November dampness sought to creep under clothing wherever it found a weakness. Moisture from the Potomac hung in the chill, holding down the smells of diesel fuel and rotting garbage. She watched the rear corner door of the warehouse from a block away.
Augie had been punctual for the meet with Lee, but something felt... off. Amanda couldn't put her finger on it. She sat behind the wheel of Lee's car. They should have been out by now. She was mentally debating whether she should go call for backup, or go check on Lee first, when movement caught her eye. Augie exited the warehouse. He preceded a guy in a dark suit, who kept looking over his shoulder back at the door as they stepped down the cement stairs. Two more men followed, these two could be the picture in the dictionary under 'goons,' Amanda thought. Everyone seemed to move quickly to the brown sedan across the alley. They all kept glancing back at the building.
Amanda slunk down in the seat as the brown sedan exited the alley with squealing tires. Now she knew something was wrong. Heart in her throat, she reached for the heavy Mag light Lee kept under the passenger seat.
She waited an agonizingly long three more minutes to see if anyone else was going to come out of the building. They had arrived at least a half-hour before Augie, and the warehouse had been empty. Where the extra three men came from, Amanda did not know.
Armed with the heavy metal flashlight, Amanda approached the door; She was relieved to find it open. Carefully she cracked the door, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. She did not detect any movement or sound. Little light filtered through the filthy, high windows. No lights were on. She slipped through the door, and paused beside it, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom. She hefted the Mag light like a baseball bat.
Whatever the business had been, it was long gone. Foreign looking machines stood like monuments, or corpses. Some were covered with burlap sacks. Metal shelving stood empty. Thick dust covered everything.
Thick enough that footprints showed the way as clearly as if in snow. Straining her ears for any sound or indication of trouble, Amanda moved forward, following the steps in the dust. She was glad she'd worn jeans and sneakers. When the trail led around a corner, she pressed herself closely to a stack of wooden shipping crates, ducking low for a quick peek around the corner as she had been trained.
Her heart seemed to stop in her chest at what she saw.
Lee was hanging by his hands, shackled above his head, against a support beam. He's not moving...Taking a deep breath for courage, Amanda crossed into the open and moved to him.
"Lee?" Her voice cracked. He's breathing. OK. He's breathing. He had bruising starting on his jaw, and his lip was split and swelling. "Lee?" She placed a hand on his uninjured cheek, but he did not react.
Think, Amanda. Think. She had to block her panic and get him out of here. She knew that a person could suffocate from hanging like he was. She reached up to his collar and was relieved to find the trusty half-rake lock pick tucked into the corner. She was still a good six inches from reaching the crude chains and padlock that held him though. She looked around and spied a wooden spool that rope or wire would have come on. Quickly she dragged it over and stood on it.
The padlock was old, and easily conquered. "Thank you, Leatherneck." she whispered fervently. She jumped off the spool, trying to wedge her shoulder underneath his arm to steady Lee and lower him to the floor, but his weight was exponentially more than she expected and they both went crashing down. She landed hard on her knees first, feeling the sting of cement scraping her, then they toppled the rest of the way in a tangled heap. The wind was knocked out of her with an 'oof.'
Still, Lee did not wake. "Lee!" Her voice raised now, the feeling of unease growing. She managed to roll him off her, disregarding the trickling warmth of bleeding scraped knees, the elbow and hip that had taken the brunt of her weight—and his—on the cement floor. He was on his back now, breathing, but deeply unconscious still. "Lee?" A note of desperation crept into her voice. She checked his pulse, it was a bit slow, but steady and strong.
The urgency to get out of the warehouse was almost overwhelming. Amanda laid her hand on Lee's cheek, willing him to wake up. "Lee... " Nothing. She tried to lift him under the shoulders to drag him fireman style, but she could not get a purchase on either him, nor the floor. His shoulders were too broad, and his solid mass was simply too heavy.
She looked around, frantically searching her mind for ideas. Her eyes lit on a burlap sack. It wasn't easy, but she finally got the grain bag passed underneath him, from armpit to armpit. She was able to wrap the coarse fabric around her hands to gain the leverage needed to drag him.
Her heart was pounding and sweat dripping off her forehead by the time they reached the stairs up to the door. She tried to pull him up the first step, with a sob she fell back onto the step behind her.
"Lee, you've got to help me." She tried not to cry, but felt the tears, hot on her cheeks. "You've just got to help me." She touched her forehead to his.
"D... don.. cry." His voice was weak, but Amanda's heart leapt at the sound of it.
"You've got to help me... we've got to get out of here... " Swiping at her cheeks, she moved immediately to his side, wedging her small frame under his arm, pushing him up as much as she could. "Stand up, come on Big Fella..." He groaned, and his movements were brutally slow and clumsy.
Somehow they stumbled up the three stairs, most of Lee's weight leaning on Amanda. The hair on the back of her neck prickled as she opened the door. The late morning sun was burning off the chilly fog. Amanda squinted, glancing quickly, seeing nothing but the empty alley, the dumpster, Lee's corvette at the end of the block. Somehow the normalcy of it was startling.
"C'mon... we're not there yet... " Amanda was breathing hard, Lee was groggy and not much help. They half-stumbled, half-fell down the outside steps, Amanda barely catching her balance and keeping them upright.
She intuitively headed across the alley, toward the dumpster...
"No... Aman..." Lee tried to argue with her, wanted to stay alongside the wall of the warehouse.
"Lee..." Her tone broached no argument. Her arm around his back, hand firmly wrapped around his belt by his hip, pushed and pulled him toward the brick building across the way.
She caught herself glancing over her shoulder at the building they had just left, recognizing the same motion she'd seen in the three men leaving with Augie. Goosebumps raised on her arms.
She was aiming for the shadows next to the dumpster, planning to stop and catch their breaths.
They almost made it. Her sixth sense certainly saved their lives. The blast knocked them off their feet before the sound of the explosion reached them.
Instinct and muscle memory had Lee curling around her, trying to protect her, even as she tried to break his fall. His arms drew her to him, sheltering her face against his shoulder.
They ended up in the shadow of the dumpster after all, pressed against the clammy bricks. Lee's body shielding her from the debris as the warehouse collapsed. Ash and smoke rose in a great black cloud.
Amanda found herself shaking in reaction. She tried to pull away from Lee, to see if he was hurt, to gauge his recovery from whatever they had given him to knock him out. But he tightened his hold, fingers tunneling through her hair, pressing her close to his heart. She could feel his heartbeat, fast now, but steady and strong.
Finally, after minutes passed with no further explosions, he loosened his hold somewhat. Sirens approached. Lee pulled back enough to look at Amanda, she was covered in dust, with streaks where her sweat and tears had run. Her shirt was torn at the elbow. She was the opposite of the put-together, preppy Amanda he was used to. She was scruffy and scraggly and quite possibly the most lovely woman he'd ever seen.
"How'd you know?" He asked.
She shook her head helplessly. "I just had a bad feeling."
Lee tightened his hold on her, his lips finding her forehead. He closed his eyes as the sirens began arriving on scene. He had no idea how Amanda had managed to get him out of there. He sure was lucky, in more ways than one.
o~O~o~O~o
(Author's Note: Thanks for your patience folks, I really *am* finishing Nightmares, but had to get this 'out of my system' first. The prompts were: heavy, ash, punctual and the bonus was scruffy. )