Page 45 of Alik

I just need to run.

My knuckles protest as I bite down on my fist, my heart pounding so hard inside my chest, the pain in my hand is a nice distractor from it. I summon all my courage to peek around the corner at the empty hall before I dart toward the stairs.

A door to one of the rooms opens a foot to my right, and when I gasp, the beer-bellied man—probably a john—stumbles backward like he’s the one who should be scared.

I hurry the last few feet for the stairs but grind to a halt, nearly tumbling down, when I spot a man blocking the bottom in a leather jacket. His hands are cupped in front of him, his hair is buzzed, and the way he’s standing there blocking the stairs screams gangster.

We lock eyes, and for a moment, I think he doesn’t register me as suspicious. But then his eyes narrow, and he reaches inside his leather jacket.

I spin and lunge out of his sight as he yells something up the stairs in a language I don’t understand. The other two men barrel from my room, ski masks in place, leaving the machines as the only place left to go.

Or…

I jerk my head toward Beer Belly’s room just as he’s shutting his door and barely manage to lunge in time to shove my knee in the gap.

“Stop, please!” I cry, pushing on the door in a panic. When it flies open, I fall inside, my legs wildly kicking to shut it. Loud stomps sound outside, and I scramble to my feet in time to put the chain lock on.

“Are you crazy?” Beer Belly hisses.

“What’s going on?” A woman in a pink wig and lime green lingerie appears, her expression worried, but I ignore both as I backpedal, my gaze racing around the room.

Voices outside the room growl in the foreign language.

“I’m opening the door,” Beer Belly says, his voice raised to be heard through the door. “Take the girl. I have nothing to do with this.”

“No, please!” I reach out my hands to him, but he’s already made up his mind as he heads for the door.

I don’t think. I just panic. My eyes land on the framed photo on the wall by the door, and I yank it off to smash it over the man’s head, glass crunching from the impact.

He falls to his knees, raising his hands with a snarl, but I grab a wooden chair next and jam one leg against his head again and again while the woman screams. When I drop the chair, blood spills from a gory indention in his skull.

My eyes bug. “I’m sorry.” I reach my hand out as a kick to the door, followed by shouts, makes me jump from my skin. I whip my head between him and the woman while shuffling toward the window. “I-I’m so sorry.”

He’s not dead.

He’s just hurt.

I had to stop him.

Now the men after me won’t kill him. They’ll know he wasn’t on my side. I might’ve just saved his life.

Yes, I saved his life.

And hers too.

That had to happen.

I thrust open the window while looking back at the wood splintering from them kicking the door. Any second, they’ll be in the room.

Breaths come so fast that I must be hyperventilating. I peer out the window and cry out at the dumpsters too far below,beneath the fire escape out of my reach. My eyes follow the narrow ledge beneath the window that leads to the fire escape, my stomach sinking all the way to the cold concrete ground.

What choice do I have?

I climb out the window, carefully planting one foot on the ledge—no more than a few inches wide—and then the other. Frightened tears leak from my eyes as I shift my feet with my palms flat against the wall, trying to pretend like they’re stuck with glue so I’ll feel safer. I don’t have time to hesitate. Or to go slow. I don’t have time to be careful.

The door to the hotel room makes a loud bang as it bursts open. I watch at the window in terrified anticipation as I shift faster along the brick. When my foot slips, I pancake myself to the wall to keep from losing my balance, a desperate sob bubbling from me.

I’m only feet from the set of ladders making up the fire escape, but it feels like it may as well be miles. I’ll never make it in time.

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