Chapter Two
As Eliot approached the doorway, he automatically peered out with a lone blue eye while simultaneously pressing Parker tightly beside him, his hand still gripping her arm. He couldn't yet see their pursuers but he could hear the echoing of many footsteps heading their way.
"Move!" he said in a hushed but forceful breath and he yanked Parker upward and outward into the hallway and in the opposite direction of the increasing footsteps.
Eliot knew that this many men showing up this quickly, after what he presumed was a response to the non-communication with the guards he had taken out, was the signature of an outfit not to be underestimated. He knew all the exits would be covered, so as he dragged a lithe Parker down the empty, dank corridor his thoughts were focused on someplace to hide; at least until Hardison could tell him more of what was happening out there.
As Parker had started her work on the safe, Eliot had taken it upon himself to become accustomed to the layout of the lengthy and maze-like basement of the sinister corporation. He had walked the entirety of the sub-level floor and had seen multiple areas he deemed were suitable for a situation exactly like this.
The area most promising came to mind while he ran towards it, his long flow of hair waving out behind him. The footsteps trailing them were rushed increasingly now, and the pitter-patter of that many feet echoed eerily down the hall behind them.
Finally, the room he remembered appeared before them and Eliot had to practically skid to a stop from their furious pace and shoved Parker in before he entered, closing the metal door quietly shut behind him.
He turned and saw Parker's dark brown eyes were filled with a fright he had not often seen there before and this too increased his senses of having to protect her. He knew she was a capable girl, more than capable in fact, but that physically there was no way she could handle herself against a force of this magnitude, not even he could. Their only option was to hide.
Raising a finger to his lips to signal silence to Parker, he pointed his other hand towards the venthilation grate at the top corner of the room, just a few feet above some rusting metal shelves. Parker looked in the direction that he pointed and immediately began to move towards it, before she stopped and stared at him, a question lingering in her wide serious eyes.
She needn't speak as he understood her concern.
Where will you hide?
The shaft wasn't big enough for the two of them and Eliot was no fool. He pointed towards a couple of loose floorboards and signaled the motion of his getting down and covering the hole with a nearby file cabinet.
His brow furrowed in anticipation and urgency as he made a stern motion for Parker to hurry up. She gave him a long look that he couldn't quite interpret before she began to move hurriedly, expertly scaling the metal shelves as quietly as he had previously expected from her. As she reached the top though, a loud voice boomed in both their ears just as the footsteps in the hall came back into earshot through the closed thick metal door.
"Um, hellooooo? What's going on people? Where ya'll at?" Hardison squawked.
As Eliot perched over the hole in the ground, just starting to pull the tin file cabinet over himself into position, he and Parker, who was just pulling the metal grate of the shaft back into place, exchanged glances, and with a look of understanding, they both turned off the intercom's in their ears for fear of anyone else hearing its noise.
And as they finally pulled themselves into position, the metal door leading out into the hallway burst open with a tremendous force and in thundered three well-dressed men all wielding guns.
Parker's eyes peered through the slats in the grate, taking in their pursuers and admiring how well-hidden Eliot actually seemed to be in his floor-bound position.
She watched the three men start trashing the room, pointing their guns into every possible corner, searching for them, for some sign of where they might be. She felt confident that they would not be discovered and only hoped they would leave the building and give up the search thinking they had actually escaped before severe hunger began to set in for them both.
As the men completed the room's destruction, she saw one man whom she presumed to be their leader put his hand to his ear, as if listening to his own com from somewhere unseen. He nodded and spoke quietly to the other men, who all nodded in response. To Parker's horror, they all raised their guns towards the ceilings and she knew what was to come next. One of the men was actually pointing his gun pretty close to where Parker was laying but she knew if she moved that they would hear it and that would be it.
She closed her eyes and waited, trying to keep the utter panic that was flowing through her at ease. She always knew one way or another that when she died, it would be doing something like this and not lying in bed as an old fatigued woman. She just never thought it would be this soon.
An enormous crash from below caused Parker's eyelids to fly open and she saw the last thing she could ever have expected.
Eliot had violently shoved the desk from atop his position and nailed the guy closest to him with it, taking him out from the legs, sending the guy face down into the cold hard floor. A broken off floorboard in his hand as he emerged from the hole, Eliot managed to throw it expertly towards the second man, clocking him directly in the face, to which he dropped his gun clattering to the floor and holding his now blood-soaked nose while a moan of pain erupted from his throat.
As Eliot advanced on their leader though, he realized too late he should have taken him out first. The man's previously-drawn weapon simply turned towards him, a brief flash of surprise moving across his face, and then he discharged two bullets from his gun directly into Eliot.
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