71. Daisy
Chapter 71
Daisy
R uth practically dragged me up the stairs away from Otis. If I’d been alone I wouldn’t have gone. I had next to zero idea how to use the gun in my hands, but I would have used it to help Otis.
Now he was down there alone.
My chest clutched at the thought of something happening to him, but Ruth was pulling me down the second-floor hall, making it impossible to focus on anything but our movements. “Where do we hide, Daisy?”
“I don’t… I don’t know.”
She stopped moving and put her hands on my shoulders. “You have to know. You live here.”
I swallowed against my panic and tried to see the house the way it looked on the blueprints, then with the overlay of furniture, designed to utilize the antiques that were part of the house.
“There’s a big cupboard,” I said. “In the room at the end of the hall.”
The end of the hall meant more time for Otis to head off Gray and whoever else he’d brought to the house.
And it had to be Gray. It was the only thing that made sense after what he’d done to Ruth.
If I’d been more focused when we’d come up the stairs I would have continued to the third floor, but it was too late to double back.
“A cupboard?” Ruth didn’t sound convinced.
“It’s… like an armoire. A big one.” Now I was the one moving, pulling Ruth with me. “Trust me.”
We’d just reached the door to the room when gunfire sounded from downstairs.
Adrenaline coursed through my body, my head buzzing with it, fight-or-flight pushing me forward even as I fought an internal scream at the fact that Otis was down there alone.
We barged through the door of the room and I headed straight for the double-wide armoire, a shadow in the dark against one wall. An old skeleton key protruded from a keyhole in the center of the cupboard. I took it and slipped it into my pocket because the last thing we needed was to get locked inside the armoire.
I flung open the doors. The wardrobe was huge, plenty big enough for both of us if we angled our bodies just right.
“Told you,” I said. “Get in.”
Ruth hesitated, then climbed in, scooting her back against one side of the cabinet. “We won’t both fit.”
“It’ll be tight.” The fact that it was an armoire worked in our favor. A closet would definitely be searched, but an antique cupboard that didn’t look big enough to hold two people?
Maybe not, if we were lucky.
More gunfire erupted from downstairs and I climbed in after her and hurried to settle myself inside the cupboard. It was tough to do while holding the gun. The safety was still on but I’d never handled a gun before and part of me expected it to go off anyway.
I faced forward instead of to the side — the gun wouldn’t be any good to us if someone found us and I was facing Ruth — and pulled my knees to my chest.
“I can’t reach the door,” I said.
Ruth reached down and pulled it shut from the bottom and then we were enclosed in a darkness even more total than in the house.
For a few seconds neither of us spoke.
“Daisy?” Ruth’s voice was tentative and small.
“Yeah?” I whispered.
“I’m sorry.”
I fumbled in the dark with my free hand until I found hers. “Shhh… it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. We have to be quiet now.”
I thought about Otis, prayed he was okay, told myself that the gunfire meant he was still alive, that Wolf and Jace would be home any minute, anything to stop the fear thudding in my chest, the feeling that our time together was finally up and it would all end here, right where it had begun.