Page 80 of Gemini
As I felt my way through the dark, my free hand touched against something cold and metal. Another door handle. I turned it and stepped through a narrow passage, almost tripping over another set of steps. Blindly, I reached down and felt the steps going upward in a tight spiral. Quickly, I found the rail and rushed upward.
At the top was a cellar door, locked at first until I undid a latch and pushed. Peeking out of the narrow opening, I saw the kitchen. A woman in a simple gray dress and apron was there cleaning up the dinner, humming softly.
Voices rang out but they were distant. Quietly, I snuck inside with broken wine bottle gripped in hand. The woman's back was turned, making it easier for me to creep past her over to the dining room.
Trevor was gone, the place empty. Across the room were the doors leading to the balcony. If I made it out, I could get to the yard and break for the woods.
I listened for the others before darting into the room, swerving around the dining table toward the glass door. As I was about to pull it open, a shadow stepped in front of the glass, barricading my way. A man with mean black eyes smiled at me through the glass, waving a knife in his hand.
I stumbled back as he pulled the door open. He lunged toward me and I bolted around the table, moving back towardthe kitchen. As I got to the door, he closed the distance and grabbed my hair, yanking me away.
Yelping in surprise, I swung my arm around with the wine bottle, catching his arm, and slicing it down one side.
"Ow, bitch," he grunted before pulling me around and shoving me into the table, putting all his weight on me to pin me down. I cried out as he forced the broken bottle from my hand and smashed what was left of it on the table surface, glass shards scattering everywhere.
"No!" I shrieked as he gripped my hair again, tilting my head back, the point of his knife digging just below my eye.
"A cut for a cut, it's only fair." He laughed in my ear. I felt a sharp pain across my cheek, when the house suddenly quaked.
BAM.
The whole room violently shook, some of the animal heads falling off the walls, even one of the antlers breaking from the chandelier above and crashing onto the table before us.
"What the fuck?" the man shouted. His weight came off me, his hands loosening their grip. Without hesitating, I grabbed the piece of antler that had fallen and whirled around, swiping toward the man's face.
The sharp point of the antler dug right across his brow, blood gushing everywhere. As he stumbled back, I pushed myself from the table and broke again for the glass door. Another loud boom ricocheted through the house, making me stagger forward then freeze. A red pickup truck that had broken out of the woods was driving straight for the house and at me.
Cursing, I stood there like a deer in headlights, uncertain what to do. Before I can move, my arm was nearly pulled from the socket by a rough hand. I screamed in pain as another rough hand smacked against my mouth, stifling my scream and holding me firm.
"Shut up or I'll snap your neck," Simon growled in my ear. Where did he even come from? I hadn't seen or heard him at all. As he forced me toward the dining room entrance, I saw the guy I cut crouched on the ground, face covered in blood as he tried to wipe it away.
Simon backed me toward the dining room door, dragging me into the hallway. Gun fire erupted somewhere unseen, so loud it drummed in my head. He quickly pulled me into another room, a large living area with wide windows and a patio door. He moved for the door then suddenly changed his mind and hauled me over to a small bar, forcing me to crouch behind it with him as shouts came down the hall.
Two of Simon's men rushed into the room, only one got hit with a knife to the back and went down in a matter of seconds. The other lunged for the patio door then went down screaming on one knee as a blade stuck into the back of his leg.
"Please man, please!" he begged someone unseen out in the hall. Simon's hold on me tightened, his hand pressed hard to my mouth to muffle my cries as I saw Leslie appear from the shadows of the hallway and stalk into the room. Even in his sinister-looking mask, I knew it was him. He stalked over and wrenched the blade from the dead man's back, devoid of any response. "I'll help you, okay!" the man on his knees pleaded, his hands raised in defense as Leslie turned on him. "I'll help you find her and—"
Leslie moved so quickly and smoothly I almost missed it, his knife slicing across the man’s throat, blood spurting across the floor. The man went limp and fell at Leslie’s feet. Without missing a beat, Leslie stepped over the man, pulling the second blade from his leg then wiping both knives on his pants.
I struggled in Simon’s grasp, biting his hand, making him pull back with a hiss of pain. “Leslie!” I called out, hoping he’d hear. But through the noise of gunfire and the crash of glassnearby, he disappeared, and Simon’s hand was back on my mouth as he wrenched me out from our hiding place and made straight for the patio door.
Fighting him felt futile as he picked me up and took me outside. The headlights of cars were all around us, shots still being fired from every which way. Simon broke for the woods, but he couldn’t run fast enough while carrying me and trying to keep me silent. I tried to bite his hand again and he whacked me against the mouth hard, the taste of blood on my tongue as I bit my lip in response. He stopped momentarily to grab a gun from his pocket and press it to my face before continuing deeper into the woods. The shouts and gunfire were starting to fade the further we got.
It reminded me of my nightmare. The one where I was running through the woods being chased, only this time I wanted the man in the mask to catch me.
Leslie had been right there. To think he just missed me brought tears to my eyes. It felt like Simon’s hand was itching on the trigger.
If I die, please, Leslie, please save my sister, I begged silently.Let Trish make it at least. Don’t let this all be in vain.
He would take care of her. For my sake I knew he would.
Grunting with frustration, Simon led me on through a narrow path between the trees. Where the hell he was taking me, I couldn’t guess, but he seemed sure of his destination. As we rounded a hill, I heard the sounds of motors running, growing louder. Simon twisted around when, at the top of the hill, a group of dirtbikes came into view. The men looked down at us and Simon pointed his gun and shot twice at them but missed. They responded with pointing their guns at him, and he quickly brought his glock to my temple.
“I’ll kill her,” he warned them.
One of the bikers backed away and rode off, disappearing through the trees, while the others watched as Simon continued to drag me down the path, still keeping them in his sight. They followed at a distance as he left the path and broke into a field, dragging me toward the barn several yards away. As he walked backward, trying to make sure the bikers stayed away, he tripped. In bringing me down with him, his gun went off.
My ear popped, my vision blurring as the blast rocked me. I fell to my side as a horrible ringing engulfed my hearing and the ground spun under me. No pain came. For a moment I thought I had died instantly which was why I hadn’t felt anything, and I was slowly losing consciousness.
