"Miranda," he said, stepping closer to her. He gently put his large hand against her cheek. "I am your friend. This is true. I have done my duty; I have also found a true friend in you. But it is forbidden for me to help you."
Donatello cocked his head to the side for a moment, and then looked back at Miranda. He let out a short sigh.
"Look...past my shoulder, through the glass," said Donatello, with a sudden urgency in his voice. "There are two men coming to the front of the shop. Go...through the back door past the bathrooms. The door leads to the alley. Run, sweet Miranda. May God go with you."
Miranda looked and saw the two men, still in slow motion but starting to speed up, heading for the front entrance of the coffee shop. She immediately recognized the men as the ones who had chased her and Jake through the two-tracks in Native Springs.
She looked back at Donatello, whose eyes still looked sullen and sad, and gave him a fast kiss on the cheek, then turned to her friends back at the table.
"Jake! We have to go, now!" she yelled, and Jake looked and saw the two men rushing for the door.
Mr. Cain motioned for Mr. Skye to head through the front door, while he headed down the block. Miranda ran to Jake, and everyone in the coffee shop stopped what they were doing and watched the commotion being made by the two.
"Lydia," said Miranda, "Run into the kitchen and stay there. Hide! Wait until we are outside, and then go! Get out of town. Go home. Cincinnati home. Don't go back to the apartment, and stay out of sight. Do you understand?"
Lydia nodded nervously.
"Go!" snapped Miranda, and Lydia jumped up and headed for the kitchen. Mr. Skye was at the door when Jake pulled Miranda down the back hall to the alley door. When Mr. Skye was inside the doorway, he could see Miranda and Jake heading towards the back door, but as he stepped forward to follow, one of the bistro chairs spontaneously fell in front of him. He caught his leg in the legs of the stool and fell face down hard on the floor.
Mr. Skye lifted his head and shook off the chair. He looked to his left but saw no one near that could have shoved the chair out in front of him. Pushing himself up from the floor, he regained his bearings and limped to the back of the shop.
Donatello watched him limp through the busy café, as well did all of the other patrons in silence as Mr. Skye glanced about while feeling the eyes upon him.
"I am going to hear about this one," Donatello said quietly to himself, as he picked up the stool that 'jumped' out in front of Mr. Skye.
Jake and Miranda burst on through the green steel back door of the coffee shop into the alley. They looked both ways, seeing that they were about as close to the middle of the long alleyway between the buildings that they could get. The alley was lined with several dumpsters to accommodate all of the businesses housed in the two adjacent buildings, and there was barely enough room for a sanitation truck to make its way through.
"Which way?" Miranda asked, as Jake glanced side to side before choosing the direction to the left out the door. He grabbed Miranda by the hand and started only a few feet up the alley before they saw Mr. Cain round the corner at the end of the alley. Mr. Cain stopped for a moment as he made eye contact with the two of them, and then started to pick up his pace and moved quickly in their direction.
"Come on!" Jake yelled, and he and Miranda turned in the opposite direction and ran. Mr. Cain went into a full run as Mr. Skye burst through the coffee shop back door just seconds after Jake and Miranda had run past it. Mr. Cain caught up to Mr. Skye within seconds, and the two came running after Jake and Miranda, who were at the point halfway between their pursuers and the street at the end of the alley. Mr. Cain and Mr. Skye both drew their guns now as they ran, but before they could stop and take aim, a large black Hummer screeched to a halt at the end of the alley in the direction that Jake and Miranda were running.
The two of them froze in place as four men exited the vehicle and started to move in their direction. The one that led the group had short cropped blonde hair and wore a black sports coat with black slacks. The other three men were dressed somewhat similar in varying shades of grey. Miranda looked behind her at Mr. Skye and Mr. Cain, who had stopped as well and lowered the barrels of their weapons towards the ground. She gripped Jake's hand tighter, fearing what she was sure she knew was about to happen. In some strange way, she didn't want to fight fate any longer. She was ready for whatever was to come.
Miranda looked back at the men from the Hummer coming towards them, and then watched as all four men simultaneously drew guns from inside their jackets, almost appearing as if it was happening in slow motion. She closed her eyes while holding Jake's hand, and almost didn't hear the voice that was yelling to them now less than 50 feet in front of her.
"GET DOWN!" yelled the man with the cropped hair, and Jake yanked Miranda between two of the dumpsters in the alley for cover. Mr. Cain and Mr. Skye raised their guns and began to fire, but they barely could get a shot off before the bullets from the other men started to tear through them.
Jake held Miranda beneath him as the bullets flew through the air in both directions. One of the shots that had come from the handguns fired by Mr. Cain and Mr. Skye struck one of the dumpsters that was shielding them. The slug ricocheted, lightly grazing Jake's arm. After what seemed like several minutes gone by, there was finally silence. Jake and Miranda sat quietly still, waiting for whatever might come next.
The blonde man with the cropped hair appeared before them now, his gun still drawn, and looked over the two of them. He put his weapon back into the holster inside his jacket. The man noticed the tear in Jake's jacket that revealed a small red stain of blood.
"Are you alright?" asked the man, who now up close looked as if he could be in his late thirties or early forties.
"Yeah...I think so. Just barely nicked me," Jake said, looking at the wound closer now that the shots had stopped ringing past them.
"We need to move out of here now, and get you two to a safe location. I expect more may be on their way, especially now," said the man.
Two of the other men that came with the blonde man moved past the dumpsters toward where Mr. Cain and Mr. Skye had been standing. Jake and Miranda stood up and came out from between the dumpsters, and looked in the direction the men who had just passed by had gone. They saw Mr. Cain and Mr. Skye, lying in pools of their own blood. One of the men in grey stood beside the bodies talking on a cell phone while the other man was ushering people away that had heard the commotion from nearby apartments and businesses.
Miranda stood frozen, gazing upon the bodies of the men lying in blood. There was a burning she felt deep within her that she had never felt before. These were the people responsible for murdering her family...and for as much hatred as she felt building from inside of her, it was also accompanied by a sense of anger and envy. This particular set of emotions wasn't directed at the two dead men. It was now an anger at the impossible to satisfy desire to have been the one to take the life from these men herself. It was like something that she had never felt before, and the only thing that she found to be unsettling about this feeling was the lack of shame she felt in her longing to destroy the two men lying dead on the ground.
"Miss Stratton? We need to go right now, ma'am," said the blonde man. Hearing him call her by her family's name snapped her back to the here and now.
"How do you know my name? Who are you people?" she asked the blonde man. Her voice was icy, teeming with bitter skepticism.
"We are here to help keep you safe, Miss Stratton. Right now, we have to move you out of here. We are not here to hurt you. I think that should be evident by now. Please, let us take you where all of your questions can be answered."
"And if we refuse?" Jake asked, eyeing the man carefully.
"You are not being taken against your will. But I highly advise that you come with us, for your benefit and safety. I assure you that many questions you might have can be answered by my employer," stated the man once more, looking in all directions as he
spoke like a soldier watching for enemy snipers from nearby building windows.
"Who are you?" asked Miranda.
"You can call me Deacon," he said. "Anything else you need to know can be answered by my employer. But we have to go now, Miss Stratton."
"And who is your employer?" asked Jake.
"My employer is the person who is truly responsible for saving your lives today."
CHAPTER 17
The black Hummer moved forward across the old highway in silence, with the exception of the evenly spaced tension cracks below them that pulsed like a heartbeat in Miranda's ears. Three of the men accompanied her and Jake in the vehicle; the man called Deacon sat shotgun, while another drove and the third sat in the back seat with the two of them, tending to the wound on Jake's arm. The man cleaned and bandaged it thoroughly; he was obviously trained to deal with these sorts of wounds. With the exception of a few questions the man helping Jake had asked him about the wound and the pain, no one in the Hummer uttered a word.
Miranda stared out the deeply tinted windows. All clues and signs she saw during the drive indicated that they were heading towards Grand Rapids. They had been on the road for almost an hour, and were only about 20 minutes from the downtown Grand Rapids area.
It had been some time since Miranda had been to the city, and as they approached, the skyline looked very different than it had the last time she visited. The new Stratusaint Tower building was the first thing in sight, stretching high into the sky over the city's other buildings. The last time Miranda was in the city, ground had only just been broken on the building; the construction was only in its infant stages. Now it was a massive monument of slightly tapering glass shooting upward from the ground and reaching into the sky. At its peak, the tower sharply tapered into a four sided pyramid point.
Miranda leaned forward and stared between the front seats at the high rise as they drew closer.
"That is where we are going," said Deacon, at last breaking the silence in the vehicle. "The Stratusaint Tower. My employer has an office there. That building is the newest in the city, with 75 stories of steel, concrete, and uniquely tempered and forged glass. It's able to withstand almost any impact or remote structural damage. You can trust it is one of the safest places to be, Miss Stratton."
"Should I be concerned about someone trying to crash a plane into me?" Miranda asked, her eyes fixed sharply on Deacon.
Deacon did not respond. Miranda sat back into her seat and looked at Jake, who could sense there was a fire stirring within her. She was showing no fear, and this did not make Jake feel at all at ease.
The Stratusaint Tower was built on the outskirts of the downtown area where once stood a massive condominium complex that had burned to the ground years before. The fire made national news at the time because of several violations of building codes that came to light after the fire. The violations not only contributed to the fire, but also may have prevented some of the 23 people that lost their lives that day a means of escaping the furious blaze. The developer of the project, Mason Wright, took his own life with a 9mm handgun to the temple after months of pressure and overwhelming guilt.
Now, the once somber grounds approaching the Tower reflected only beauty in the dazzling gardens that covered the several acres surrounding the building. Several fountains and statuettes of playing children lined the way on each side of the roadway leading to the frontal area of the building.
What caught Miranda's attention the most was what she saw directly in front of the main entrance of the Tower. The entranceway itself into the Tower was a large concave glass gateway that was lined with several doors that people were continuously entering and exiting through. Directly in front of the gateway was a much larger fountain than the others that lined the roadway leading into the grounds. This one had several small spouts shooting upward that surrounded a large, 20-foot-high polished white stone statue of an angel, down upon one knee while looking upwards into the sky. The wings were only partially spread apart, and the arms of the angel were held up straight over its head grasping the handle of a large sword that pointed straight up into the sky.
Miranda found herself transfixed on the angel so much that she didn't take immediate notice to the fact that the Hummer had passed by the front of the building and followed through a gated pass that took them to a subterranean garage housed beneath the Tower. The shaft that followed beneath the building was long and narrow, with only enough clearance for the Hummer to pass through. They came to a stop in a parking area with only a half-dozen other vehicles parked in the small chamber.
Deacon and the other two men exited the vehicle. Jake and Miranda glanced at each other for only a moment before the doors closed, leaving them alone inside.
Deacon walked over to a large mirrored elevator door and removed his cell phone from the inside pocket of his jacket. He stood for a moment, saying very little into the phone, and put it away back in his pocket.
There was a smooth black panel beside the large door, and Miranda watched as he touched the panel with his index finger. There appeared a red glow where his finger met the screen. He dragged his finger in a precise pattern until finally his finger came to a stop. The red glow turned into a bright green, and the door beside the panel began to open. Miranda and Jake were startled as the Hummer door beside them opened abruptly.
"Please, follow me," said a man they had not yet seen, wearing a dark blue suit and tie. Jake and Miranda exited the Hummer through the door the man had opened, and he led them around the vehicle to Deacon standing by the open elevator door.
"We are ready to go up," said Deacon politely to the two of them, holding up his arm with a gesture that guided them to step into the elevator. Miranda was no longer feeling fear or apprehension in her actions at this point. She wanted answers, and she knew that if these people were trying to harm them, they could have easily done it by now. She stepped inside the elevator, with Jake close behind her, followed by Deacon.
There was only one button in the elevator car. Deacon pushed it, and the door in front of them immediately closed.
Miranda felt for a moment like she was in some fairy tale, trapped inside a mirrored world. Every surface in the elevator was reflective, save for the button that closed the door and set the car in motion. The elevator seemed to ascend quickly, but still took some time to reach its final destination near the pinnacle of the tower. When it stopped, there was no 'ding' as one might expect with most elevators. The doors opened swiftly to a long and wide hall with soft, leathery grey walls on both sides and a pristine white and grey marbled floor. Although the floor was bright and almost reflective, the lighting in the hall was soft and pleasant.
Deacon stepped out of the elevator car first, then turned to look at Jake and Miranda.
"Follow me please," he beckoned once more, with the same polite tone in his voice as he had before.
Deacon started down the hall, with Jake and Miranda close behind. On the right side of the hall they passed a few other closed doors, but there were no doors on the left until they finally came to a large set of double doors that appeared to be in the direct center of the long hall. The two doors were tall, more than nine feet from the floor to the top, and built from darkly stained hardwood. Each door was carved in a beautiful design depicting celestial bodies; the centerpiece of the left door being an intricate sun sculpture while the right door had its matching lunar counterpart.
Deacon opened the door with the sun design carved into it and stepped a few feet inside. Miranda followed him in first, with Jake trailing behind her.
The room before them seemed overwhelming with all of the sights that they could see before them. They stood upon a white polished stone surface, much like the material the statue of the angel in the front of the building was sculpted from. It extended away from them another six feet and formed a half circle, stepping down two short steps to meet the main floor level of the room. Red and black floral design carpeting spanned the rest of the massive room. The ce
iling was a good 12 feet from the carpeted floor; at the far right side of the room was a spiral staircase constructed of polished timbers. The steps themselves were half logs that ascended into the ceiling above.
The room was easily the entire length of the hallway that they had walked down, a good 200 feet or so, and the windows stretched across the room from end to end and floor to ceiling, sharply slanted inward towards the peak of the building. The glass was tinted and tempered so the sunlight wasn't as blinding as it well could have been.
Miranda realized that they were near the top of the pyramid point of the Stratusaint Tower, just beneath the peak of the building. Books lined shelves that rose to the tiles on the ceiling at either end of the room, and along the walls on either side of where the three of them stood at the entranceway to the room. Adding far more to the awe of the room was a large fireplace that was burning brightly in the far corner to their right, surrounded by several comfortable armchairs and a large brushed leather sofa. Not far beyond the fireplace was a wet bar with a wine cabinet with etched glass doors, and several shelves lined and fully stocked with high-end liquors.
To the left side of the room was the real mystique of the splendid chamber. Statues and carvings from all different cultures were set about the left wing of the room in a museum like arrangement. Miranda knew little about historical art, but could identify jade bowls and carved vases that looked Asian in design, most likely of Chinese origin.
There were golden objects that appeared to be tools and ceremonial knives encased in glass that had the ankh design that Miranda knew well to be Egyptian, carved into the polished stone stand that the glass case was set upon.
Medieval suits of armor, battle worn and rough looking, stood in line along one of the many lengthy aisles of ancient treasures. The artifacts went on and on, from all around the globe, and Miranda's eyes surveyed all that she could take in from what lie displayed before her.
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