Page 22

22

ARELLA

Trey may be trying to protect me, but I wouldn’t need his protection if I hid somewhere by myself, then got help from someone the Royals weren’t tracking.

I thought once Trey realized I was missing, he’d drive away to look for me, and then once the police got here, I could be safe with them. Not once did I think the cops were Royals too. Is the entire government system infested with bad guys?

Pop!

Trey’s eyes go wide. He grabs my hand and drags me back toward the supply closet I was just hiding in.

“Arella, I swear to fucking god if they get their hands on you again, I will lose any sanity I have left. So please just do what I say, get to the back of this closet, and don’t come out for any reason. Got it?” Without waiting for a response, Trey shoves me into the closet and shuts the door.

I’m drowned in darkness. The only light coming in is from the tiny crack under the door.

From the other side, Trey whispers, “Get under that desk and hide, or they’ll kill you too.”

Earlier, I got a glimpse of the inside of this tiny supply closet. It’s full of boxes, mops, and a vacuum. None of it looked organized, and there’s no way I can get to the back without making noise. Besides, I can’t see anything. So I stay exactly where I am.

It’s silent for a few seconds, then that bell above the door rings.

“You check the bathrooms,” a woman says off in the distance. “Bruce and I will go this way.”

“Yes, ma’am,” a man says.

Seconds later, the office door handle clicks.

“Locked,” a deep voice says. I picture the voice belonging to a seven-foot man with huge arm muscles and a thick chest.

The woman scoffs. “Seriously, Bruce? You’re a Porter. Since when has a locked door ever stopped you?”

“Right.” Pop!

What comes next sounds like utter chaos: people shouting, things toppling over, and a shriek that would leave a man’s mouth only if he was kicked in the balls or stabbed in the chest.

“What the fuck?” Dennis shouts. “Fire just came out of?—”

“Get down!” Trey yells.

Someone screams at the top of their lungs. It’s not Trey’s screams. It didn’t sound like deep-voiced Bruce or the woman either, so it must have been Dennis.

“Find the girl!” Bruce says. “I’ve got him!”

A loud yelp grabs a hold of my heart like someone is reaching into my chest and sinking their sharp nails into it. I’d know that sound anywhere because it’s the same sound I heard for days as they tortured him in front of me.

I’m about to leap out of the supply closet to save him when a thought hits me: Whatever I can do out there is the same thing I can do from right here. Closing my eyes, I picture Trey in my head and imagine shoving him into an ocean. Waves of water surround him like a liquid shield. Within seconds, his screaming stops, then a man grunts with pain.

“What the hell?” Bruce shouts.

I keep imagining my waves surrounding Trey as someone kicks against the locked office door. It must be the other guy trying to get in. He kicks again. Then again. And again, until the door crashes against the floor.

“You help Bruce!” the woman says. “I’ll find the girl.”

Instinctively, I grab the closet’s door handle and pull it back. I feel for a lock, but there isn’t one. From the other side, the woman attempts to turn the handle. My heart races as I put all my weight into keeping the door shut. The woman tries turning the knob again and yanks. This time, the door opens a crack, and I catch a glimpse of her before I yank on the doorknob and brace my feet against the doorframe to secure my precious barrier.

“Get away from there!” Dennis yells.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I jolt with each loud gunshot that echoes through the air. Just outside the closet, someone’s body thumps against the floor, blocking all light coming through the door’s bottom crack.

“Lisa!” a man shouts. “You worthless Ordinary! You fucking killed her!”

“Get away from me!” Dennis shouts.

“Ow! You’ll pay for that.”

“I said, get away!”

Bang! The door rattles as someone’s body thumps against it.

“And I said you’d pay for that,” a man says from right outside my door.

Dennis cries out in a half squeal, half yelp. He gurgles, then his screaming stops. His thick body thumping onto the floor makes me gasp.

With a grunt, the man picks up the woman’s body and moves her away from the closet. I pull on the door handle with everything I’ve got, but it’s not enough. The man twists the handle, and the door is yanked open.

Trey lets out a gut-wrenching wail. If he’s wailing, that means he’s alive, but that also means I’ve lost concentration.

A bald man grabs me by the front of my shirt. “I’ve got her, Bruce!”

I punch and kick at my captor as I picture waves of water surrounding Trey again. A second later, his wailing stops.

“How are you doing that?” Bruce asks, and it’s the first time someone’s asked that question and I’ve been happy about it.

“Hurry up and kill him!” my captor says as he blocks my punches.

“What the fuck do you think I’m trying to do?” Bruce chucks an ice ball at Trey’s head.

Trey dodges the spikes, then runs the other way as he tosses a fireball at Bruce. The flames miss, hitting a stack of cardboard boxes instead. The boxes catch on fire with flames crackling toward the ceiling.

A flash of flying dark gray metal catches my eye. I yelp as my captor releases my shirt just as a large filing cabinet hits him. The metal bangs against his head with a bone-crushing clank! I’ll never be able to unhear.

The man falls to the floor with the heavy metal cabinet landing on top of him. I expect him to get right back up, but he doesn’t even stir.

“You bastard!” Bruce shouts as he punches Trey in the face. Trey stumbles backward, clutching his cheek. Bruce, who’s almost twice the size of Trey, kicks him in the stomach. Trey falls backward with a grunt, then Bruce climbs on top of him.

“Arella, run!”

Bruce wraps his hands around Trey’s neck. Trey claws at the man’s hands as I glance around for something I can hit the guy with, something heavy, like a fire extinguisher, or a large—I gasp. A handgun! It’s lying on the floor inches from Dennis’s limp body.

I dive toward the weapon as if someone else was going for it too. It’s heavier than I thought it would be. I’ve never held a gun before. Are they always this heavy? My hands shake as I hold it up and aim it at the man straddling Trey. Oh no. What if I miss? What if I hit Trey? How do I do this? Do I just pull the trigger?

Suddenly, an ear-piercing alarm blares from the ceiling. Seconds later, the sprinklers activate and rain onto everything.

Trey wails as Bruce beats his large fists into Trey’s ribs. I keep imagining my ocean waves surrounding Trey as I aim my weapon. I can’t get a good shot though. Bruce keeps moving, and my hands keep shaking. I command my feet to get closer, but they don’t listen. They’re frozen where they are.

“Run!” Trey shouts as he grabs the man’s face. A burst of red flames appears in his hands. Bruce screams over the blaring alarm and falls backward, clutching his head.

Now that he’s away from Trey, I aim the gun and pull the trigger. Bang!

I miss. I pull it again. Bang!

And again. Bang! Bang!

The man’s body jolts twice, then he stops moving altogether.

My ears ring as the gun slips from my shaky grasp. Water drips down my forehead and into my eyes.

Trey’s propped up on his elbows, gaping at the dead man, then loses his strength and slumps onto his back.

I rush over to him. “Trey!”

His breaths are sharp as I take his face into my hands. The side of his head is bloody again. So are his nose and his lips and, well, everything.

“Arella...” My name comes out in a scratchy broken tone. I barely hear it over the high-pitched beeping of the fire alarm. He points. “My leg.”

I slap a hand over my chest and gasp. Something has sliced through his jeans and cut into his left thigh so deep, I could stick my fingertip into it. His blood has already soaked through his jeans, all the way to his calves.

Trey pushes himself back onto his elbows to get a better look. “It’s pretty deep, huh? Those fucking ice balls. I tell ya, they can be sharp as hell.”

I take another glance at his thigh, and it makes me queasy. It’s one thing to see this stuff on TV; it’s another to see it in real life.

After I suck in a deep breath of courage, I get to my feet and dash to the supply closet. It takes me a bit of rummaging to find a first aid kit on the top shelf.

When I return to Trey’s side, he’s lying on his back with his eyes closed, breathing heavily. I set the first aid kit down next to me, then work on getting his belt unbuckled.

Trey grabs my hands. His voice comes out coarse and weak like it’s taking all his strength just to speak. “Arella, listen to me. They could be sending more people. You need to go.”

“Okay. Let’s stop the bleeding first.” I reach for the button on his jeans.

He grabs my hands again. “No, Arella. The wound is too deep. I’m...” He lets out a painful exhale. “I’ll only slow you down. I’ll probably bleed out anyway. Just forget about me and get outta here.”

Tears well into the corners of my eyes. I shouldn’t have asked Dennis to call the police. All I wanted was for this nightmare to be over. I never meant for anyone to get hurt. Now Dennis is lying lifeless on the floor from whatever Baldy did to him as revenge for the woman who is now bleeding out from the holes Dennis put into her. Baldy is still unmoving under that heavy filing cabinet and barely a step from where I’m kneeling is the large man I shot. All of that didn’t happen just for me to leave Trey behind to bleed to death. No way.

“You’ll be okay,” I choke out. “We just have to stop the bleeding until we can get you to a Healer.” I get the button of his jeans undone, then I slide the zipper down.

Trey grabs my hands a third time. “Arella, this is not the time to be difficult. More of them could be here any second. A fire department is probably on their way too. Go look through that employee’s pockets for his car keys. Then?—”

“No!” I shout as tears fall from my eyes. “You’re going to be okay. Just let me wrap you up.”

“We don’t have time for that. Just leave me. You were right earlier. I’m the one they’re tracking, not you. So you need to get into that guy’s car and?—”

“No!” I shout over the constant beeping. My body trembles with a sob as I grab his hand and pin it against the floor. “I’m not leaving you! No matter what you say, I’m not! So you can either keep fighting with me and waste time, or you can just let me stop the bleeding!”

He stares at me with his mouth slightly open and his eyes dazed. Once he realizes this is a fight he won’t win, he gives me a curt nod. Then he flops onto his back and sucks in a sharp breath. “Be quick.”

I’m still crying as I cut the jeans off his body with scissors from the first aid kit. Once they’re off, I toss the denim aside. His entire leg is dripping with blood. Some of the red has soaked his boxers too. Ignoring the queasy feeling in my belly, I pour an entire bottle of hydrogen peroxide over his wound.

“Fuck!” Trey chomps on his bottom lip as he groans through his teeth.

“I’m sorry,” I say as I clean off as much red from his leg as I can with antiseptic wipes. Honestly, I don’t even know if this is what I should be doing. I’m a professional with Band-Aids over the knee on children, but this?

A few minutes later, I have Trey’s thigh wrapped in gauze and medical tape as tight as I can get it. Hopefully, the pressure will keep the bleeding at bay for now. Once I’ve got him on his feet and leaned against the wall for support, I go dig through Dennis’s pockets. In the first pocket I shove my hand into, I find a set of keys.

When I turn back around, Trey has hobbled over to his jeans and is emptying the pockets, shoving all his stuff into his jacket pockets. Then he tosses the bloody jeans aside and throws a fireball at them. “Okay, let’s go.”