Spectrum

Chapter 16

The sound of a gunshot had me shooting out of my bed, my heartbeat wild as my head flipped from side to side looking around the small room to find it empty. 

I placed my hand over my chest in a sad attempt of claiming myself down but my heart only started to beat faster. I could feel it in my gut, something was going on downstairs and I definitely did not want to find out what it was.

A sharp shriek breaking through the cold air had me hurriedly jumping out of my bed in fright as I could feel myself start to shake a bit and it had now come apparent to me that this was certainly not a dream.

I carefully walked on the wooden floors in an effort to not make any noise as I walked over to the door, slowly, I moved over, pressing my ear to the door to see if I could hear anything, and let me tell you, I could and I did not like in the slightest way what I heard.

" What...My....Money, " Were the only word I could make out and it would seem as if the person in question was talking quite loud as the sounds seemed to be coming from downstairs.

I held not the doorknob twisting it slowly inching the door closer to my chest, I stuck my head out of the partially opened door and looked down the hall to see it void with all doors closed.

I opened the door a bit more so I could fit my body through, knowing that if I had fully opened the door it would have made a loud creek which certainly would not help my situation.

Moving out of the room, I slid my body onto the wall until I got to the centre of the hallway to which I started walking a bit slower, I was almost to the end of the hallway when I felt a hand grab mine and was about to scream until another covered my mouth and pulled me into one of the rooms.

" Are you mad?? " Came Riana's voice as she removed her hands from off of me.

I stared at her confused causing her to roll her eyes at me.

" Do you not hear the screaming? something bad is obviously going on down there, why would you even try to go down Milan? " She asked.

I stared at her blankly before asking, " Why are you talking to me? " I simply disregarded anything that she had said, I did not plan on going downstairs, I just simply wanted to get to the end of the hall to see if I could pick up on something the men were saying.

She walked up to me to pat my cheek to which I immediately shifted back at realizing what she was trying to do " I'm talking to you because if you get killed, I get killed and we can't have that, can we? " She spoke staring me directly in the eye.

" We're leaving, " She said turning her back to me before going over to her bed where two open duffle bags laid.

" We're? " I asked watching her scramble around the room to get her stuff.

I took that moment to look around her room which was painted dark blue with colour changing lights hung near her ceiling, her setup was typical, a white dresser to the far right, her thirty inch television on top with a few perfume bottles laying around.

Her bed was planted in the middle a black headboard adorning her silky white bedsheets, a closet laid to the far left of the room to which she was currently bringing clothes from, a built-in wall mirror to the right of her closet which was currently reflecting the moon through her window which was right across from it.

" Why would I leave you? Despite what you think, I don't hate you, that and you just got a car, " She said zipping her bag.

I didn't know what surprised me more, she didn't hate me or the fact that she could speak standard English.

I stared at her to which she stared back at me and as if she could read my mind, she said, " Yes, I can speak standard English, but I don't do it often, do you see the community I live in? I'm not a fan of getting mugged " 

" Now come, " She said grabbing my hand before picking up the duffle bags, one larger than the other.

She pulled me over to the door which was partially open, She pulled it a bit wider sticking her head through before opening it wider to facilitate both of our bodies, she slid out first and I went right after her.

We both stuck to the wall, our arms joined together as we shuffled to my room, Riana sliding in through the cracked door pulling me behind her. She took one last look down the hall before slowly closing the door which garnered a small squeak from it.

She threw the other duffle bag to me motioning for me to grab what I needed, to which I started pulling clothes and shoes from every direction. While I did that she started inspecting the room as if looking for something as she slid her foot over the rug that stood between Mason and I's beds.

She bent down lifting the rug to show the floorboards, she pushed her finger down on one causing it to flip up, she dipped her hand it taking out a stack of money but that wasn't my business to I went back to what I was doing before.

" I finished, " I said zipping the bag closed.

I had taken a few things, mostly the essentials because I did not know where exactly we were going, no, I did not trust Riana in the slightest way but in this situation, she seemed to know more than what I did so I would just have to suck it up for today because I was not about what was going on downstairs.

" Get the car keys too, " She said putting the rug back in place. I went over to the Chest of drawers grabbing my keys before shoving them into the pocket of my pyjama shorts.

She came over to me " We're going to have to go downstairs, there's a crawlspace in my mother's room, we can leave safely through there, but the problem is how we're going to get down there without being seen, there are men crawling this house, " 

She started pacing a bit before speaking again, " There aren't usually any guards posting the rooms or far hall, we could take the hall leading to the basement, no, they're in the living room, we can't do that, ah, but we can take the kitchen but we'd have to be very sneaky about this, they pick up sounds really well, just follow my lead, " She ended before taking my hand again pulling me out of the room and to the back stairs as opposed to the front stairs, this one led into the kitchen.

She leaned to the side looking over the bannister muttering ' clear ' before slowly walking down the stairs, taking me with her. She stood behind one of the walls looking over.

" Some of them are behind there, you crawl that way, I crawl this way, " She pointed to the route she was sending me.

Their backs were turned away from the both of us, so we were able to get on our knees and crawl, I was supposed to take the path behind the fridge while she took the other was which was around the stove.

The kitchen was an open space so it wasn't hard to manoeuvre through as the appliances were practically thrown everywhere leaving small spaces behind them.

Riana went first tiptoeing to the stove while I simply just walked to the back of the fridge which was just behind the wall but the problem was that I had no clue where to go from there as the men were right in the centre of the kitchen placing me in an impossible situation.

I took a moment to look at the scary and tough-looking men and women freshly clad in suits standing around the island then I took a look at the door and I immediately started mapping a route. I looked over to see that Riana was almost at the hall so I acted quickly getting on the floor.

They were on the other side of the Island so I crawled to the back of it almost knocking over a chair before making my way over to the bottom cabinets where Riana was and we slowly crawled to the opening of the hallway but in that moment one of the men turned their head to look directly at us.

We both froze for a second maintaining eye contact with him but it seemed as if he didn't care as he turned his head back around joining into his previous conversation. Riana and I both let out sighs of relief before making it onto the hall and to her mother's room.

Riana pushed the dresser feeling around the wall a bit before opening the space, she allowed me to go in first staying back a bit to close the space. We crawled through for a while but suddenly heavy footsteps could be heard coming directly our way and a look of panic crossed Riana face as she rushed the both of us to a wooden door which she pushed out leading us to where m car was parked.

" Hurry, " Riana said as she hurried to the passengers' side as I opened the door we both slid in quickly and as soon as I started the car one of the men burst through the back door but I was already backing out onto the road and at tip-top speed, I drove down the road allowing the both of us to let go of the breath that we didn't know we were holding.

The road was dark and empty as my car slid on it, " Here exactly are we going? " Riana asked unsure which was confusing to me as she was the one who wanted to run away but nevertheless, I did not judge her for it.

" I know somewhere, " I said keeping my eyes on the road.