Chapter 23 Megan
MEGAN
I keep Amber close to the wall as we make our way carefully down the slick, stone steps to the basement, holding her hand tightly.
I watched my best friend get shot. We almost killed a man on the way here, driving like a lunatic.
But I’m still worried about my little sister slipping on the steps and hurting herself.
It’s a basic instinct: she’s a child, and I’m her protector.
I brought her into this situation, and now I’m going to get her out of it.
When we reach the bottom, I shine the flashlight around the room searching for a hiding place.
In one corner is a tall wooden wardrobe with clawed feet that would easily conceal us both, but that would be too obvious.
I must treat this like a game of hide-and-seek, figure out where the seeker will look first, and hide somewhere else.
There are plenty of cardboard boxes and storage cartons, sacks of clothing— donations to the thrift store perhaps—an old gramophone player, a rocking horse, a haphazard stack of vinyl LPs, some mannequins, and a store window backdrop of a fake waterfall surrounded by rocks with one-dimensional tourists sipping cocktails through pink straws.
The cartons are our best shot.
I crouch in front of Amber and hold her hands. Her face is pale and grubby, her eyes puffy with tears.
“Amber, we’re going to play hide-and-seek with the nice man upstairs, okay?”
She blinks and remains silent, peering at me as if I’ve gone crazy too in this new topsy-turvy world. I know exactly how she feels.
“We’re going to climb inside a carton, and we mustn’t move until the game is over. We mustn’t make a sound either. We must stay absolutely still like when we’re playing sleeping lions.”
Amber sniffs. “We’re playing two games?”
I smile. “Yes. The winner gets Ben it’s the kind of thing that should be restricted to the movies. The bad guys versus the cops. It shouldn’t happen in real life. To anyone. But especially not to a five-year-old.
Something shuffles in the room. It’s close, too close, and I bite down on my fist to stifle a scream.
A mouse perhaps. Or a rat?
I shouldn’t be frightened of a rodent, under the circumstances.
But it’s my body reacting on instinct, prioritizing the very real prospect of a mouse scuttling around inside the carton with me over the very surreal probability of Amber’s father finding us when so many people are trying to protect us.
Amber’s voice breaks the silence. “My legs hurt.”
My heart reaches out to her. I wish I could wrap my arms around my precious little sister, hold her close, and offer the comfort she needs right now. But I remind myself that I’m doing this for her.
“Can you lie down, Amber? Curl up tightly like a hedgehog.”
She has always been fascinated by the tiny prickly creatures.
The preschool she attended before she reached school age made a hedgehog house one time.
The children helped set it up in the garden, and they checked it each morning to see if a hedgehog had made a home inside.
I remember her disappointment each day when she came home with no hedgehog news.
“I’ll try.”
“Amber, no more talking now, no matter what you hear.”
More shuffling. Then the basement sinks into silence once more, and all I can hear is the beating of my heart, and my breathing which is growing raggedy in the confined space.
I focus on good thoughts. Happy thoughts.
My brain automatically settles on Gio, and my body stops trembling, warmth seeping through my veins.
I never expected to meet a man like Gio in my lifetime.
I don’t care about the penthouse apartment, the private jet, and the rooftop pool.
Strip Giovanni Sabatelli of his designer suits and extravagant lifestyle, and he would still be the kind, gentle, ridiculously sexy, and obsessively protective man I fell in love with.
Nothing would change the way I feel when he looks at me as if I’m the most beautiful woman in the world. Mio fiore. My pulse races with the simple memory of his voice.
Is this what people mean when they talk about soulmates? I always thought it meant two people becoming as one when they’ve spent a lifetime in each other’s company, like penguins who are loyal to their mate for life. But when I’m with Gio, it feels more like we are two halves of one whole.
Two halves of one soul.
I’ve never thought of it this way before, and now it makes perfect sense. Like magnets drawn to one another from across the ocean, we were destined to meet, one way or another.
A sound penetrates my reverie, and I freeze.
My heart chooses this moment to start preparing for its next marathon, and I stare at the darkness surrounding me inside my cramped hiding space, afraid to move. Pins and needles start stabbing at my left foot, and I hold my breath while I wriggle my toes.
Why now?
Why?
All I can hear is the gushing in my ears, but my Spidey senses are telling me that something is going on above our heads. I reflexively raise my eyes to the carton lid like that might help bring the thrift store into focus.
I’m waiting for the first weapon to be fired, primed for the gunshot that will make me jump and kickstart the adrenaline rush.
When it doesn’t come, I slide my foot out from under me and rub away the pins and needles. If he was here, we would know about it.
That’s when I hear a sound that sends a shiver down my spine.
I want to warn Amber that now is the time I need her to be the best sleeping lion that she can be, but I don’t dare even whisper. Someone is in the basement with us. No footsteps. No door opening and shutting. No gunfire eliminating the owner of the thrift store before he comes for us.
Just the stealthy feral movements of a predator raising goosebumps on my skin.
I’m disoriented by the darkness. I can’t track his movements, but I know that it’s him. Anyone else would switch on the lights and call out our names, let us know that they mean us no harm.
But that isn’t how a predator, or a sociopath works. They enjoy the thrill of the chase. The scent of fear. The power it gives them when they prey on the weak.
I wish I had a gun. I’ve never held one before, never wanted to; they represent everything that is wrong with humanity. Fear. Cowardice. Hatred. Greed. But if I had one in my hand right now, I know that I could end this while I have the element of surprise on my side.