When I first started to regain consciousness, my first thought was, 'This is the reason why I don't like sleeping on the couch,'my stiff muscles were crying out in protest. 'I should get Elle some flowers and chocolate after work today; no more couch for me,'I thought as I tried to stretch, and I found I couldn't.
My next thought was,'Wait, we didn't fight last night.'
Then I really woke up to find my arms bound and my mouth stuffed with…socks?
I tried swallowing in a purely instinctive move, and discovered that, yes; I was gagged with a pair of socks. Socks that I could taste were previously worn. The owner of said socks had yet to be determined, but I found myself intentionally focusing on other things…like where I could be.
We had been in the business district, (which was just as noisy as anywhere else in the city), and the noise level around me now was significantly less than it had been where we were. There were still traffic sounds and the sounds of crowds of people going about their day, but it was a more distant sound. Where we outside of the city?
No, there was still too much noise for us to be outside of the city. Unless they moved us to another city while we were unconscious.
But I quickly doubted that idea judging from the amount of light on my eyelids; it wasn't even an hour's difference from when we were at the Institute for Higher Learning. There was no way they got us to another city as big as New York in less than an hour. Unless it's been more than a day, I added to my collection of possibilities.
"I know you're awake," a young female voice accused me. My cover blown; I opened my eyes to see the teenage girl from the file room.
She was chewing on what looked like jerky as she sat down across from me, leaning on the wall behind her. While I had the chance, I quickly evaluated my surroundings and concluded that we were either in the outskirts of the city (based on the state of the building), or we were one of the (many) condemned buildings of Prospect Park. Well, one of the buildings that should be condemned, according to building codes.
The park was close enough to get to from the business district in a couple of hours (faster if speeding), and the reduced level of noise would be explained as well. The Park was my best guess.
After my three second assessment, I turned my focus on the girl. She returned my scrutiny with a cool gaze for a few seconds, fearless and disinterested, before turning her attention back to her original task. As if she deemed it to be far more important than I, the FBI prisoner was.
I leaned back slowly as I made my brief conclusions about her, which were few and vague. Generally, captors reveal their faces if they intend to kill their captives, and while she clearly wasn't trying to hide her identity, I didn't get the vibe from her that said 'I'm going to kill you' or 'I'm a psychopath'. But then again, some were used to killing and could act cool and disinterested. I'd hate to think anyone that young would be used to killing…
If I weren't tied up across from her, I would have thought she was a regular teenager, albeit a dirty one.
Then a boy came into view, no older than seven or eight. He sat down beside the girl uncertainly, still eating the remains of a cupcake. He had to be the one I tried to follow in the file room with the girl. I couldn't get a good look at him while I was following him; he was extremely good at slipping through the files, barely visible and strangely silent.
The only time I actually saw him was right before I was blinded, and even then it was barely a glance. I had known he was kind of small, but I expected him to be closer to the girl's age. But here in front of me he was clearly a child, not a teenager like I expected. What was a child his age doing in this kind of a situation?
The girl then raised her head to look beside me, as a small rustling sound filled the relative silence. I looked over to see Neal opening his eyes. Whatever was going to happen, it looked like it was about to start, because the girl climbed to her feet, assuming a commanding pose.
"For starters, my name is Ezzy, and this is my brother, Ade. I'll tell you what you need to know, and then we'll let you go. Deal?"
Even if I could have said something in response, which I couldn't because of the gag, I honestly didn't know what to say to that. So I nodded rather…dumbly, at her blunt statement. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Neal do the same.
The girl nodded her head, and began her…speech?
"We are being chased by people from the Institute and people from the Itex Corporation for…certain reasons. We broke into that file room to obtain some information that we need from them in order to…use it against them. If you find out the specifics of what they are doing, they will kill you. If you dig too much into what they are doing, they will kill you. If you find out too much about my brother and me, they will kill you. They will hunt you down no matter who you are or what your jobis and make you and the people you care about disappear to the outside world."
Then she paused, giving us a minute to digest what she had said. I knew Itex and the Institute had been embezzling and laundering money for each other in the past three years. And both were pending charges for several counts of illegal tax evasion. But none of that should have anything to do with this girl and her little brother.
Unless those one million dollars we couldn't track down was being used to do something with children. Like…nothing I ever wanted to deal with. But the fact remained that these children managed to get into that place, with all the Institute's tight security (which was one of the reasons the Institute is under investigation), and they almost got away with it.
A few seconds later, she continued, "Your lives were in immediate danger at the Institute, so we brought you here. You are still in danger just being with us and listening to what I'm saying. When we let you go, you need to walk away and forget about us. Leaving them alone about whatever it was you were there for in the first place might help too. Even then, you will never really be safe. I'll untie you in a minute or so, and you are free to walk away, but if you attack or harass us, you forfeit your safety."
She then proceeded to remove our gags. I then winced slightly out of a combined feeling of relief and embarrassment when I saw it was one of the pairs of socks Elizabeth had given me.
Neal wasted no time in asking her a question as she removed his sock gag, "Are you the person who was on my veranda?" I raised my eyebrows as the plot thickened. This girl was the one who had so easily made it through Neal's apartment, hid in Neal's presence, and then got away without him seeing her.
She grimaced slightly, (and I almost didn't catch it), but she seemed not pleased about it, or at least not happy about being called out on it. "Yeah," she begrudgingly muttered, looking away unintentionally.
"Why did you stay here when you could have left us while we were unconscious," I asked when I saw Neal open his mouth. We needed to use our questions sparingly, and I didn't want him to waste any more until we got the information we needed most.
The girl, Ezzy I think she said, frowned slightly, perhaps thinking me ungrateful, and for a minute, I thought she wasn't going to answer. "You were in danger, and we had the opportunity to save you; that's why we acted in the first place. After we moved you here, we couldn't just leave you alone and unconscious, so we stuck around to watch over you and warn you, " she spoke her words slowly, emphasizing the unspoken debt that we owed them.
I chose to press it, asking, "Then why did you tie us up?"
Her eyes narrowed threateningly at me, and she fought to keep from gritting her teeth as she answered, "Because if I didn't, you wouldn't listen to what I have to say, feeling safe and secure behind your little badge, lecturing me instead."
My eyebrows rose as she revealed that she had at least seen my badge, and she knew what and who I was.
She looked away as her annoyance faded, trying to hide the faint sadness that crept into her eyes, "I'm going to let you go now, since you've been warned not to pursue the Institute further. I hope they don't kill for being seen with us."
I raised my eyebrow at this, her concern seemingly out of place from her earlier attitude.
I doubted that it was as bad as she was trying to make it out to be, but in her defense, she did seem to earnestly believe what she was saying. "Alright, so these people are bad, we promise to ignore what happened the last two hours, and we promise stop our investigation: How exactly do you plan on releasing us?"
She gave me a sharp glare, obviously displeased with the doubtful tone I was using, but she chose to answer me anyway, "I'll release your zip ties, point you to the door, and let you on your merry way."
I raised my eyebrow skeptically because her plan sounded…unplanned.
Neal could remain silent no longer, and jumped into the conversation, "Where will you go?"
I hoped Neal's charm would ease out a few more answers; we still knew far too little.
The girl turned to look at Neal, her face impassive, "You don't need to know."
Neal tried again, his voice soothing and gentle, "What about your parents? Aren't they worried about you?"
Straight-faced, the girl answered, "They're dead." She put her hands on her hips and leaned forward over us to emphasis her next words, "The Institute killed them, just like they will kill you, if you pursue them."
Neal cleared his throat, a little thrown off by her calm declaration of being an orphan and prepared to speak. But before he had the chance, Ezzy motioned to the boy, Ade…I think, and he pulled out a little pocketknife in front of Neal while Ezzy walked up to me…pulling a serious looking hunting knife out of her pocket. I unintentionally gulped.
They quickly began cutting away the zip ties, and I unconsciously let out the breath I had been holding. As Ezzy finished cutting away my restraint, she told us, "I can't do anything more for you; you're already in more danger just being with us. The door is directly across from the landing of the stairs, and the stairs are behind that door to your right."
I rubbed my slightly numbed wrists as soon as they were free and opened my mouth to try and convince them to come with us. But Ezzy suddenly clapped her hand over my mouth with a warning finger to her lips.
She was looking intensely at the ceiling, listening for…something. After a second, I concluded she was crazy… *Whoosh*
I heard something.
I creased my brow as I strained to listen with her. But the next instant, Ezzy SLUNG me over her shoulder.
"Ah...HEY," I couldn't stop the surprised (but still embarrassing) yelp as a little girl hefted me up like I weighed less than a potato sack!
"What…," I began, but was unable to finish as she took off running for the window.
"Stop," Neal started from his position on the boy's shoulder, who was following us closely. I stared disbelieving as the little boy carriedNeal, a full-grown man, like he was a book bag.
Ezzy barely slowed to scoop up two packs onto her other shoulder, and wentthrough the window, hitting the roof below us in a run. "What are you doing," I tried to shout to her, while attempting to squirm out of her tight grip and save us both from the fall.
But she just clamped down on me with a vice grip, effectively keeping me from stopping us.
The next second, something furry and bulky sprung out at us, looking like something that belonged in one of those werewolf horror movies. It snarled at us, and to my even greater surprise, it yelled at us to stop.
Ezzy ran faster, spontaneously sprouting WINGS, as she jumped off the edge. She beat down with sharp, strong strokes, putting us airborne before I could really process what had just come out of her back.
Then with a snarl of her own that put the monster's to shame, Ezzy turned us around and dive-bombed at the beast, lashing out with her legs. The brute turned to slash at her with its mean-looking claws but was too slow to stop her from landing a painful-looking kick to its head. The thing lost a few inches of ground and looked a bit dazed, but it didn't go down. Rather, it shook off its stupor and unleashed its own wings, struggling to take off from the roof.
When she first dove, I almost questioned her, but then I saw the thing was after Ade and Neal, who were trapped between the window and the beast. I was surprised at how fierce Ezzy was; taking on a monster that looked like it could snap her like a toothpick. She dodged and weaved as best she could, trying to buy enough time for Ade and Neal to join us in the sky.
But Ezzy was tiring quickly, burdened by me and the packs while maintaining flight without any updrafts.
I was obviously far from an expert on these things, but even I knew Ezzy had reached her limit, not three minutes into the escape. I contemplated jumping on the thing to let her and the others get away, (now that she wasn't clamping down on me anymore), but before I could act, she pulled out the hunting knife, making one final lunge at the werewolf-looking thing.
It swiped at her as she came for him, airborne now as well, but still below us. Ezzy made it look like she was going to kick him again (the knife concealed) but overshot on purpose and flashed out her knife before he could stop her.
She made a clean cut to his right wing, severing it enough so that he could no longer use it to pursue us. But at the same time, he managed to get his claws up to strike us before he fell to the ground howling in pain. I braced myself to feel the bite of his claws in my side as we suddenly tilted. To my surprise, there was no pain. Then I realized what happened.
Ezzy rolled us at the last possible moment, so the thing clawed her instead of me. I almost choked. Not only had she put her life on the line for Neal and Ade, but she had taken a blow for me too.
Ezzy made no sound other than a slight grunt that I almost missed before she took off, quickly catching up with the others who had safely made it into the sky. Where we were going, I had no clue, but the one thing that I did know was that I was going to help these kids, even if it killed me.
