Orion stares at his back, and after a brief moment of shock, he pulls himself together and escorts me inside. Once back in the confines of the apartment, I watch as Thaddeus leaves, slamming the door behind him.
“Where is Mr. Cranky Pants going?” I ask, instantly regretting it when I hear Ryland answer.
“To find someone to eat,” he says with a smirk on his face. A shiver runs up my spine and I feel the blood drain from my face.
“He won’t be long. Wait here while I take some things down to the car,” Orion says. I nod, not knowing where they’re going, but I definitely won’t be going with them.
Ryland wanders into the room, and I follow him. “What’s wrong?” he asks, looking at me.
“Have you got a smoke?” I ask. I know for a fact that I saw a fire escape running alongside the balcony.
Ryland eyes me before going over to a jacket, draped over the back of a chair. He puts his hand in the pocket, pulls out a packet, and hands it to me. “You really shouldn’t smoke, you know that?”
I nod and take them from him. When I am leaving the room, he speaks again. “Don’t be too long out there. Thaddeus won’t be long.” I nod, not bothering to say anything.
Quickly, opening the sliding door, I step onto the balcony, closing the curtain that hangs in the doorway. Walking over to the barrier in the balcony’s corner, I climb onto the railing and manage to reach the ladder. My shaky hands grip it tightly. I gulp when I look down and see how high up I am. My hands feel clammy as I grip the ladder even tighter.
I just need to get down the ladder and drop to the fire escape. Only, it isn’t easy. My heart pounds so hard I think I will have a heart attack and fall to my death. I pray silently that if I fall, the heart attack will kill me so I don’t feel myself hitting the concrete.
Once I get to the bottom rung of the ladder, there is a six-foot drop. I gulp while hanging a foot off and nearly pull myself up, fearing the drop when my fingers slip from the rung, and I drop. My stomach plummets somewhere deep from the rush of falling.
Hitting the stairs with a metallic-sounding thud, I land on my side. Looking up, I shake my head. I can’t believe I did it. Well, to be fair, I chickened out and fell the rest of the way, but still, I did it.
Racing down the stairs, I hear Ryland curse, making me look up, and I run down the stairs skipping some in my haste as adrenaline kicks in, making me move quicker. Getting to the bottom, I jump onto a trash bin, and then jump onto the ground in the alleyway, still shocked I escaped.
Running onto the street, I look in both directions but do not know where I am. Shit, now what? I keep running, not wanting to risk stopping, until I see a taxi pull up down the road. I wave it down just before it takes off. I all but jump in the car and quickly duck down. The taxi driver must think I am a lunatic.
“Drive! Go! Please!” I yell at him.
Startled, he takes off. Once he turns around the corner, I sit up. The Indian man stares at me in the mirror with wide eyes. “Where to?” he asks, looking in all his mirrors like he is paranoid that someone is following, which I suppose is a good assumption with the way I jumped in his taxi and hid.
“The Pit Stop Cafe,” I tell him, and he drives toward my work.
Reaching into my pocket, I realize I don’t have my wallet. Damn it. The trip takes about fifteen minutes with the traffic. When I pull up, I tell the driver to wait, and I dart into the cafe.
Walking over to the tips jar, I grab twenty dollars out of it and run back to the driver. When I go back in, Lisa is waiting at a table. She nods to me, and I dart into the back to grab my apron. I wait tables for about an hour and then put my tips back into the jar to pay back the twenty dollars I borrowed. When things calm down, Lisa pulls me out of the back with Miranda.
“So, what happened the other day? And what happened to your neck?” she asks, pushing my hair aside to look at the bite mark.
I am about to tell her when I hear the bell above the door Bing. Looking out, I see Thaddeus, Orion, and Ryland enter. I drop to the floor, so they don’t see me. Lisa looks down at me and mouths to me. “What are you doing?” I place a finger to my lips to keep them both quiet.
As soon as Miranda sees my alarm, she walks out. “Hi, what can I get you?” she asks in her best customer service voice. I can almost see the fake smile plastered on her face. And then, just as my heart calms a little, Lisa screams.
Evelyn
“I know she is here.”
I can hear Miranda choking, and Lisa nudges me with her foot.
“You have three seconds to come out, Evelyn, or I kill your friend,” Thaddeus growls out.
I instantly hear the sound of chairs moving and the bell going off as people run from the cafe. Standing up, I walk out of the kitchen, Thaddeus has Miranda by the throat. As soon as he notices me walking out, he releases her. My eyes catch her stumbling back, clutching her throat, her red hair half pulled from its bun. She has tears on her cheeks.
I feel so guilty. I shouldn’t have run, or at least shouldn’t have come here. But where else do I have to go? I was hoping they wouldn’t make a scene here, seeing as it is a pretty popular cafe on this side of town.
Thaddeus moves around the counter, reaches for me, and rips me towards him, making me stumble into his chest. His hand goes into my hair as he yanks my head back, making me cry out. “You’re going to regret running,” he growls below my ear, then quickly tugs me and shoves me toward Orion.
“Now, all their deaths will be on your hands,” Thaddeus bellows, as his eyes go black.
The air thickens, the lights flicker and at first, I am confused, until the windows start bursting. Orion shoves me to the ground, and Ryland also ducks down, dropping over me. Gunfire sounds from every direction, and I watch, horrified, as Thaddeus gets hit in the chest and shoulder.
He growls loudly, walks through the door, and heads outside. I cover my ears. The noise is deafening, and I can only make out Lisa’s hysterical screams. Suddenly, the ground moves like a wave, I hear metal on metal and the sound of buildings exploding before everything goes silent. Eerily so.
Smoke and dust fill the cafe, and I can hear electricity zap loudly. I hear a crash and look up just in time to see the roof in the kitchen collapse in on itself. Lisa screams for Miranda, sobbing loudly. I try to see where she is, but can’t see her through the dust and smoke. Alarms are going off in neighboring shops. Car alarms are blaring outside, and people are screaming. I try to get up when Ryland shoves me back down before rolling me onto my back.
His eyes are pitch black orbs, and his canines protrude. “You shouldn’t have run,” he says so calmly I shiver at the coldness of his voice.
I hear the crunching of glass, making me squint into the dust. Thaddeus’ boots stop next to my face. Ryland hops off me, and Thaddeus grips the collar of my shirt, yanking me to my feet. I cough on the dust when the shrill sound of Lisa screaming hysterically hits my ears, making me look in her direction. I can’t see her, but I recognize Miranda’s blue shoes and legs behind the counter.
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