Taking Chances Chapter 12
A/N: Hey, I appreciate every single person reviewing, story-alerting, fave-ing. Thank you. (I have a question for you guys in the bottom A/N)
Some things that don't make sense in this chapter will be answered in the next one. Promise.
I tried to scream for Mia, but it was impossible to scream when your heart was in your throat.
I didn't even see what whoever grabbed me looked like. I couldn't smell anything, either. In fact, I could do nothing but allow myself to be frozen in the panic. Even when the person who dragged me pressed a substance – that I could not smell because I was so terrified – to my nose, I couldn't even do anything then. I could not do one thing but allow my wide eyes and my stopped heart and my voice screaming danger in my mind to comply.
RPOV
They had pressed the substance-sodden gauze to my nose for barely even a minute before it was removed and I was being half dragged, half carried, to the far back of the club and pushed out of an exit. I was being leaned against the brick wall, it being used at leverage as I felt arms wrap around me and lift me up. My already dark world swam before my eyes. The atmosphere was murky and the air was far too humid and dense. Behind me, I heard scuffling and grunting, but I did not even bother to look as I tried to even out my erratic breathing. My mind was absolutely clogged up with flashes of images that changed too quickly for me to process what each of them were. I wanted to have a single focal point, but I couldn't seem to find one. And as I looked for one, the scuffling stopped and the person carrying me began to walk. I closed my eyes and pretended as though I was unconscious, because I was in no position to fight or run, and I didn't want whoever had me in their grasp to make sure they did their job right, whatever it was. When the possibilities of what that job could be began to dance in my mind, I could feel my heart begin to race, and I fought to calm it so that I could appear serene and asleep.
Calm down, Rose. If you calm down you can think clearly of a way to get yourself out of this mess.
But the more I thought about slowing the beating of my heart, the more I thought about how the possibility of it stopping completely was likely.
Distract yourself. Think about something that makes you happy.
A distraction. I immediately thought about what made me happy, what made me escape from things when I couldn't find a focal point. I began to think about the sweet smell of a fresh deck of cards, the sound of poker chips hitting the felt. The content feeling of being seated in front of a slot machine. A place where no one judges you, because they're all the same. People who dream of something more – who crave it – who would risk anything to get it. People who don't want to deal with the pressures of reality, and can lose it all in the magic of unpredictability, in gambling, in taking chances. Suddenly, my whole body ached to be there, among the people who don't care about social status, who just wanted to experience life when everything was on the table.
By then, my panic had disappeared, and now I focused truly on finding a focal point. I dropped my head off of the arm carrying me, making it seem as though I slipped off, and they made no effort to correct me. I opened the eye farthest from the person, thankful my hair was covering my face. Everything was moving because of the walking, the fact that I was half-upside down, but I could at least see the steam spewing from a laundry pipe out of the back of a building. I was in an alleyway.
I had an arm dangling off of the person, and I subtly tried to see how well I could bend it. Then, my fingers, and I went through a system of stealth and repetition as I tried to assess my body. Once I was pleased that everything was working well enough, I decided that when the person reached their –
I just barely had time to contain my gasp when I was almost dropped to the floor. The person had abruptly stopped in their tracks, pivoted, then lowered me against a wall in the alley. I kept my eyes closed for five seconds, then tentatively opened the one better concealed by my hair. I could see the figure of the person who was carrying me – a mere shadow, tall and intimidating and undeniably masculine. He looked more like a faint silhouette rather than a person. And when his arm extended, I could just barely make out the shape of the handgun poised towards something that I could not see. My heart skipped, and I turned my head slightly to assess my options of escape. It was hard, and I did not want to make any dramatic movements in case he chose to turn around and look at me. I saw that I did not have very many – the alleyway had little to no light, and it seemed as though it stretched on forever. There were no lights from stores, clubs, or bars on – everyone had packed up and gone home.
"Show yourself!"
The yell was muffled by distance and the dull thud of fright in my ears – but I still heard it. The poised gun shifted from one side, then another, and I realized that the man did not have a set target. The man turned in a direction facing me, and I closed my eyes for another five seconds. When they opened, I saw that he was still facing in my direction and I froze, but his attention was not on me. And, from behind him, a shadow just about his height – but more slender, except from an unnatural bulk on the torso, crept silently and tackled the man to the ground. The firearm was knocked out of the hand of the man and skidded across the ground of the alleyway. The two grappled, and my heart was lodged in my throat as I watched the change of events. Seeing details to their dark frames was far too difficult in such low light, they were shadows dancing on shadows.
I decided that, as long as the second figure was still winning, I could use that opportunity to escape. I did not know if our new guest was a friend or enemy, all I knew was that it wasn't the man who swooped me out of the club so I quickly decided that they were a friend. I stood, and found that my legs worked fine. I turned towards the dark expanse of shadow and began to bolt.
When I was some distance away from the fight, I noticed that there were no breakings in the buildings. There was no way to turn out from behind the alley and get to a main street. So was this even an alley? A gunshot had me on the floor in a second, but I wasn't hit. The shot itself was almost muted, and I was going to jump up and continue running when I heard "Rose!" echo through the "alley" and turn my body around to face the way I had come.
I had recognized the voice.
And I still shouldn't have turned around, and run back, but I did, to find Dimitri pointing a gun that looked different than the one I saw before at the crumpled man on the ground, groaning. Without taking his eyes off the man, Dimitri said, "Rose, get in the car," and tilted his head in a direction where I saw a nondescript car I had not noticed before, shut off and the doors were opened. I had found my focal point. The set of his jaw, the tightness in his shoulder, the rigidness in his posture, the finality in his low, accented voice made me want to wet my pants.
You better believe I listened to him.
Seated in the passenger seat of his car I watched Dimitri's face as his mouth moved, though I couldn't hear anything, or read his lips. The man on the ground moved, but did not actually get up. I was terrified, and it felt like years before the blinking red, blue and white lights illuminated the darkness set upon the pseudo-alleyway. Four police officers stepped out of two cruisers that pulled up, and took him away. One spoke with Dimitri for a while and both of their gazes rested on me. I shrank back and the police officer nodded at Dimitri before driving away with the man and Dimitri walked to the car. I dropped my gaze to my folded hands in my lap, and stayed that way even when Dimitri was seated in the car and looked at me. Waiting for something. "Is Mia okay?" I asked, and he nodded, said that they had found her, looking for me, and I slumped a little in relief. Then, he said, "I'm going to take you to my apartment," as if that would coax something more out of me. But nothing came. I could give him nothing. And so he did the perfect thing and did not push for anything, just put the car in drive and left the alley, bringing us out of the shadows into the Vegas lights.
A/N: I'm very sorry for the length of the chapter. I haven't been writing much because I've kind of lost most of my motivation for this story, but I promised myself that I wouldn't give up on my first story so hopefully if I just kind of push myself to write I'll find the drive to finish it. I have a place where I want this story to go, I remember that, but I had a reason for starting to write it, but that's something I can't remember. Question: what do you want to get out of this story? Plot-wise, character-wise, anything. Any POVs you'd like? Changes in chapter length? Any scenes you want to see told in a different POV? What kind of story are you hoping for? Maybe what you're hoping for wasn't in my original plan for this story or the plan I have for it now, but I maybe something new might get me excited about this again.
