“Seriously, can we get through one conversation without sex being mentioned?!”
“I don’t think I know how.” He admitted, and for what’s its worth, I believed him on that one.
“Clearly”
A phone ringing in another room shut us both up instantly. They were still here, in the building then.
“Come on, stay behind me, and be quiet as a fucking church mouse, Sneaks.”
Fully opening the door, poking his head out first. He looked left, right, and left again.
Waving a hand at me to follow him we stepped cautiously into a corridor. The smell of bleach was just as strong in this corridor as it had been in the room we had just escaped. I never wanted to smell the damn stuff ever again.
What was this place?
It looked very clinical, almost like one of those old school hospitals, clean but old. Going in the direction of the ringing phone, we took each step one at a time. Listening, waiting for anything to alert us to someone in front or behind us for that matter. Suddenly fearing that someone was following, I couldn’t stop swinging my head around to check. Seeing that the corridor was clear, I took one more step, keeping pace with Noah.
At that very moment, my stomach decided to growl loudly. It was announcing its need for more food after being teased with a sandwich. ‘Really?’ he mouthed at me. What did he think I told it to growl? Bloody Diablo.
Sighing, he continued moving forwards. I kept myself as close to him as possible without actually touching him. All that would entail would be another sexual innuendo of some sort, and I think if I heard one more, well, I would not be accountable for my reaction to it. Allie’s comment about me kicking him in the junk sprang to mind. He was asking for it, always.
Stopping beside a door with a large frosted glass window, we could see the shape of a person on the other side. It looked as though they had their back to us and were pacing.
‘What do we do?’ I mouthed to Noah, but he just pressed a finger to his mouth to tell me to be quiet, and before I knew it, he went charging through the door. As if he owned the damn place.
Fists started to fly as the guy on the other side, realized what was happening. As the two fought, I tiptoed into the room, closing the door behind us. If the others were here, at least we would get a little notice before they came up behind us if they had to get in through the door. Keeping to the edge of the room, I couldn’t help but look around. Empty food containers littered the room and there was a small camp bed in the corner. They were clearly staying here, if not living here. Why?
A crash sounded as Noah knocked the big guy to the ground. Hopefully, it was not loud enough for anyone else in the building to hear. This man, one of our kidnappers, had pale white skin, almost like he was albino, and had curly neon green hair that was about two inches long. In any other circumstances I would have complimented it, but now was not the time for that.
“Grab his legs, Sneaks,” Noah said through his struggle keeping the large man down on the ground.
Instantly dropping my entire body weight onto them, I was shocked when the guy stopped trying to struggle and just looked up at Noah with intrigue in his eyes.
“You need to talk fast and explain what the fuck we’re doing here.” Diablo glared down at him with so much anger that I would not have been surprised if they had shone red instead of the usual blue through the gray storm clouds.
Our captors’ eyes darted from me to Noah and then back again. He had this big jaw that looked almost fake, like one of those you see in films. Austin Powers sprung to mind.
Pressing his hand around the guy’s throat when he didn’t answer, Noah growled down at him. “Now,” he added. This indeed was the devil. The way Noah was speaking sent shivers down my spine. He was scary as hell.
“It was only meant to be you,” I knew it. He had a British accent, and it was thick.
“Why? Who sent you?” Noah shook the guy’s head by the throat, banging it on the floor “you have got to start speaking, or I’m going to set Sneaks on you, and she has threatened to kick me in the balls and cut me more times than she should in the only few days I have known her. Actually, maybe others have, but that was after I had fucked them, at least.”
What the hell was wrong with him? “Really, Noah, now?”
“Get used to it.”
“Absolutely not if I can help it.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” he groaned, keeping Mr. neon green hair still.
“Can you get on with it? I would like to get out of here today, Diablo.”
“She thinks she’s so funny,” he laughed, looking down at one of the men who had kidnapped us. “Keeps calling me the devil, she wants me.”
“You’re delusional, and if you don’t hurry up, I am just going to walk out and leave your ass here. They only wanted you anyway.”
“Now who needs to stop talking.”
“Just get on with it!” I was getting exhausted from this conversation.
“Who?” He gripped then man’s throat tighter returning his attention to the man sprawled out on the floor. “You need to start speaking.”
Just then, the phone that had been ringing earlier started again. The man’s eyes widened, panic-filled them, and it was not from us being here. No, he feared whoever it was on the other end of that phone.
“Sneaks answer it, speakerphone, and don’t say a god damned word.”
Quickly jumping up, I dived for the phone. The green haired man began to put up more of a struggle against Noah now that I was off his legs, no longer weighing them down. Noah still had a good grip on him, though, as he was able to keep him down. He was laying his hand over his mouth so he couldn’t shout out at whoever was on the phone. For all, we knew it could be one of the other two.
The name on the screen simply read, ‘Mr. H’
Sliding the answer button open on the iPhone and selecting the speaker, we waited with bated breath to see who it was and what they had to say.
“Is it done?” A smooth yet chilling voice sounded through the speaker. Looking over at Noah, I could tell instantly that he knew who it was, and it had put fear into him, “Are they dead?”
Dead? God.
My heart rate spiked as Noah and I just looked at one another. We had to get out of here now. Ending the call, I watched Noah give one hard punch the side of the man’s head, and he was out cold instantly.
“Who was that?” When he didn’t answer me, panic flared, “Noah, who the hell was that?”
“My father,” as the last word left his lips, my blood ran cold. His father had what, put a hit out on him to be killed?
“Why? Why would he do that?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. We need to get out of here now. He will know something is wrong when they didn’t speak.”
“He said they Noah, he said, are they dead.” Meaning that I also had a target on my back now.
“Shit,” he almost screamed as the realization of what had been said hit him.
“Do you think my family is in danger?” That worried me more than if something happened to me. They could not be in danger. I wouldn’t allow it.
“All I know, Sneaks is that we need to get the hell out of here, hand me the phone.”
Dropping it into his outstretched palm, I wanted to fall to the floor and cry. For days, weeks, hell, maybe even years.
How was this my life?
How had me ending up getting into an elevator changed my life so drastically?
“Sneaks, we have got even bigger problems than we thought.”
“Why?” What else could there possibly be? Not only had I been kidnapped, but it also seemed that I was now stuck with a complete and utter pain in the ass. I don’t know which was worse.
“He’s was paying them five million.”
“Dollars?” Wait, “Did you say was?”
“Yeah,” visibly swallowing, he just nodded his head.
“To kill us?”
Continuing to nod his head, he ad
ded, “It was five originally then because of you. They wanted another five, but he only offered them one million. Told them that they should have killed me in the parking garage, but they fucked up, his words.”
A million dollars, is that all my life was worth?
“The photos they took, they sent them to him” I guess that was why they had decided to feed us, keep us alive until they could get more money out of him, and then, well, they would have killed us without so much as a second thought.
“Photos of the both of us?” When he nodded, I looked over his arm to see the screen. The picture made me feel sick. I didn’t even recognize myself. Tied to a chair, the cloth that had been around, my eyes dropped to around my chin, and I was out cold. That was the most frightening of it all, he had told me the truth, and I had somehow slept through the whole thing.
“They are keeping us alive to try and get more money out of him,” he echoed what I had been thinking, “We need to run Sneaks, work out a plan.”
“What do you mean?”
“If… if he wants us dead, he won’t stop because we escaped. He is going to keep coming after us. Sending killer after killer to get us. He will never stop. He even told them that, he said others would be willing to do it for cheaper.”
“What do we do?” Tears began to fall silently from my eyes as we just stared at each other.
“We get as far away from here, wherever the hell that is. We hideout and we form a plan.”
“What kind of plan?” To get back home to New York?
“I don’t know, but I promise that we will get out of this, and you will get to go home.” How could I believe that this man, this devil would get me home safe, out of this whole craziness that had become my life? I didn’t know how.
The sound of a television coming to life in another room heightened the need for us to leave. Now. It had been a miracle that they had not heard Noah and their man fighting as it was, now we would have to get out of this building, whatever it was, without them detecting our movements.
“Okay, we need to go.”
Going to leave the room, I was confused when Noah didn’t follow me. Instead, I found him bent down, shoving his hands into the man’s pockets, who was still unconscious on the floor.
Noticing my confusion, he simply said, “We need some cash, he will be able to trace if I access my accounts, probably and we need food and something for your wrists.”
So much had been happening I had almost forgotten all about them. Almost, but now the pain became the number one thing I was feeling.
“Do we need to do anything with him?” Nodding my head to the body beneath him.
“Did you bring your rope?”
“No,” groaning, I knew we should have taken something with us.
“Well then, let’s just hope he stays knocked out for a little while longer” Throwing a set of car keys as me, he turned back to the guy, “You ever shot a gun, Sneaks?”
“No” and I didn’t plan on changing that either.
Turning to me, he held the gun that looked like the one that had been shoved against my back when we’d arrived. It was definitely the one that had shot at the car tire when they had kidnapped us.
“Well we are going to have to find a place for you to practice then”
“Absolutely not, Diablo.” I was willing to do many things, but hold a firearm was not one of them.
“Less talking more walking Sneaks, we gotta bounce” My eyes followed the gun’s movement as he put it into the waistband of his all but destroyed pants.
Following him out of the room, shutting the door behind us, we snuck down the corridor. The television blasting out was getting louder, and when a laugh came from behind another door in the hallway, I was stood next to, we quickened our pace.
Finally, reaching the front door, Noah pushed it open, and, turning to me, he started to run “Fast Sneaks.”
We moved quickly towards the van, well as fast as I could without actually running “Keys.”
Throwing them at him, I opened the passenger door and slammed it a little too loudly shut but fuck it. We were in it. If they heard us, there was no way for them to follow us now. We had the only vehicle, I think.
As Noah got in and started the engine, I took the opportunity to look around. It looked like an abandoned old hospital or something. Weeds several feet tall, burnt-out old cars and chunks of concrete everywhere you looked.
As the engine purred to life, we both let out a breath.
We were out.
We had escaped, but for how long could we run?
Chapter Six
Noah
Autopilot took over, driving this shitty black van as fast as possible through the empty roads away from the place we had been held captive. My eyes lingered on the dilapidated sign we passed ‘Richmond’s Psychiatric Asylum For The Clinically Insane.’ They had been keeping us tied up in an old mental asylum?
Growling and pushing my foot down hard on the gas. I needed to put as much distance between us and that place, between us and them as possible. There was no doubt in my mind that they would have heard us leave. Even if the one that I’d knocked out was still unconscious. The others would know, and I was positive that they would be following us before long. I could not and would not let them get within touching distance again.
There seemed to be no other living soul in sight, no buildings or houses around. It was almost like we were the only people in this town. How could that be?
“Where are we going?” Sneak’s asked beside me, making me flinch. For a moment, I had forgotten she was even there. She had been so silent in the few minutes it had been since we had escaped. Too stuck in my own thoughts, overthinking the messages I had read. God, they were bad, I don’t think I would ever be able to forget what had been in those messages.
The voice that had been at the end of that phone. My father, my own flesh and blood, had done this. I knew he was a bad man. There had always been this inclination as to what he was capable of. So many people had left the board over the years. In a blink of an eye, they seemed to disappear, never to be heard from again. It was as though they had never even been there, a figment of the imagination. But I had never imagined he would do this to his son, to me. Is this the same fate that they had endured as well? Only Sneaks had gotten caught up in the event. Her being there had allowed us the time to escape from their clutches. If she hadn’t, well, I didn’t know what to make of it. I would, without a doubt, be dead and buried by now. I should have been dead before they even left that godforsaken underground parking lot.
“I don’t know,” finally answering her question with a sigh, I glanced at a road sign at the same time she gasped. We were in Elko, Nevada. Freaking Nevada.
How had we gotten here so fast?
We must have been in the back of that, this van a lot longer than I had even realized. Shock was all I could feel. How much I must have actually slept during the drive down here; it had only felt like a couple of minutes here and there. The reality now tells me that it must have been hours at a time instead.
“Are we… can we go home?” Back to New York? The small amount of hope on her voice made me sigh when I shook my head. No, we could not go home, not right now, at least “Can’t we just go to the cops then?”
“I don’t think that is a good idea, either Sneaks,” my mind ran over my father’s friend in the force back in New York. As a powerful man, there was every chance that his poison was far more reaching than I could ever imagine. Would we even be able to trust them if we did go to the cops?
Doubt filled me and there was a reason that they had brought us so far away from where they had taken us from. No, I don’t think we could trust anyone else. Not right now, at least.
“We need to just get as far away as we can with this van and then……”
“And then?” She was getting hysterical “Then fucking what, Diablo?”
“Fuck sake” I groaned as she called me the devil, again “You know you got a real
dirty mouth, Sneaks” throwing my own nickname right back at her, she just crossed her arms over her heaving chest, flinching a little as she moved her wrists. They looked awful; she would be lucky if they weren’t infected.
“North or East?”
“What?” She swung her head back to me, those green eyes glaring holes in the side of my face.
“Do we go North, or do we go East?”
“And you’re asking me, because?” Her voice was getting higher and higher. If we had been any other circumstances, I would have laughed at her.
Devil In The Elevator: A Hartman Romance Page 6