Chapter 56 Suspicions
Vincent
“Okay, we can figure all this out later.” Tasha whispered urgently before any of us could say anything else. “We need to be on the move like right now.”
Right. We did.
“You guys head to the tunnel like you already planned to. I'll head to Mrs Bennett and Iris and grab the files on the way.”
She moved forward to grab my arm after that little rendition to inspect the IV line still inserted into my wrist. “Fuck.” She cursed after taking one look at the bag in my pocket.
“What?”
“It needs to be changed. It's finished.”
Oh fuck. No wonder the pain had been getting unbearable.
“What do we do?” Frank asked.
“Well, I can’t exactly make it to the supply closet and back within the short period of time we have to get out of here. It's all the way at the other end of the building.”
“Fuck.”
“But…” she added after a beat. “... I think I left some in the extra supply cabinet in the basement.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but it's worth checking. You can also grab some painkillers too, in case you don't find the IV bag. That should definitely be there.”
Frank nodded.
“Okay now, let's…” She raised a finger to her mouth suddenly as the sounds of footsteps echoed down the hall again. “Fuck. Scoot.” She pushed us back into the darkness and signalled for us to be quiet as she tiptoed through the blind spots to peer through the glass cutout in between the doors.
The footsteps stopped directly in front of the door. “Check the rooms again! All of them. There's no way they could have made it out without us knowing.”
"Y-yes, sir.”
“And the bitch that did that to our men… I want her head on a fucking platter.”
"Yes, sir.”
“Start the timer.”
I sucked in a breath when we finally heard their footsteps shuffle down the hallway. Fuck.
“Start the—” Tasha raised her hand to shush us both before Frank could complete whatever he had to say.
We understood why a second later when we heard footsteps approaching the door. Fuck. It stopped in front of the door again and shuffled closer hesitantly right before we heard the door swing open slightly.
Oh fuck.
Tasha moved quickly and efficiently on the guy; he barely had time to process what was coming before he was dropping to the ground and holding his throat that was now slit open.
She wiped the blood off her face. “We should really get going. Like right now.”
Frank and I had little to no trouble getting to the basement, the only trouble being my increasing ability to hold myself up at all due to the pain.
My side was killing me. It was getting hard to breathe, and I could feel my right leg throbbing painfully with every step even though I wasn't exactly using it to walk.
“Are you okay?” Frank asked when we finally got down to the basement. He helped me up to a bench that was pushed into a corner and scanned around the room for the cabinet.
“Hmm…” I grunted in response, my mind wandering from the pain to the dreadful conclusion I'd drawn earlier.
Someone was selling me out. Someone… out of three people.
“Just give me a minute, okay? I should find something to help soon.” Frank echoed from a section of the space, a divider hiding his frame.
Was it him? Or Tasha? Or Kael?
Right now, my money is on Kael for obvious reasons. He knew about my whereabouts; he knew I had survived the accident; he knew I was awake, and he still hasn't shown up and right now, he's the only one not here while we're getting attacked.
I mean, those were pretty solid reasons but still, I wasn't willing to take any chances. It could be anyone. Anyone of them.
“Here.” I glanced up at Frank as he came back with a bottle of pills. “Painkillers. I didn't find the IV bag but these should help. Oh, also, I didn't find a bottle of water.”
I snatched the bottle out of his hands and popped three into my mouth immediately.
“Oh—two was enough… but okay. We should be on the move.”
He stuffed the bottle back into his pockets when I was done and helped me up to the tunnel's entrance once he found the latch and pulled it open.
Dim lights flickered on, illuminating the passageway.
Getting to the end of the tunnel took us about fifteen minutes. It should have taken less, though, if I wasn’t so injured. But at least the painkillers were already working.
Frank turned the lights on once we crawled up out of that tunnel into the mini-garage space we were using as a cover on this property.
There were about ten cars just sitting around, dusty; each of them tested and prepped for a day like this with a mechanic setup in the corner.
Frank immediately went up to one of the cars to inspect its condition for our getaway. “Are we waiting for Tasha?” He asked as he got into the car and turned it on.
The engine drowned out the silence and whatever answer I might have given. I don't know. Maybe.
He revved the engine and said something I didn't really hear while I limped my way to the tool cabinet in the corner. It was actually a secret compartment and contained weaponry for defence that was going to come in quite handy now.
The LED lights turned on as the compartment slid open, immediately illuminating the rows of guns latched onto their cases as well as some knives.
I immediately went to work picking out a few. One knife, sharp, small and easily underestimated. A Desert Eagle, a .357 Magnum. And then a few extra bullets. I stuffed the knife and bullets into my pockets and pulled the safety back on the gun.
I heard Frank approach as the engine died down. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” I turned to him with a tight smile. “I'm arming myself.”
“Yeah. Yes.” He took his glasses off to clean them with the hem of his cloth. “So i was asking… Where should we go from here? We should lay low for a while.”
"Yeah," I figured.
He put the glasses back on and turned away, giving me the opportunity I'd been waiting for.
“I was thinking maybe the cabin. We could—” His throat let out an audible gasp, his statement cutting short as he crumbled to the floor.
I leant against the nearest car I could find and sucked in a breath at the strain that action had put on my legs.
I used one hand to run my fingers through my hair and stuffed the gun I'd just used to knock Frank out on the back of his head.
Honestly, I wouldn't say I suspect him. I wasn't suspecting Tasha much either but right now, everyone was in the red and I wasn't willing to take any more chances.