Dree wiggled until she was on her tummy and slithered up to where the door was cracked open to peer out again.
Beyond the warehouse office closet was a dead forest of the legs of chairs and desks, grungy carpeting, and trash cans, but she didn’t see any human feet.
Dree rolled over on her side so she could twist her head to look up.
Still nobody.
No one seemed to be in the office. They’d just left her there in the closet and gone somewhere else.
Dree scrunched forward and shoved the door open more forcefully with her shoulder.
Still, nobody said anything, and Dree couldn’t hear anybody talking or walking around.
Dree crawled forward by rolling her shoulders and pushing with her knees with her butt in the air. Considering that she was still wearing the white ball gown from last night, she probably looked like the stupidest inchworm that had ever inched.
But she was on the move.
Slowly, she slithered, inch by inch, crawl by crawl, scoot by scoot, shoving herself across the carpeting and toward the door that led to the warehouse.
Her cervical spine hurt from holding her head up, so she tucked her chin down and put her forehead on the floor for more leverage with each push.
She had no idea what her plan was once she reached the door or escaped, but she could figure that out once she was outside. Surely, there were some cement parking blocks or something out there. She could use a rough edge to wear through the rope.
She reached the doorway that led to the storeroom where, mercifully, some dolt had left the door ajar instead of locking it.
Thank God for stupid people.
Kir had probably left it open. Dree hoped Matryona slapped him upside the head for being so stupid after they figured out she’d escaped.
Or worse.
Dree crept out of the office, sticking close to the wall as she inched toward the door that led out to the warehouse. She would figure out how to deal with the doorknob when she got there, but she needed to get there first.
Maybe she could pull herself up like a cobra rearing to strike and twist it open with her mouth. Putting her mouth on a doorknob was gross, but escaping was more important right now. She could gargle with bleach later. Or holy water.
The cold cement and small stones sliced Dree’s shoulders and knees through the thin silk of her ball gown as she belly-crawled.
A chilly wind blew through the storeroom, twirling around the legs of the tall shelves stacked with paper-wrapped bundles and office supplies. The bitter acid stink of narcotics was stronger in there.
They must be using the storeroom to aliquot the bulk drugs into smaller bags for distribution. Dree hoped that the dust on the floor wasn’t fentanyl, but it couldn’t have been. If it were, she would already be dead.
Dree kept inching. The platinum cross necklace Maxence had given her for Christmas swung with each of her undulations.
Something sharp on the cement tore the fragile silk of her dress.
Garbage littered the storeroom’s floor. Her forehead was lying on a cigarette butt before she realized what it was, and she lifted her head to try to get away from it.
Unfortunately, cigarette butts weren’t the only thing littering the floor. Dried oil spills stained the cement, and a dead mouse was lying on its back under a storage rack.
Shockingly, narcotics traffickers didn’t use hospital-level hygienic practices. Filth came with the drug-dealing territory.
Dree hunched her way through the storeroom, winding around dead insects and rodents and spilled white powder, until she reached the door.
This door, too, was unlocked and cracked open.
Kir Sokolov really was a dumbass. If Matryona shot him in the head, the collective IQ of her organization would probably rise ten points.
When Dree couldn’t nose her way through the door, she curled her feet around and managed to wedge her toes in the crack where the door met the frame and pry it open a few more feet. Something scraped behind the door when it moved.
