Chapter 73 I Escaped
I know it won’t take long for Malcolm to realise I’m gone. But it will be long enough for me to get to David’s apartment.
That’s the only thing I can think of doing.
Sel and Nico are safe at The Red Room. At least, I hope they are, because I don’t seem to have my phone on me to warn them otherwise. The only other person I know my father will go after is David, so I at least need to warn him. My father won’t stop at just taking me. There has to have been another part of his plan. At least if David knows, he can try and find out.
First, getting out of the basement room I’m in is the most difficult bit.
Uncle Rhys has four basement rooms. Only one has access to the old basement side entrance from a vent cover that Rhys never quite got fixed properly, although it isn’t the room I’m currently in. That will be safer than traipsing through the entire house. So my initial step is getting into the right room.
Unfortunately, the locks on these doors are something that Rhys has fixed, with fingerprint scanners and 5-pin double lock mechanisms. But my father doesn’t know that when I started to realise what he was doing was wrong, Rhys granted me access to free prisoners without having him directly involved. Now I just have to hope and pray that he never took me off the system, and work out how to get onto the other side to activate the scanner.
While looking around the room to find something that can help me, I hear the door mechanism start to click.
Someone is coming in.
I grab the chair from where I’ve left it in the middle of the room, then quickly rush behind the door, waiting for the person to come in with bated breath.
When they step forward, I smash the chair around their head, making them stumble to the floor, dropping the plate of food they’re apparently holding, then I jump on their back, covering their mouth and nose with my hands, and wait for them to pass out.
Not the finest skill in my arsenal, but god damn if it isn’t helpful now.
I sneak out the door, checking the hallway and the stairs at the far corner for anyone else.
The idiot came on his own.
Moron.
I count the doors, until I find the second to last room, and press my finger to the scanner.
“Come on come on come onnnn.” I mutter, waiting until it beeps green and the door unlocks. “Yes!”
Rushing into the room and pulling the door almost shut behind me, I head over to the vent cover, grinning like a madman when it indeed just pops off in my hands, revealing a dirty, dusty crawlspace. I hurry through, reaching the end and carefully pushing the wooden door open, peeking out as soon as I’m able to. The entrance leads to the west side of Rhys’s plot of land, and I know that in the southwest corner is a bush covering a hole I made in the fence some years back.
Yeah, this isn’t my first time sneaking out of Rhys’s house.
Checking everywhere I can see before pushing the door completely open, I climb out, and run towards the southwest corner, seeing the bush standing just as it always has, and pulling the branches aside for me to slip through.
Okay, so it isn’t my first time sneaking out of Rhys’s house, but it has definitely been a long time since I’ve done this. The branches and fence edges are catching me, tugging my clothes, grazing my skin as I shimmy through the hole that feels a lot tighter than I remember.
But I make it.
I glance back at the house, still silent, unaware of my escape for now, and run.
Realising I must look like a convict or hospital patient as I run through the streets covered in mud and dried blood, I decide to take as many side streets as possible. It also means I’m less likely to be noticed by Malcolm’s patrols.
Reaching David’s apartment in little under 20 minutes, I’m blinking away spots in my vision and struggling to breathe as I climb the stairs to his door. Jamming my finger on the scanner, it beeps red.
“MotherFUCKER!” I yell, panting, slamming a fist to the door in frustration. I knock as best as I can while gulping air. “DAVID! DAVIDDD!” I shout through the wood, the fear suddenly kicking in as I wonder what I’ll do if he isn’t home.
The door swings open.
But it isn’t David on the other side.
“What…” I breathe. “Who are you? Where’s David? I need to see David!” I ramble, pushing past the person and wandering through the apartment. “DAVID!” I yell, starting to go room to room.
“He’s not here, Nora.” The person says, making my head snap towards them. “What’s going on?”
“He’s not… where is he? Who are you?”
“Danvers.” She smiles, folding her arms over her chest as I walk up to her. “Reid has gone to look for you. We’re all getting ready to come and save you.”
“I… what….”
“So you want to tell me how you’re here instead?”
“I was… I escaped. He’s gone to get me?” I ask, not quite believing he would do that after he’s ignored my existence for so long.
Danvers nods, getting her phone out of her pocket and dialling a number.
“Shit. Voicemail.” She mutters, before trying another number. And another. And another. “No one’s answering.”
“Did he know where I was?” I ask quickly, and she nods. “Oh no. Shit shit SHIT!” I yell, running my hands through my hair. “They’ve got him.”
“Who’s got him?”
“My father!” I yell back, immediately breathing through my anger. Danvers doesn’t deserve me shouting at her, and I hope she knows that. She doesn’t seem phased by it, at least not visibly.
“I thought we were going to Rhys Walker’s house?” She asks.
“Yeah, that’s where I was. Where Malcolm is. Where David probably is now with a gun against his head. Holy shit this is all my fault.”
“Calm down.” She says, and for some reason, my body obliges. “Reid doesn’t go down without a fight.”
“No. He doesn’t. And neither do I.” I say, marching into David’s study and rifling through his drawers. Danvers has apparently followed me and is watching me from the doorway.
“What are you looking for?”
“Guns.” I mutter, slamming open drawer after drawer.
“He took them all. All I’ve got is mine.” Danvers says, making me groan and slam them shut.
“Fine. I’ll just take one when I get there.” I say, walking back past her towards the front door. I hear her walking behind me, and turn to face her. “What?”
“I’m coming with you.”
“It’s not safe.” I reply and she just smirks at me.
“It’s cute that you think what I do for Reid is safe. So, do you wanna clean up before you get in my car or not?”
~
David doesn’t stop struggling while Malcolm’s cronies start tying him to a chair.
Each time his hand slips free, he throws a punch, only for his arm to be grabbed by someone else and pinned back to the wood. The cut on his temple is bleeding into his left eye, and no amount of blinking is pushing it away.
He knows going into Walker’s house without a plan was a bad strategy. But for a few minutes, he and Marcus managed to barge their way in and shoot three rooms full of people before they were outnumbered and dragged away into separate rooms. David has no idea if Harlan and Theo are at the house yet, or whether Danvers has gotten to his apartment to use his computer and alert the wider team.
Instead of worrying about that, he tries to focus on the goons around him, not recognising many of them. It isn’t until he’s fully tied down that Malcolm finally walks in, and the cronies leave.
“Well well well.” Malcolm says, walking towards him. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon, Reid.”
“Where is she?” David snarls, spitting a mix of saliva and blood onto the floor.
“You know, I had my suspicions that she didn’t have the authority to make deals on your behalf.”
“What deal?”
“So when she came here with no idea about our conversations, willing to say yes to anything I said, I realised I could take anything I wanted. And guess what? I took her back.”
“She’d never have agreed to that.”
“Oh, but she did, Reid. All to protect you, it seems. I didn’t quite understand how far you’d dug yourself into my daughter’s life, but when she turned up here trying to fix things for you, I knew she would have done anything for you. And now you’ve lost her forever.”
David stares back at Malcolm’s smug face, the anger boiling up inside of him and lighting up his limbs. Right now, he no longer cares about Malcolm’s organisation, about winning.
Right now, he only cares about Nora.
He cares about getting a straight answer about her.
“Where. Is. She?” David repeats, his teeth clenched as he spits his words out.
“Right here.” I say, from behind Malcolm.
Malcolm turns around in shock, but before he can say anything, I punch him round the face with my gun.