Sophia
I hate being in the gallery at night. It’s far from the first time I’ve had to do inventory alone after dark.
The space is spooky and empty. Even though it’s modern and not a wood and marble mausoleum. Still, the sheer space and number of rooms leaves a lot to the imagination. And what if some of these Egyptian artifacts are cursed?
Listen to me. I’m being a child. I’ve turned on as many lights as I can, and brightly lit this place isn’t so bad. I punch in the code to the inventory vault and then start my search for the artifacts.
I don’t know where they were put. But I do know where everything else is supposed to be, so the bright pine box sealed with a giant padlock stands out fast. I don’t know where the keys are. Most items in storage aren’t locked up. The twelve-inch concrete walls and double-thick steel door are enough.
This is the problem of James being so new to the auction house. He forgets details like this. I think of texting him to ask where the key to the padlock is, when I remember that Richard usually keeps keys for things in inventory on a set of hidden pegs under his desk.
I turn to go to his office, and I’m just walking out of the inventory room and into the hallway when the fluorescent-lit world suddenly goes dark.
I audibly gasp. I can’t see an inch in front of my face. The power is out. I feel along the wall with my hand. I’m too panicked to pull my phone out right away. I just want to get to where I can see the street through the big glass windows.
I want to see light.
When I get there, I stop in my tracks. The front door is dead ahead. The glowing streetlights tells me something else—this isn’t a wide power outage.
It’s just the gallery.
Suddenly there’s a metal bang behind me and the sound of the delivery door opening. For a fraction of a second, I think it has to do with the sale. James’s buyer must be arriving. But then I realize this power outage can’t be a coincidence.
It’s a robbery.
I sprint for the front door, moving as fast as I can in the dark.
I’m twenty feet from the front door when I hear heavy footsteps behind me and see the ground lit up by flashlight beams.
“Help!” I scream as loud as I can. There are pedestrians on the far side of the street, but their heads don’t turn.
“I got her!” I hear a voice shout behind me.
I reach the door, but I don’t have time to undo the lock before I’m wrapped in a strong grip and tossed violently to the floor.
“Get off me!” I shout.
“Hold fucking still.” I turn to see a man in a green ski mask trying to pin me down.
I kick and punch wildly, and one of my kicks gets my assailant in the chest. He wheezes from having the wind knocked out of him, but I’m no badass this time. What happened in Egypt was more of a lucky fluke.
I’m not escaping.
He holds me tighter, and I hear the tearing suck of duct tape being pulled from its roll. My arms and feet are violently bound.
When he’s done and I can’t move an inch, the man shouts towards the hall. “Is the inventory room unlocked?”
A distant voice yells back. “Yeah! She opened it!”
“Thanks, sweetheart.” He stands, and then the world lurches in pain as he kicks me in the stomach.
I cough and gag. It feels like I’m going to puke, but I dry heave once instead. I can see people walking past on the sidewalk. This time right in front of the glass doors.
“Hey!” I shout, but it’s interrupted as a piece of duct tape is put over my mouth. The people never even turn towards the dark windows. They just keep walking, clueless to what’s happening inside.
The man grabs my legs and drags me so I’m hidden behind the reception desk. Then he joins his friends in the back.
I can wiggle so I’m not behind the desk, but it’s of little use. He’ll probably be back before I can shimmy to the door. I move so the duct tape on my wrists is against the sharp edge of the metal desk leg. But it’s far from sharp enough to cut through the heavy wrappings of the tape. Besides, the safest thing I can do for myself is to lie still.
To wait for these robbers to leave and hope all they’re after is the artifacts. It’s feeling this vulnerable that makes me want to cut the bindings. What if they set the place on fire? What if they’re not done with me?
My mind spins with hypotheticals. I can’t take deep breaths to calm myself. I try to turn my brain off. To picture getting back to my apartment. Taking a shower. Forgetting this even happened.
Then I realize that won’t be tonight. If they do spare me, they’re not going to untie me or make it so I can crawl for help. They’ll make it so I’ll have to be found in the morning. And by then I will have wet myself. It’ll be a dozen hours spent on this cold floor before I’m free.
I hear them taking things out of the inventory room. They must have a truck parked in the alley. It doesn’t take them all that long. They’re taking the most valuable pieces. The Egyptian artifacts.
I can’t help but feel a bit of shame. This was my fault. I’m sure if I kept my eyes open a little more, I could’ve sensed something was wrong.
And then there was the burglar alarm on the hallway wall I could’ve pressed. I close my eyes and cringe. I ran right past it. It didn’t matter that the power was out. It’s battery powered. I was so focused on escaping, I didn’t even think of it.
All my pride from being cool in a crisis that I got from how I handled Cairo is gone now. I wasn’t even cool then. I was just lucky. I was stupid enough to get in that situation in the first place. I got out of my taxi when I wasn’t directly in front of my hotel.
I’m feeling useless, and when I think of where I was just a half hour before, under the lights in Central Park in James’s strong grasp, I start to cry silently.
I hear the footsteps come close again. Heavy. Angry.
I’m rolled onto my back, and a flashlight is shined into my eyes. I see my attacker. His green ski mask has yellow rings around the eyes. He’s holding my purse and drops it on the floor so only my wallet is in his hand.
Then he slides my driver’s license from its clear pocket. “Okay, Simms. We’re deleting all the security footage as I speak. There’s nothing else we need from you, but you heard some voices tonight, sweetheart. If you’re ever questioned to try to identify those voices… we will kill you. Understand? We all took a good look at your birthdate and address. It doesn’t matter where you end up. You won’t be hard to find. Understand?”
I wish I was as afraid as I was earlier, but whenever this scumbag calls me sweetheart, my gut boils with rage. I hope he can see the fire in my eyes as I glare at him.
“Just nod if you understand.”
I don’t plan on nodding, but before I even could, there’s a shout from the back.
“Hey, hurry up! We’re leaving!”
“I’m not going to ask you again,” says green ski mask, holding his flashlight closer to my eyes.
I wish I could spit. Speak. Summon any act of defiance and not just lie pitifully on the floor. I start to mutter, when suddenly both of our gazes are drawn to the front windows. There’s a red flash. Brake lights.
A car is moving in reverse towards the glass door. Speeding in reverse.
It bursts through with a crash and a jingle of glass falling like rain. My attacker stares, as shocked as I am.
The car jolts to a stop.
The driver’s door flies open. I see a tall man stand and the sweep of his overcoat as he moves quickly.
He stretches out his arm, holding a pistol. When the gunshot erupts in the lobby, I see his face for a millisecond in the muzzle flash.
James.
I’m too shocked from seeing him to be shaken by the sound of the shot.
His face flashes in the dark again as he shoots a second time. Thick dark hair hanging over his forehead. Murder in those emerald eyes.
There’s screaming now. Ski-mask man lies several feet from me on the floor.
James comes nearer. He doesn’t seem to see me yet. He bends and presses the barrel of his pistol into one of the man’s wounds. He screams, and James’s voice comes out as smooth as velvet.
“Where’s the girl?”
Ski mask points a shaky finger over at me, and James stands straight. He pushes the reception desk out of the way and bends over to me. I want to scream that he’s in danger. That there’s more of them.
He puts his hand on the strip of duct tape on my mouth. “This is going to hurt.”
I nod, and he rips off the duct tape. “James, there’s more,” I spit out, and he stands and turns towards the back offices.
I hear tires squeal and an engine roar from the direction of the delivery door.
They’re leaving. James listens for a few seconds longer before he draws the same conclusion.
He takes his attention back to me and undoes the duct tape on my wrists and ankles. “Are you hurt?”
“My stomach.” I try to get up off the floor, but my ab muscles hurt too much from being kicked.
“You hurt her?” James asks my attacker and stands up.
I watch him lift his head weakly from the floor. He spits up blood. “If you don’t get pressure on these, I’m gonna die, man.”
“You deserve it,” James says over him.
“I’m unarmed. You don’t want me to die, man. You’ll get locked up. Please. The bitch got a kick to the gut. That’s it. She’ll be fine.”
I notice the man’s hand is creeping down to his boot. He’s sliding something up by a glossy black handle, and by the time I see the flash of silver, it’s almost too late.
“James! Knife!” I shout.
James’s eyes flash with anger. He takes a quick step so he’s farther away and then looks back to me.
He casually holds out the pistol behind him. He’s not even looking at the man when he pulls the trigger. There’s a pop and the rattle of the brass shell casing dancing on the floor.
Then James puts the gun in the back of his pants and picks me up off the floor.
“Shouldn’t we wait for the police?”
“So they force you to talk to them for half the night? I’m getting you out of here.”
I suddenly hear commotion as he walks with me in his arms, his footsteps crunching in the glass in the lobby. I’m confused as I see cameras flash. Pedestrians have begun to gather and gawk.
He opens the back door of the Mercedes and lays me across the back seat. Then he shuts the door, gets into the driver’s seat, and soon after, the car lurches forward.
I can hear sirens just a few blocks away.
“James… we need to talk to the police.”
“There’s plenty of time for that. I’m taking you home.”
“No!” I grunt, and pain burns in my abs as I reach forward. “Ugh. James, no. The man said they have pictures of my ID. They know where I live.”
“No one is going to go after you. If anything, they’re the ones who’ll be running scared.”
I know he’s probably right. But James just killed one of their associates. Maybe they only ran because they were unarmed.
They might seek vengeance. What if they were a crime family and he just killed their brother? They’d stop at nothing to get their revenge.
“James.” I hate to hear that my voice cracks and is shaky with tears. “I can’t go where they know I’ll be.”
He’s silent for a moment. “Okay.” He sighs. “Okay, do you need to go to the hospital?”
“No.” I grunt as I move. “I’m just bruised.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Okay, I’ll take you somewhere else.” The Mercedes’ engine roars as we race away from the scene of the crime and the lights of the city. After a silent half hour, my body is crashing. I’m falling asleep on the warm leather seats.
I’m fading in and out when I feel the car come to a stop. James gets out of the driver’s seat, and I hear the back door open. I’m afraid I’m going to have to get up soon.
I wouldn’t mind if he carried me again, but then I snuggle my face against the seats because we’re not getting out. James is just draping his big overcoat on top of me like a blanket. He tucks me in and moves some of my hair behind my ear. I feel a gentle kiss on my cheek.
It’s almost too faint to hear. I’m almost not awake enough, but I swear I hear him speak. “I’m sorry, snowflake.”
I want to mumble that it’s not his fault, that he saved me, but my thoughts are lost under the overcoat that smells of James’s cologne. Of woody spice. And there’s a hint of something else. A slight whiff of gunpowder.
I nod off as the car winds deeper into the dark, away from the city.