He left the room, the door still open. I glanced at the two men, not wanting to be stuck in here with them if they woke up. I hurried out and pulled the door shut. I took some satisfaction throwing the lock across the door so they couldn’t get out. Following the sounds of Mace moving around I walked into the living area. He was pulling a gun out of a cabinet, checking the clip and shoving it into the back of his pants.
The roar of bikes suddenly split the air. Even all the way up here we could hear them, which meant there was more than a couple of guys arriving.
Mace looked at me, his expression torn. I started moving from foot to foot. If we didn’t do something soon, I’d be dead, and God knows what they would do to Mace when they realised what he had done. He seemed to come to the same conclusion.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the front door, quickly undoing all the locks and dragging me out into the hall. I realised this was my chance to bang on one of the other apartments and let them know I’d been kidnapped, but I wasn’t stupid. Right now, he was my only chance of getting out of here alive.
Mace didn’t hesitate as he ran for the stairs, pulling me with him. We couldn’t hear anything but our own harsh breathing and our feet stamping on the stairs as we hurried down them. I started to get dizzy the faster we went down in circles. I hadn’t eaten much over the last few days either and being trapped in a room for days, with no light, I was weak.
When we reached the ground floor, Mace slowed and kept me behind him.
“Be quiet.”
“What are you gonna do?” I asked frantically.
“Stop talking,” he listened at the door.
It didn’t have any glass in it, it was a heavy fire door, but we could hear the sound of voices, many male voices, some of them laughing. They were waiting in the lobby, must have been for the elevator.
It suddenly hit me that all of those men had been coming up to the room where I was trapped. My heart thumped so hard, my breathing became erratic, and I started to shake. Mace turned to look at me, seeing I was clearly in the throes of a panic attack. He pushed me back against the wall, grabbing my shoulders.
“Look at me, right here,” he pointed at his eyes. “Breathe, you cannot freak out right now.”
“Easy for you to say,” I mumbled. “All of them, those men, they were coming up there…”
His face flattened as that dawned on him. He looked away from me but kept his hands on my shoulders. “I think they’ve gone,” he said. “You okay to do this?”
I nodded, still shaking but we had to move before they realised we were no longer up there.
“My bike is right outside,” he said, then put his finger over his lips to ensure I kept quiet.
He carefully and quietly opened the door, peering outside. I clutched his sleeve and he looked at my hand but didn’t make me move it.
“They’re gone, come on,” he grabbed me and tucked me into his side as we walked quickly across the lobby to a set of glass doors.
There were six bikes parked near the entrance. Mace looked both ways before opening the doors and stepping out. He dragged me to the left, away from the group of bikes. There was a black and red Harley Fatboy parked in an actual slot, not at the sidewalk like the rest of them. Under different circumstances I would have stopped and admired the sleek bike but this wasn’t normal.
Mace pulled out his keys and got on the bike, waiting for me to get on. Now was not the time to hesitate about getting on the back of another man’s bike. I got on as he started the engine.
I saw someone moving near the bikes to the side of us and almost screamed when I realised it was another Kingsmen, he must have stayed with the bikes. He shouted at us and started running.
“Mace!”
“Shit. Hold on,” he said, throttling the bike. He shot forward swerving around a parked car. I ducked my head towards his shoulder as I gripped on for dear life as a gunshot cracked out.
“Fuck,” I screamed.
“Don’t let go!” Mace shouted as he spun the bike around the car. More gunshots sounded and I screamed without thinking about it. “Shit,” Mace shouted as the bike wobbled.
He got it straightened out and pushed the bike hard. We shot away from the house but the other bike was starting up. He was going to chase after us. I squeezed my hands together over his stomach, keeping pressed up tight against his back. I looked over my shoulder as we rounded a corner and hit the main road.
Mace knew the neighbourhood, switching and turning through the streets. I couldn’t hear the sound of the other bike the further he rode, and we hit a busy highway with lots of traffic. He started to drive more carefully but still at a decent speed, putting as much distance as possible between us and that apartment.
My heart was pounding out of my chest, and I was trying to keep from having another panic attack. I kept glancing behind us but it looked like we’d lost him. I let Mace know and he grunted but didn’t slow down.
He got us off the highway and we rode through a neighbourhood that looked a hell of a lot nicer than the one we’d just been in. He made itthrough to another highway and got back into traffic. I saw a sign that said Sussex was forty miles away. Shit, we were far away from home.
After a while, he slowed and turned towards a gas station on a strip mall, pulling in around the back, where there was a parking lot. He drove as far back as he could and parked the bike by two huge dumpsters. He killed the engine and leaned forward, panting like he had just run a minute mile. I sat back, pulling my hands away from him.
