At first, I didn’t scream. Fear held me back. Fear that if I let out my voice, someone would hear me and then, I really wouldn’t be able to leave the building alive. However, as I slid down the vent, I realized this was the closest thing to being on an amusement park ride that I’d ever been on. I took a deep breath as my stomach churned from the sudden steepness the shoot took.
“Whoo!” I could hear Hal’s voice echo inside the vent. “Yahoo! This is totally wicked!” My eyes instinctively looked down in front me to locate Hal, but my feet blocked my view. “Come on, Lux, let it out!” Hal cheered. “You know you want to.”
And I did want to. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to imagine I really was on one of those colorful slides at parks that were over 100 feet tall. When I let my breath out, I laughed. My lips curled upwards and it wasn’t long before, I was screaming along with Hal. My moment ended too soon however, when my feet hit a metal flap.
I opened my eyes to see the flap door open on its own and a pair of gloves reach into the vent and grab my ankles. This time I screamed and I didn’t care who was listening. I put my book on my chest and spread my arms out to stop the intruder from pulling me out of the vent. My fingers turned white as they pressed against the metal sides. Where was Blue? He said he was going to be right behind me!
“Blue!” I shouted tilting my head back. “Hel-“
My words were cut off as my body was pulled out of the shoot. Rain poured down on me as my butt hit asphalt. For a moment, I just sat on the ground stunned. I was outside. There was no turning back now. As the rain soaked my clothes and hair, I could feel the blood and sweat from today’s events wash off me. With it, the unease I was harboring about surviving.
Thunder clashed in the clouds and my attention was brought back to my current predicament. Two hands shot toward my face and pulled me up. I opened my mouth to let out another scream when my mouth was suddenly blocked by a rubber glove and my back hit against something that felt like a brick wall.
“Boy, you’re feisty.” The man holding on to my wrist had to shout in my ear, otherwise the rain would have muted out his voice. I squirmed against his hold, but he was a lot bigger than me.
“Josh, let her go, you’re scaring the poor girl.” The man shifted his body to the right, swinging me along with him. There stood a girl in a rain coat two sizes too big for her. Her muddy hair fell out of her hood and stuck to her coat like a soaked mop.
“I bet you one hundred bucks, the second I let her go she’s going to scream or worse, make a break for it. And then we are all dead.” The boy, tightened his grip around me and I squeezed eyes shut.
“Well, you scared the crap out of her. What were you thinking, pulling her out like that?” The girl smacked my captor in the arm. I could feel the man take a deep breath to rebuttal, but before he could speak, a loud clunk sound came from the vent causing everyone to turn their heads.
Blue kicked the metal flap and slid out of the vent like, he was participating in the world’s toughest limbo competition. Unfortunately, he wasn’t doing too well. I could feel my captor’s chest vibrating from laughing and I’m sure, if I could turn my head I would see the girl cracking a smile as well.
When he was finally out, Blue adjusted his suit and hair before, looking up baffled at the scene in front of him. I watched the space between his brow crease and I knew we were all in trouble.
“The hell, Josh?!” Blue said frowning. “Let go of the girl.” He said punching the other man in the arm.
“One, I don’t appreciate the physical abuse.” Josh said and my eyes widened. This guy was literally a giant rock with arms and legs. I hardly thought he was getting “abused.” “And two, I know for a fact, if I let her go, she is going to try and run for it.”
“She’s not going to run,” The girl spoke. “Are you?” She said facing me and I did my best to shake my head. “Good, so let her go.”
My captor made a deep sigh before practically dropping me on the pavement. I quickly scrambled to my feet and ran past Blue.
“Somebody owes me a hundred bucks.” The boulder groaned.
“Wait,” Blue said holding the other man back
While I was held hostage, my book was just sitting on the pavement soaking up the rain.
I picked up the book imagining Hal soaking wet. His perfect hair flattened against his forehead. His uniform specially designed for fighting crime, now constricted his skin as it shrank. Hal’s, his lips curled into his infamous Cheshire grin as he told me he’d been through worse and then, he gave me his classic wink. I turned to face the others, pressing my book against my chest.
“What do you want from me?” I said finally finding my voice.
“Oh, we don’t want anything from you,” The girl spoke up. “We want him.” She said pointing to Blue.
“Blue? What do you want with him?” I looked over at the boy, who was shaking his head.
“Pfft. Blue? Why does she call you that?” Josh boy scoffed.
“There is a better time and place for explanations,” Blue said before looking up at the sky. “First we need to get out of this rain.”
“We weren’t expecting you to pick up any strays,” The girl said crossing her arms. “We only have the two bikes.
“That’s simple, Kayla, you come with me and since Josh is already so buddy-buddy with the girl she can ride with him.” Blue responded smoothly. All three turned to walk further into the alley, but I just stood still, clutching my book. My feet felt like they were super glued into the gravel.
“What are you waiting for?” I could hear Hal’s voice by the opening of the alley. His body was hidden by the cover of night and I could barely just see the outline of his figure.
“I-I’m scared…” I said squeezing my book closer to me. I could feel the soaked pages seep through my shirt.
“I know! Isn’t it exciting?!” Hal clapped his hands together just as thunder rolled through the clouds. I jumped at the sound and found that my feet weren’t stuck after all. The subtle sound of an engine revving toward me caused me to cover my mouth and hold my nose.
“Is that gas!?” I took a step away from the bike and tried to hold my breath.
“Sure is!” Josh said with a toothy grin.
“Please,” Kayla said as she and Blue pulled up beside him on a hover bike. “Only you would wish that, that metal box on wheels was solely powered on diesel.”
“Yeah, ‘cause that would be awesome!” Josh argued. Kayla just shook her head.
“Don’t worry, Hun,” she said looking at me. “It’s a hybrid, and it mostly runs on electricity.” I nodded, but didn’t take my hand off my face. “Don’t worry, whatever bull they told you in school about old school cars isn’t true.” She continued. “Well it’s half true, but if we sit here and discuss the logistics, I’m going to freeze my ass off.” She laughed. Blue revved his engine and Kayla rolled her eyes. “Or this one might explode with impatience.” She said referring to Blue.
I nodded and took a small deep breath before taking Josh’s dark, callused hand. He helped me onto the back of his bike. I put my book under my shirt for safe keeping and shivered as the wet pages pressed against my chest.
“Hold on tight, yeah?” Josh said as I wrapped my arms around his torso.
“Race you back.” Blue said grinning to Josh.
“Whoo! I love races!” Kayla said squeezing Blue too tightly, in my opinion.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” I asked worried we might get caught.
“Nah,” Josh replied. “Nobody’s gonna be out when there are Infected running around wreaking havoc all over the city.” Josh said to me over his shoulder and grinning. The boy throttled his bike and I squeezed his abdomen as we floored it out of the alley.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sorry for late update, I was having fun working on my other writing and I let this fall behind.
Fun Fact: The average lifespan of a tastebud is ten days.
(FF source: Facts app)
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