I yanked my hand from him, thankful that he wasn’t suspecting it so he didn’t have a firm grip on me. Once again, I fell backwards and hit the ground, but that time, I was much more reactive. I crawled through the fray in the general direction of the door, and in the chaos, I was able to jump up and run through it. I didn’t really have a plan other than to find a way to not cause more trouble.
Milli had taught me how to be a little more stealthy, so with police swarming the place I tapped into my training. The biggest issue was that Merrick evidently had an affinity for modern, simplistic architecture as his home was essentially just one big, open layout. There were very few walls, and when I wasn’t down the hallway that led to the bedroom, I quickly found myself in a big open room with very few places to hide.
I just needed to stay out of sight long enough for someone more equipped to do something.
Scanning the room, I noticed that in the kitchen, there was a kitchen island behind which I could duck and hopefully keep myself hidden. If I was lucky, there would be some cabinets I could wedge myself into. I was standing at the end of the hallway, and clearly all the cops who’d stormed in had gone straight for the back bedroom knowing they’d have to put up a full fight to deal with Gio, Merrick, Tamryn, and Milli. There were a couple of officers standing outside the front door, armed to prevent anyone from running out, and just one doing a passive sweep of the front room, but those who’d entered knew that their targets were in the back.
The cop stepping around the front living room area was carefully checking closets, and behind big pieces of furniture, so I took an opportunity while she wasn’t looking to scuttle quietly into the kitchen. Based on the fact that she appeared to be checking all the places someone could be hidden, I opted not to hide in the cabinets, but to just crouch behind the island and attune my listening to hear if she was coming.
I lowered myself down to the kitchen floor, crouching but keeping up on the balls of my feet for a quick getaway, and listened. She wasn’t being quiet about walking, so it wasn’t too difficult to track her as she walked around.
At least it wasn’t at first.
After about two minutes of just sitting quietly, my body started to feel inexplicably weak. Maybe it had been the rushing adrenaline, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized my wound was screaming with pain. I’d fallen on it a couple of times, but I didn’t think it was that bad. It was so bad that I felt sick to my stomach and my head was starting to swirl, and when I took the risk to reach back and feel the spot where I’d been stitched after the doctors went in to remove the bullet, I was immediately met with moisture.
My hand was covered in blood when I brought it back around to look at, and my vision immediately started to go blurry and was making me see doubles. Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t keep myself up anymore.
“Avion Narzand?”
My head shot up and the cop had managed to make it all the way into the kitchen and around the island while I was lost in my stupor. In her defense, she was looking down over me like she was very concerned, and had a hand outstretched towards me. “You’re safe with me now, just come with me and we’ll get you home safe.”
“N-no. I don’t…” I could barely form words. My consciousness was fading fast and when the cop took a step towards me, just that little bit of movement made me fall backwards. “I’m not…”
“It’s okay sweetheart.” She reached down and started to lift me from the ground. It was as if I never had any strength in my body before and I had no choice but to hang onto her. “That’s good. Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”
“No.” I had no power for trying to rip myself free, but I just planted my feet and tried not to move. “Let go.”
“Avion.” Her voice was still soothing, but stern like she was losing patience. “It’s okay. Just come with me and we’ll get you back to your--”
She didn’t get the rest of the statement out before I was suddenly ripped from her arms. The entire world bent and swam around my vision as I was pulled, and I was only just getting my bearings as the cop lifted her gun and pointed it. It seemed like she was pointing it at me, but in another rush of movement, I was yanked out of the line and behind whomever was whipping me around, only just barely catching sight of the head of dreadlocks now standing as a shield between me and the bullet that the cop fired.
Milli grunted and took a step backwards, but kept himself upright and fired his own gun back, sending the cop ducking behind the island counter on the other side to protect herself. Milli stepped backwards and I was briefly worried he was falling, but then he reached a hand behind himself and pushed me.
“Open the cabinet to the right of the fridge,” he huffed. “Hurry.”
Though my mind was still spinning I fought to turn around and focus my eyes on the tall, silver, double door refrigerator amongst the wall of cabinets. To the right, there were six cabinet doors, none of which looked large enough to be helpful to us. “Milli, which one. There are six of them.”
“Doesn’t matter. Pull any of the handles.”
Though I wanted to continue arguing with Milli for the sheer fact that the situation didn’t seem logical to me, given he knew so much more about what was going on than I did, I had to just trust him. I pushed all of my energy into moving my feet and walked towards the fridge. I grabbed one of the handles at random and pulled, and all six cabinets swung open as a single door, revealing a staircase leading downwards behind it.
Merrick’s house did seem a little small to me based on how Gio had described it in the past, and he’d told me that Merrick was overly paranoid too. Of course it would make sense that he would keep a normal looking house up top with a hidden home underneath. I thought Gio’s precautions for the new house were paranoid, but a man who has a staircase hidden in the kitchen … now that’s paranoid. A kitchen wasn’t the first place a person would think to put a staircase, so I imagined there were many more of these faux doors there were all around the house.
Maybe they helped Merrick, Tamryn, and Giovanni get out as safely well.
I held open the door and barked out, “Milli,” who continued to fire his gun in warning as he backed up until he was inside of the fake pantry, then I wrapped around the door myself and entered behind him, pulling the door shut behind us. “Is there a way to lock it?”
“Yeah,” he sounded strained, but I assumed it was just from the chaos. “There’s a latch up top. Slide it.” I looked up and saw a small silver rod that had a tiny handle hanging off of it. I grabbed the handle and slid the latch to the right, locking it into a hole on the other side of the door frame, preventing it from being pulled open. “If they ram it, it’ll come down easy, so let’s go.”
As rapidly as we could move, we stumbled down the single-file spiral staircase, past several doors, and eventually spitting out into a parking garage. It reminded me a lot of the parking garage at Gio’s old place, which meant it was likely a similar one that had a hydraulic connection to the surface somewhere. I looked around, but I didn’t see Gio, Merrick, or Tamryn, something that didn’t seem to concern Milli as he approached a car.
“Milli?” I questioned.
He nodded his head towards the passenger’s side door. “Get in.”
“What about Gio and Merrick?”
“They’ll be fine. Just get in.”
