A flash of lighting has me looking into the dark sky to see if I can find the cloud it came from. Only one area is void of any stars and another jagged length of lightning moves out of it all the way to the water.
A howling sound fills my ears as the wind whips through the tops of the tall trees on one side of the shoreline. It’s eerie yet I like the way the wind and trees can mimic the howl of a wolf.
Making my way back to the safety of the lighthouse, I find I’m suddenly in a hallway. The moon is gone. There is only darkness and I have no idea where I am. “Is anyone there?” I shout.
My voice echoes off the walls. Walls I cannot see but instinct tells me they are there. So is a ceiling. I hear the sound of creaking coming from above me.
Walking slowly so I don’t trip or step on something with my bare feet, I move forward and begin to whistle to calm myself. The sound is soft and I notice I can still hear the wind whipping around outside of where ever I am.
“Turn back,” I hear floating on the wind.
It has to be my imagination. Just like the wind and trees mimicked the howling of a wolf, it must be doing the same thing only with human words, said with a deep voice.
The floor under my feet feels like sand. I stop and kneel down to touch it with my hand to see if it is sand. What I feel isn’t sand at all. It’s a plush carpeting.
How did I get inside? Wasn’t I just outside?
Standing up, I move on down the corridor. There is no light anywhere. It’s the darkest I ever recall. Not even the flash of light from the lightning I know is going on outside, as I can hear the thunder booming in the distance, do I see.
The storm has not yet reached me. It’s still some distance away. The wind is howling again and I can swear I hear a man calling my name. But there is no one around. No man would be calling out to me.
Wings suddenly beat the air just above my head as something flies over me. A bat, maybe!
I fall to the floor, lying on my belly to avoid the animal. It has to be a bat. Only they fly around at night. Isn’t that right?
The sound goes away and all I can hear is the wind again. The quiet thunder is there now and then. I decide to stop walking blindly and try my best to focus on the path in front of me. I see nothing and decide to look back.
Looking as hard as I can, I manage to see the tiniest pinpoint of light. So I turn around and head toward it. The other direction had nothing, at least this is something.
Walking slowly, I start to feel dizzy as if I might fall down. Moving to one side, I keep going until I find a hard surface. I do believe it’s a wall and the way it makes me feel is amazing.
I have found something to hold onto!
It makes it so much easier to go on. My hand moves over the wall then it falls in suddenly and I find that it’s a door. Stopping, I feel around for the doorknob and find it. Turning it, I find I can’t. It’s locked.
Moving on, I ready myself for another door so I’m not so startled again if one happens along this wall. I find another and this one is also locked.
Counting my steps as I go, I walk eight of them and find another door, which is also locked. I have no idea what kind of house I’m in that has so many locked doors.
I count my steps and find I’m at another locked door. Along I go and I am finding a door every eight steps. I might be in an old abandoned hospital. That’s probably it!
I must’ve left the lighthouse and taken a walk. Maybe I was sleeping walking. And somehow I ended up in the middle of an abandoned hospital.
That has to be it!
The light is getting bigger but it’s taking forever for that to happen. I can’t imagine never seeing this building in the daylight before. It has to be humongous!
I’ll have to come back in the light of day, with a flashlight and Gramps. Together, we can give this place a thorough going over. Like we did the lighthouse.
I was scared of that place at first until I got to know it. Gramps is great at taking me to places that scare me and making me face those fears. He’s my favorite person on Earth!
The sound of wings coming toward me has me stopping and falling to the ground. The wind howls outside again and it sounds as if someone is shouting, “Watch out, Elizabeth!”
The wind is really playing tricks on my ears tonight. The wings seem to be moving in a circle right over me. As if the bat is pointing me out to someone.
“Shoo!” I holler at it.
It doesn’t leave, though. I figure, like everything else Gramps has taught me, I have to stand up to this thing.
It’s just a little mouse with wings after all!
Flailing my arms up over my head, I shout, “Shoo! Go away before I hit you and clobber you, stupid bat!”
My hand connects with something and I hear the sound of something hitting the wall. It squeaks and I feel bad, instantly. “Sorry, little bat. I did warn you, though.”
A sudden breeze moves past me, filling my nose with a vanilla scent. Placing my hand on the wall to steady myself, I ask, “Is anyone there?”
I hear nothing but the breeze grows colder as it flows over my skin I now realize is bare in front. It seems I have on some kind of a silky robe. As I feel around, I find the belt is untied and hanging down at my sides.
Quickly, I wrap it back around me, closing the front of the robe and tying it up. The vanilla scent gets stronger and I can feel the presence of someone I cannot see.
“Please answer me,” I say and find my voice is quivering. My body is suddenly shaking and in an instant, fear is all I can feel. “Please!”
On the back of my neck, I feel something small, round and cold. Maybe steel. Someone is holding whatever it is, as I feel it shaking just a bit with their movements.
Cold envelopes my entire body. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”
I get no answer then I hear the sound of a door opening behind me. Taking advantage of the interruption, I drop to a squatting position and move away from the person with the cold steel object they had against my neck.
When I get eight paces away, I lean back into the recess of the next door. And I see an orange light blast out of something, making the loudest sound I’ve ever heard.
Screams fill the air around me. Then I’m shaking violently.
“Elizabeth! Elizabeth! You have to be quiet! Please, baby.”
“Who’s there?” I ask as the darkness is still surrounding me.
“It’s me, baby. Zane. You were dreaming. You woke up screaming. You have to be quiet.”
Zane, oh yeah!
I blink and shake my head. “Why is it dark in here?”
“The power has gone out. There’s a storm that’s come in. I guess it knocked out a transformer. The power’s out all over. See out the window? It’s all dark out there.”
The power has gone out. There’s a storm raging outside. And I am in a hotel.
I am in a hotel. A place with one long corridor with many doors along it. I am in a place that also has people who want to kill me in it.
“Zane,” I whisper as I tug the silky robe around me. “This is it, baby. This is my nightmare. Shit. It’s coming true!”
Chapter 7
ZANE
“Elizabeth, stop that!” I whisper-hiss at her. “Dreams nor nightmares can come true. Now, this is just a power outage. They happen all the time. It’s nothing to worry about. The door is locked with both locks and no one can get in here. You’re perfectly safe.”
A loud sound fills the hallway, filtering into the room. “Is that the fire alarm,” she asks me.
“No,” I say. I think it might be but I don’t want her to know that.
My cell rings, making it light up and I pick it up to see it’s Tristan. “Mr. White, I’m sending four guards up to you. There’s a fire, sir. We have to evacuate the building. But I don’t want you to leave your room until they get to you. I’ll call you when they tell me they’re there.”
Elizabeth can hear him and she asks, “Is the fire in yo
ur penthouse. Because I think it is.”
Tristan hears her. “I don’t know how she knew that but it is in your penthouse. We think the female we saw come in with those men probably started it after the power went off and we lost visibility. The weather seems to have helped the assassin with her plans.”
The word, assassin, hits me like a bat upside my head. “We’ll be ready for the men when they get here. Let me know.” I end the call and put the phone in my pocket.
“Come on, baby. Let’s get ready. I can’t see a damn thing. I’m going to take you to the door then I’m going into the bathroom. I have to piss like a fucking racehorse.”
“This is it, Zane. I want you to know I love you. I want you to know I want you to find love again after I’m gone,” she says, completely pissing me off.
“Stop that, Elizabeth! I don’t want to hear another word come out of your mouth like that. Nothing’s going to happen. The guards are going to take us out and keep you surrounded at all times. No one will get through them. Now wait here for me.”
I can’t see her but I know she has to be shaking her head as she says, “You’ll see. It won’t happen like that. I know it won’t. We should devise a plan that goes something like my nightmare. You could wait in here while I go.”
I cut her off, “You are going nowhere without me. Do you understand me? Under no circumstances are you to go anywhere without me. And now that I can see how you’re thinking, you’re going with me to the bathroom.” I pull her along with me and use my phone’s flashlight to get us to the bathroom. “Where’s your phone? We can use the flashlight on it to get around.”
“I meant to plug it in. It was out of charge,” Her finger moves into the light as she points at my screen. “And yours is just about out too. We may as well get this plan made.”
“The only plan you need to think about is the plan where you stay at my fucking side and never leave it. You understand me?” I ask as I tug her to follow me into the bathroom.
“You keep asking me if I understand you but you don’t seem to be understanding me. I have to face this. I have to face this fear. It’s been a long time coming. I will have to face it. There is no other way. Now if you could just listen,” she says and I turn and pin her to the wall.
“I will not listen to this. I will not make some plan where you go face a fucking assassin. Dream or no dream, you’re not going anywhere that’s not with me.” And now I’m half-ass afraid to let her hand go. She might just try to run and throw her ass in the path of danger.
With one hand, I manage to unbutton then unzip my pants then pull my dick out to piss. “You can let my hand go so you can do that. I’m not about to run out of here without telling you what you need to do, anyway,” she says.
“I don’t trust you right now,” I tell her as I finish up.
She flushes the toilet for me and moves my hand to her wrist then tucks me back in and buttons and zips me up. “There. Now please listen to me. I know those men aren’t going to make it to us.”
“You do not know that,” I say as I take her hand in mine again and go back out to wait by the door, “I thought I saw a pair of pink matching slippers around here somewhere.” I shine the light around the floor but can’t seem to find them.
“I don’t have shoes on in the dream,” she says. “It’s okay, I don’t ever get out of the hallway. I won’t need them where I’m going. Wherever that is.”
“You have to stop talking like that,” I beg her. “I can’t take the thought of anything at all happening to you.”
Pressing her back to the door, I hold her tight. Using the cell phone light to see her face, I kiss her and find the light fading as I do. As my mouth leaves hers, she says, “I knew it would go out. There’s never been any real light. Only the one at the far end of the hallway and it’s nothing but a pinprick of it.”
“We will not leave this room if no one comes for us,” I tell her as I keep her body between mine and the door.
“There’s a fire, Zane. We’ll have to. We’ll have no choice. Now let me tell you this, please,” she says.
I don’t want to hear anything about any plan of hers. I don’t want her to fall for this damn dream shit. I just want to get her the fuck out of here and I want to do that safely.
“I think the woman must have night vision goggles or something like that,” she says. “She seems to know where I am. I also think she has maybe a drone or something that is looking for me as people are leaving the building. Now, all I know for sure is that I need to be alone in the hallway and you need to listen hard for the sound of the drone or whatever it is hitting the wall when I swat it down.”
“And just why is that?” I ask, humoring her.
“Because that’s when she finds me and puts a little gun to the back of my head. And you’ll need to open the door and have the shotgun ready and you will have to shoot her, Zane. Don’t worry, I’ll move out of the way. But she might get a shot off or something. I don’t know how the rest goes.”
“Here’s how this is going to go. We’re only three floors up. You and I will go out the window if those guards don’t show up for some reason. But if they do show up then we’re going with them. End of fucking story. Got it, baby?”
She leans her head against my chest and sighs. “Sure. Let’s do it your way.”
Finally!
Chapter 8
ELIZABETH
We’re not going to do things the way Zane thinks but I’m not about to continue arguing with him. He knows the plan now and that’s all I needed him to know anyway.
It’s been awhile since the guards were sent up and with Zane’s phone out of batteries there is no way to communicate any further with Tristan or anyone.
Zane is pulling me over to the window. When he pulls the curtain back we can only see blackness out of the window. His penthouse is on the opposite side of the building. All the emergency vehicles are on that side, I’m sure.
“The damn windows don’t open,” he says. “I’ll have to use a chair or something to break it.”
“Or we could walk out of here like all the other people have done,” I say in hopes of getting to where I need to be to face this thing that’s been my destiny for some time.
“No!” He tugs me along again back across the dark room. “I’ll break the window and we’ll use the sheets and blankets to climb down.”
“There aren’t enough to get close enough to the ground to not get hurt when we have to fall to the cement, Zane,” I tell him as he hasn’t thought this through at all.
“We’ll make it. I know we will,” he says as he picks up a chair and has to let my hand go to do it. “Come on.”
The fire alarm suddenly stops and I stop following him as he continues to go to the window. I see my chance and turn to find my way to the door.
Easing out of it, I close the door so quietly he never knows I’m not right behind him. He will soon, though. But I’ll be going down the hallway to the right.
Purposely, I take a couple of steps away from the wall and walk with hesitant steps in one direction. It’s what I did in the dream and then I turned back around.
Just like in the dream, I can hear the wind howling outside. Time seems to be standing still as I take each step down the corridor. I notice how the carpet does feel like sand under my bare feet. Then I start the quiet whistle. Maybe this is what alerts her to me.
Instead of flapping wings, I hear a quiet buzzing sound coming toward me. I duck as it flies close to me and goes on down the hallway. Soon she’ll see what it saw and find me here.
One of the hall lights barely flickers and I see that as my sign to turn back around now. Not everything is exactly like the dreams. There is no bat, just a drone. That makes it a lot easier to hit it when it comes back now that I know it’s not a bat with teeth.
Now I ease over to touch the wall and count the steps between the doors. I’m a little shocked to see there are eight steps between each door. I figured that would be a little off to
o but its spot on.
Now I hear the fleeting sound of Zane calling my name. He’s finally figured out I’m not in the room with him. Took him long enough!
I just pray he’ll get to the gun. He has to load it and get his ass to the door and start listening for the thump of the drone. If he misses that key moment, I think it’ll be over for me.
Please don’t let it be over for me!
ZANE
“No,” I say as I feel around. “Don’t be gone, Elizabeth.”
Please tell me she didn’t sneak out of this room. Only a fucking insane person would do something like that!
“Elizabeth!” I shout in an attempt to get her to answer me. Maybe she had to use the bathroom and that’s why I can’t find her.
She wouldn’t leave. I know she wouldn’t do that to me. Moving around in the complete darkness is agonizingly slow. I have to be careful as I go to the bathroom. She has to be in there. She has to!
Finally, I feel that door and go inside and feel all around in there. “Elizabeth?”
Nothing! Not a damn thing!
She fucking left the fucking room!
I am going to ring her neck when I get to her. Please let me get to her first!
Getting back to the bed where the guns are in the garment bag, I have to feel around for it. I cannot believe I have to load this damn gun in the pitch black after only one lesson.
“You’re really funny, Lord,” I whisper-pray, kind of. “So, how about a little help here?” My hand moves over the zipper and I find the end and unzip it. “Thanks.”
The bullets are at the bottom of the bag and I find them easily. Now to load this bitch while I’m blind. I feel the gun from one end to the other and find I can figure things out pretty well even though I can’t see a damn thing.
I manage to get it loaded and offer up a little prayer that I don’t have the bullet in backward or something awful like that. That would be terrible!
With the loaded gun in my hand, I make my way to the door and feel kind of stupid but then kind of not. Elizabeth has been calling everything right so far.
The Billionaire’s Lighthouse Series: A Billionaire, Bad Boy, Romance Page 27