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“I agree,” I said. “It does fucking suck. But until we’re safe in this world, we owe it to ourselves to use caution.”
Moments later found us gathered around the stove, and we were wearing safety glasses that I’d found, along with yellow rubber dish gloves and a paper mask left over from the pandemic. I looked like a mad scientist, but you could never be too careful.
“Okay, here we go,” I said and wedged my gloved finger into the card envelope, opened it slowly, and pulled the card out.
It was an ornamental one with raised gold scrolling designs that covered the entire outside surface. I opened it, and the interior was red with gold handwriting that simply said, “Found you.”
“Fuck,” I said. “We need to leave.”
“Right now,” Kingston said. “Right fucking now. If this card was dropped off here, Ilya’s probably got people surrounding the place as we speak.”
“Did anybody find a back exit?” Archer asked.
“We need some way to leave undetected,” Valen agreed.
“Of course I did,” Ryker said. “It’s part of what I learned growing up. Never go to sleep unless you have all your exits planned out in advance.”
“I’m sorry you had a terrible childhood, but I’m thankful that you’re using it to help us now,” I told him as I stripped off the glasses, gloves, and mask. “But nothing but bad thoughts for anybody who hurt you, fuck them all.”
“I’d rather not. There are a lot of them,” Ryker said with a crooked grin. “But thank you for your sentiment.”
“Okay, enough of this trauma bonding,” Archer said with a frantic edge to his voice. “How the fuck are we going to make it out alive?”
“We can take the service stairs by the elevator,” Ryker said, and before he could finish, Archer cut him off.
“Yeah, no, duh, genius,” Archer said. “Tell me another way that the bad guys won’t be blocking.”
“Dude, calm down,” Valen said, rubbing Archer’s shoulder gently. “We’re all stressed about this, but we need to keep our heads cool.”
Archer looked like he was about to argue with Valen, but Valen’s calming presence did something to him. His face relaxed, and he said, “Yeah, I’m sorry. Not cool, I know. I think being trapped back there did some deep shit to my head. I need time to work it out, and I’m sorry for taking it out on you guys.”
“Save it for the assholes who deserve it,” I said and nodded. “I do understand, though. I feel sick every time I think of being locked in a room again.”
“We all have a lot to unpack after this last incident,” Kingston said. “Fuck, I mean, we all have a fucking lifetime of shit to unpack. When we’re in a safe place, we can talk about it and make things right. Until then, we fight.”
“Until then, we fight,” Ryker agreed.
Archer and then Valen repeated the phrase, and finally, I did.
“That should be our new motto,” I added. “Maybe have a family crest made up.”
“Yes, the Taylor family crest,” Kingston smiled.
“Who said we’d all be using your last name?” Archer protested.
“Yeah,” Valen joined in.
“That’s bullshit, dude,” Ryker laughed.
And things were okay again. We weren’t okay in the sense that we needed to escape this building with our lives, but the energy between us was okay. It had wavered for just a moment, but we’d gotten it right back on track.
We packed up the few things we had that we wanted to keep, but since we’d arrived with essentially nothing, that wasn’t much. Our new phones, our cash, and the book that Archer had been reading and hadn’t finished.
I didn’t write a thank you note or anything, but I did text Selene and let her know why we were leaving. She was shocked that they’d found us but agreed they had eyes all over the city. A group of Americans ordering takeout from local restaurants or shopping in local stores would have stood out, and somebody had earned a little cash off their report of our presence.
We also agreed that we would meet up again soon, and I already couldn’t wait to hang out with another woman who had the same kind of relationship going as I did. It was nice not to feel like an oddity for even just a few hours.
“So after we go down one level in the service stairs, there’s a small access panel to the elevator shaft,” Ryker explained as we were leaving. “It might be a bit of a climb, but we can take the ladder down to the basement level. Once there, we can leave via the service entrance. Where they let in caterers and housekeepers, all the servants who work for people living here.”
