Chapter Seven
1304 Words
*
The car smells like rain and blood.
Lucas’s hand is wrapped in his hoodie, pressing hard against the cut from the broken window. He doesn’t say anything about it. Neither do I.
Mom’s house is 20 minutes out, on the edge of town where the streetlights stop working after midnight. I keep replaying Courtney’s words: _Chinedu’s there. He’s not alone._
“He wouldn’t go to the house,” I say out loud. “There’s nothing there.”
Lucas glances at me. “There’s the documents.”
I close my eyes. Of course. The account mom and i opened after Dad died. The documents and card was hidden in a secret room. She told me the code the night before the wedding. _“If anything happens to me, it’s yours. Asides, your dad left...........”_ A call intruded and I excused myself.
How foolish was I?
I could have listened to what she was going to say about what dad left
Darn
Now I’m not so sure.
“What’s in it?” I asked pretending to be clueless
Lucas’s quiet for a long time. “Documents. Titles.”
"You own a company '' He added after a brief silence
That word lands wrong as I almost choke on my saliva.
I Silvia own a company?
" Your dad's" He replied like he's reading my mind
I'm beginning to see Lucas differently.
How come I don't even know about this?
How did he know all of this?
Or is he one of my disguised enemies?. *I dispelled the thoughts immediately*
---
The house comes into view. Lights on downstairs. That’s not right. Mom always turned everything off at 9pm.
Lucas slows the car two streets away. “We don’t go in blind.”
“Then how?”
“We watch. We listen. Then we move.”
I nod, but my hands are shaking.
Because if Damien’s in that house, he’s looking for the one thing I can’t lose.
****
We park behind the abandoned laundromat and walk the rest of the way through the backyards.
Mom’s house looks normal from the outside. Too normal. Curtains drawn, light spilling through the cracks. A car I don’t recognize parked in the driveway. Black SUV. Same model as the one in the church parking lot.
Lucas puts a hand on my chest before I can move.
“Listen,” he says.
Voices. Muffled, coming from the kitchen window.
“—said it’s hidden in a secret room probably behind some furnitures. Code’s four digits.” That’s Damien.
“I found out it's in this kitchen,” another voice says. Deeper. Colder. Not someone I know.
''Here?"
“But the code?. We can't open it without the code even if we find it.”
"Only her knows the code"
My stomach drops.
They know Mom’s dead.
They have an idea of where it is
They know I’m the only one who can open it.
"Then we break the door"
Did I just hear break it?
Lucas pulls me back as the kitchen light flickers. Someone’s moving inside.
“Plan?” I whisper.
“We wait for an opening,” he says. “They’ll get sloppy if they think she’s not coming.”
I shake my head. “They’re tearing the house apart. If they find it—”
“They won’t,” Lucas says. “Not unless you tell them.”
I look at him. “You think I’d tell them?”
“I think you’d do anything to make it stop,” he says. “And that’s what they’re counting on.”
The back door opens. Footsteps on the porch.
Lucas pulls me flat against the fence as a man steps outside for a cigarette.
It’s one of the guys from the alley.
--------
We don’t wait.
Lucas moves first, fast and silent. One hand over the guy’s mouth, the other pulling him back into the yard. The cigarette drops, hissing in the wet grass.
I help drag him behind the shed before he can make a sound.
Lucas’s hand is steady, but his eyes aren’t. “Keys,” he says.
The guy shakes his head, eyes wide.
Lucas leans in close. “You tell me how many are inside and I let you walk. You lie, and I leave you here.”
“Three,” the guy gasps. “Damien, him, and me. The other one left.”
Him. Not a name. Just _him_.
Lucas nods once, then knocks him out with a clean hit to the temple.
We strip his jacket off. It’s too big, but it’ll work.
“You’re going in,” Lucas says, handing it to me.
“What?”
“You look like one of them from the back. They’re expecting a fourth guy. You walk in, find out what they’re doing, get out.”
“And if they catch me?”
“They won’t,” he says. “Not if you don’t panic.”
I pull the jacket on. It smells like rain and cigarettes.
Lucas takes my face in his hands. “Silvia, listen to me. Don’t give them the code. No matter what they say. No matter what they do.”
I nod.
I don’t know if I can keep that promise.
I slip through the gate and head for the back door.
-------
The kitchen is a mess.
Chairs knocked over. Cabinets open. Flour and sugar spilled across the floor like snow.
Damien stands at the entrance of a wooden door, running his hands over the wood like he can feel the documents through it.
The other man is sitting at the table, cleaning a knife with a cloth. He looks up when I walk in.
“Took you long enough,” he says.
I keep my head down, pull the hood up. “Traffic.”
Damien turns. For a second, he doesn’t recognize me. Then his face changes.
“You,” he says.
I don’t answer.
“Where is she?” the man at the table asks.
“Outside,” I say. “Said it’s too hot in here.”
Damien steps toward me. “You know the code, don’t you?”
I swallow. “I don’t—”
“Don’t lie to me, Silvia,” he says. His voice is soft now. The voice he used when he told me he loved me.
“I loved you. I still do. Just give me the code and we can walk away from all of this.”
Loved me. Past tense.
The man at the table stands up. The knife isn’t for cleaning anymore.
“Last chance,” he says.
I think of Mom. Of the note she left in my drawer last Christmas. _“Trust your gut, baby girl. It’s never wrong.”_
My gut says run.
I turn and bolt for the back door.
_"*"_
I don’t make it.
The man grabs my arm and slams me against the counter. Pain explodes through my shoulder.
“Code!” he shouts.
Damien’s in front of me now, face twisted. “Please, Silvia. Don’t make him hurt you.”
Footsteps at the back door. Lucas.
He comes in fast, but there are two of them now. The third guy must have woken up.
Lucas’s tackled before he can reach me.
I’m on my knees, knife at my throat, and Damien is leaning in close.
“Last chance,” he says. “Tell me the code, or I let him start with your fingers.”
I look at Lucas. He’s bleeding from his mouth, but he’s staring at me. Shaking his head negatively.
_Don’t._
The wooden door creaks.
Something moves behind .
---
Guess what?
I'm getting scared for the duo oooooooooo.
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- Writer
