself.”
She wanted to ask if this man was the one she feared he was, if it was Damien Orlando waiting to bust in on the other side of that curtain. She didn’t know if it would be better or worse for her if it was someone else. Perhaps someone even worse waited to stick nails under her fingernails or burn her with cigarette butts or all manner of torture that she could imagine.
She paced. It was easier that way. Andrea couldn’t exactly go for a jog in the tunnels so she paced her way around the room, despite Diego’s glares and constant huffs trying to tell her to stop. She didn’t care. If she would die, she would figure out how to do it on her own terms and with her comforts. She was a pacer. She needed constant movement. She thought better when her legs were in a steady pace and she felt better too. It was like when death row inmates requested their last meal and it was always something crazy like their mom’s homemade chicken or some other things. It was creature comforts. Things from home. She could work with this.
That was, until, Damien entered the room. He wasn’t quick nor was it like a snap of the curtain to tell them that he was here. He entered slowly, quickly, like a cat. Perhaps that w
as his shifter. The news outlets and YouTube videos never talked about what he was. Andrea knew dragons and wolves were most common, but there was no way this man wasn’t some sort of large, predator feline.
“Diego,” he said. “How are you?’
Even with Andrea sitting next to his chair, the man didn’t acknowledge her at all as he strode into the room and stepped in front of them. He looked only at Diego, stared at him heavily, wore the kind of smirk that wasn’t obvious. This was part of the game too, Andrea realized. Psychological warfare in the eyes. This man was good at being dangerous, and being perceived as dangerous. He excelled at it and it scared her to think that he didn’t just derive his power from making people think he was capable of scary things. She felt as though he’d be able to snap her neck in a heartbeat, without ever acknowledging that she had been there in the first place.
“I’ve been better,” he said.
“You got caught.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I should hope not.”
Now it was Damien’s turn to pace. He did it so much better than Andrea ever could. He moved like something gliding over water and looked sharply at his target: Diego. He mentally separated them, dealing with them one on one. They couldn’t stand together because, as far as Damien was concerned, they wouldn’t be guilty of the same crimes, nor would he accuse them of anything they could agree on. He was both good cop and bad cop, sympathetic jailer, and harsh judge.
“You know the rules about getting caught,” he said, his hands clasped behind his back.
“I got away.”
“Did you?”
Damien turned back. His eyes were the sharpest shade of green that Andrea had ever seen. She didn’t even know it to be a color but she’d go to the Crayola factory and invent herself if she ever got out of here. Sharp green. Damien green. Danger green.
Assassin's Bride (SciFi Alien Romance) (Celestial Mates Book 9) Page 33
