I shook my head and went in search of a flashlight. I would just close up the library early and head home for the night. There was nothing I could do if the power was out. I grabbed my messenger bag and flung it over my shoulder, tossing my phone inside. I was just headed for the office door when I heard the front door creak open. I stood stock still as the door creaked closed and multiple footsteps clomped across the floor. It wasn’t the smooth gait that Derek had. He was always stealthy when he walked, which was creepy since it made it hard to know when he was around.
As the steps got closer to my office, I started to panic. My heart was racing out of control and my body was shaking violently. It was hot in here. So hot that I thought I was going to pass out and then they would kill me. All over a stupid book that I could have gotten for them. It had to be them. No one cared about anything in the library enough to kill. Why did this sound so familiar though? I tried to put my finger on it, but then the office door started to open and I shoved myself under my desk. Luckily, it was very big and I was able to squeeze myself way into the back corner of it.
“Let’s find that goody two shoes and get out of here,” I heard a man whisper. “Just remember what Leto said. We don’t hurt her. We need whatever information she’s holding out on us,” another voice said.
“Sure. I’ll keep that in mind, but if she doesn’t cooperate, I have no problem using more creative ways to get the information from her,” the first voice said.
“You aren’t going to tickle it out of her,” I whispered. The conversation seemed to flow in my mind, like I’d heard it before.
“You aren’t going to beat it out of her,” the second voice said. I reared back in confusion. That wasn’t what he was supposed to say. “Just as long as you remember what we’re supposed to be doing here.”
There was no way I was sticking around for a beating over a book. When they left the office and headed in another direction, I crawled out from underneath it and over to the open door. Peeking out, I didn’t see anyone, so I got to my feet and slunk along the wall until I could reach one of the aisles of books. There were so many of them, it would be easy to get lost among the books, but I had been working here for a long time and knew this place like the back of my hand. I was just making my way down the first aisle when a hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed, followed by a firm grip over my mouth. I took in a deep breath and recognized Derek’s familiar scent.
“Don’t scream,” Derek whispered in my ear. “I’ll get you out of here. You just have to do as I say. Nod if you understand.”
I nodded and slowly turned to see his handsome face staring down at me. He grinned that devilish grin and held out his hand for me, which I immediately took. He squeezed my hand tight and pulled me in for a hug, which for some reason, I thought would be a kiss. “I’ll never let anything happen to you. We have to keep moving. These men are serious. They’ll beat the information out of you if they get their hands on you.” He turned before I could say anything and scanned the library for the direction the men had gone. He must have felt it was safe to move, because he started pulling me down another aisle at a slight jog.
While we zigzagged through the library aisles, I wondered why Derek was so worried about two men getting their hands on me when he was such a badass warrior. We’d already established he wasn’t a superhero, but still, he was a highly trained killer. He could handle two men like that. We made our way over to the old marble stairs that led to the second floor and climbed them quietly as we distanced ourselves from the intruders.
“We have to get away from them. They can never know that you have access to the-”
“Horcruxes,” I blurted out, then thought about what I had just said. Derek narrowed his eyes at me in concern.
“What are you talking about? What the hell are Horcruxes?”
“They’re from Harry Potter. Voldemort created them so that he could never be killed. Harry had to collect all the horcruxes so that he could get rid of Voldemort. It was really a brilliant-”
He silenced me with a finger to my lips. “Not now. Right now we have to focus on getting out of here alive.”
“But Derek-”
“Please, Claire. We don’t have time to rehash Henry Potter right now. You have to trust me and let me get us out of here. I’d never let anything happen to you.”
“Harry Potter,” I grumbled as I followed behind him. I wanted to tell him that I had done all this before in my dream. Everything was playing out almost exactly as it had, which had to mean something. I could warn him what was going to happen next. But he wanted me to trust him and that’s what I was going to do.
I followed him blindly, knowing that if anyone could get us out of this, it was Derek. After all, even if he wasn’t really a superhero, he had been one to me so far. We made it to the rooftop access and I took a deep gulp as he flung open the door and ushered me onto the roof. I knew instantly that he was looking for the fire escape ladder, so I ran over to it and pointed down. “Here!”
He made his way over and gave me a quizzical look. “How did you know where it was?”
“Good luck, I guess.” I didn’t think now was the time to tell him that we were about to die, based on the fact that he had caught me in the dream.
“This thing looks pretty fucking old. I’m going down first to see if it’ll hold my weight.”
“Wait! What about the kiss?”
“What the hell are you talking about, Claire?”
“You’re supposed to kiss me. Right here, right now. It could be our last kiss, Derek.”
He grabbed me by the arms, but instead of pulling me in for a hot steamy kiss, he shook me a little. “Claire, snap the fuck out of it. This is not a dream. I am not Superman, and those men will kill us if they find us. We need to get the fuck out of here. Now!”
He started the climb down the ladder and I looked over. “Watch out for the seventh rung,” I shouted. I sighed. The dream had been so much better. Being chased by people that were after Horcruxes and trying to escape the Nazgûl was so much more exciting than running from these men that didn’t seem to want anything more than a book. How boring was that? Even dream Derek was so much better than real life Derek. There was an intensity to him in the dream that was dark and dangerous, but also passionate. Real life Derek was dark and dangerous, but didn’t want to kiss me at all. I found that kind of disappointing. I guess it was the librarian’s curse. You always want what you read about more than what’s actually happening in real life.
Derek looked up at me and waved me down. I sighed and followed him over the edge, keeping my eyes averted from the concrete below. I already knew from my dream that the concrete was what freaked me out so much. I made sure to step around the seventh rung and held on tight as I made my way closer and closer to Derek.
Something flew through the window in front of me, hitting me in my arm and causing me to lose my grip. I screamed as I just barely gripped onto the ladder, my legs dangling in the air.
“Claire, just hold on. I’m coming to you,” Derek shouted urgently. I could see him climbing fast to get to me, but there wasn’t enough time. A large, gloved hand shot out of the window and grabbed on tight to my shirt, pulling me through the window. I tried to hold onto the rung, but my hands were sweaty and kept slipping. I fought for control, but the man had me half in the window by the time Derek was almost there.
“Claire, give me your hand,” Derek said, reaching out to grab on to me.
I tried, but I was too far away. “This is the not the way it fucking happens in my dream!” I kicked my feet at the man holding onto my body, but he still wouldn’t let go. “You were supposed to save me from falling to my death. None of this was in there.”
“Claire, shut the fuck up,” Derek said as he climbed higher up the ladder, trying to get a hold of the man grabbing onto me. My fingers slipped and the man pulled me the rest of the way inside. My stomach scratched along the glass that had been left in the frame and I bit my lip to keep from
screaming.
The man was dragging me across the floor, not even giving me a chance to get to my feet. Derek burst through the window and started running for me. The man threw me into a corner and swung around, gun aimed right at Derek.
“Put the gun down,” the man sneered, but Derek was holding firm to his own weapon. His eyes flicked briefly to mine, but then stayed trained on the man in front of us. I scurried back against the wall, only to run into the leg of something. I looked up to see I was leaning against an old card catalogue. I slowly stood and pulled out the drawer, removing it from the box entirely. The drawer was heavy and I had no doubt I could do some damage with it if I could get a good angle. Luckily, the man was still in a standoff with Derek and didn’t see me sneaking up from behind. I kept my eyes trained on Derek, knowing he was the one I was drawing my strength from at the moment. When Derek’s eyes widened, the man spun around and I nailed him in the face with the drawer. Blood gushed as I heard bone crack. I started gagging as the breaking bone reverberated in my ears. I looked down to see blood covering my shirt. I shook my head to try to clear the images, but they wouldn’t go away.
“Claire. Claire!” Derek was shaking me, but I was still staring at the man whose face I had just bashed in. “Claire!” He slapped my face hard and I finally looked up at him. “We have to get out of here. Come on.”
He started pulling me back through the library, which totally freaked me out. “Why are we going this way?”
“There were only two of them. We should be able to sneak past him.”
We ran down the marble staircase and were about half way down when we heard a loud thumping noise. We stopped and through the darkness, saw the bookcases on the far end starting to topple into one another. Oh, no. All my books were going to be out of order. Derek gripped my hand tight and flew down the stairs, taking them a lot faster than my little legs would carry me.
“Come on, Claire!” he shouted. “We have to make it through before they all go over!”
We ran for the aisle right in front of us and were almost halfway through when the bookcase to our left started to fall over us.
“We’re not going to make it. Turn back!” he shouted at me.
Books pelted us as we tried to finish running through and Derek gripped my hand tight and flung me on my ass across the floor. I went sliding out of the aisle just as the bookcase landed against the next and started to tip that one. Derek was still underneath there.
“Derek!” I ran for the bookcase and started shoving books out of my way, trying to find any sign that Derek was alive under there. I heard a faint groan and dug harder. After about five minutes, I saw his hand peeking out from under a book. I shoved more books aside and tried to lift the bookcase, but seriously, it was a lost cause. I wasn’t strong enough to do that. Once I got enough books moved, I gripped onto his hand, set my feet, and started to pull. He slowly slid out from under the wreckage and when he was about half out, he shook off my hand and pulled himself the rest of the way out. Besides a cut over his eye, he didn’t look too bad, considering. He laid back on the ground and took in deep breaths as I stared around at my newly destroyed library.
“This is going to take forever to get back in order.”
“Priorities, Claire.”
“Right. I should see if I can get some new bookcases out of this.”
Derek sighed as he pulled himself up. “I meant that we should focus on getting out of here alive.”
“Oh, right. That makes more sense.”
He stood gingerly and swore as he patted down his pants. “Shit, my gun is buried somewhere under there.” He gazed around the library as the dust lingered in the air. It was impossible to see anything, but when a shot pinged off the marble staircase behind us, he threw me to the ground and covered my body with his.
“We’re sitting ducks here. We have to go back upstairs. You go first and I’m going to run directly behind you. If something happens to me, you run for your life and find a way out. Don’t stop and wait for me.”
He pushed me toward the stairs before I could argue, so I started running up the stairs, two at a time. I could feel Derek behind me, holding onto my pants as if that would keep me upright. When I wasn’t going fast enough, he hauled me up over his shoulder and took off at an even faster pace.
“I have short legs,” I yelled at him. “It’s not my fault they don’t move as fast as your gigantic beanstalk legs.”
He smacked my ass and continued to make his way to the second floor. Gunshots pinged off the floor behind us and when I looked up, I saw at least ten men trying to climb over the bookcases to get to us.
“Holy shit. There’s like a whole army of them,” I gasped against the bouncing in my ribs. Derek pushed harder and didn’t put me down as he ran in a different direction than before. He flung open an old, rusty door and slammed it behind us, only then setting me down.
“We’re going out the window.”
“Out the window?” I screeched. He flung the window open and looked from side to side at the outside of the building, He pulled his head back in and grinned. “Don’t worry. There’s a ledge you can walk on. Plenty of space. Absolutely nothing to be scared of.” He glanced around the room and spied a piece of rope, brought it over to me and tied it around my waist.
“If there’s nothing to be scared of, then why are you tying me to you?”
“Because, with the way you talk with your hands, you’ll go flying off the building in the first five seconds.”
“I just won’t talk,” I insisted.
He snorted and finished tying the other end of the rope to himself.
“Alright, I’m going to go first and you step exactly where I step.”
“This is a really bad idea. We should just go down there and explain to the man that we don’t have whatever he’s looking for. I’m sure he’ll understand and maybe I could even refer him to a few book collectors,” I rambled.
“Sure. Because they came in here, guns blazing, because they were willing to talk it out. Let’s go.”
He climbed out the window and held his hand out for me. I hesitated. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, but I wasn’t too fond of walking on the outside of a building.
“Hey, Claire, I would never let anything happen to you. Just trust me. I’ve got this,” he smiled charmingly. What choice did I have? I wanted to trust Derek more than anything. I just didn’t like the idea of plummeting to my death. I put my hand in his and squeezed tight as I stepped out onto the ledge.
“You made this ledge sound a lot bigger. This is barely big enough to hold my foot.”
“Don’t look down,” he said.
“If I don’t look down, I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to see where I’m walking and then I’ll end up in little bloody pieces on the ground.”
Derek sighed and squeezed my hand reassuringly. “Look, we just have to make it to the other side of the building and then we can jump into that lake.”
“The lake? That’s not even close to the building. We’d need at least a running jump to even hope to make it. This isn’t Italy where the buildings are built on the river.”
“Jesus Christ, Claire. Would you fucking stop? I’m going to get us out of this, but I need you to do me a favor and shut up for the next five minutes.”
I was a little hurt by that, but I shrugged it off, knowing he was right.
“Okay, step over this next piece. It’s a little loose.”
I was so lost in my thoughts that I really wasn’t paying attention to which piece he was talking about, which was how I stepped directly on the piece he told me not to. The ledge crumbled under my feet and I started to slip, but Derek was there, gripping my wrist seconds later. His face strained as he held onto my wrist and clutched the wall behind him.
I took deep calming breaths, trying my best not to move a lot, knowing that would only make it more difficult for him to hold on.
“Claire, we’re only going to have one shot at this.” His voice w
as stretched thin and his arms shook, his muscles big and hard. Sweat trickled down his arm and I watched the way it slid closer and closer to my arm. Maybe I could lick the sweat if it got to my wrist.
“Claire! Stop fucking daydreaming and listen.”
“Sorry,” I blushed bright red.
“You need to swing one leg up to the ledge and pull yourself up. Ready?” I nodded, determined not to fuck this up. “Now, Claire.” I swung my leg and just barely caught the ledge with my foot. I inched it further and further onto the ledge, well aware that Derek was using every ounce of strength to hold onto me. After I hooked my knee over the ledge, I was able to pull myself up the rest of the way. Derek was sweating and shook out his arm after the strain of holding me.
“You need to fucking listen to what I’m saying. This isn’t a game, Claire. One of us could end up dead.”
I was shocked. In my dreams, he had pulled me into his arms and told me he would never let anything happen to me. Reality sucked. I grumbled something about making sure I paid attention as he gripped my hand firmly in his and started walking across the ledge again. Dream Derek was so much better.
We made it to the corner of the building and very carefully rounded to the other side. I swallowed hard when I saw how far we had to jump. It was far, way too far to make it.
“There’s no way we can make it, Derek.” I turned to him in near panic. “This is crazy. We’ll never make that jump! The fall alone will kill us. We can’t do this. I’ll just stay up here and wait for help. I won’t- I can’t. This is nuts!”
Irish: A Reed Security Romance (Reed Security Series Book 5) Page 21