Chapter 2

• Hugging the bag gently against my chest, I ran up the last few stairs and pulled the door open. Loud voices had me crouching down behind the steel barrier. Why were they up here? No one came up here anymore.
• With my chin hovering close to the dirty cement, I looked around to see if I could see where they were. This parking garage was rarely used. Maybe the first level once in a while, not the top two. People in this neighborhood couldn’t afford cars. It was barricaded off for a reason.
• Taking off my backpack, I opened it and worked the bag into it. My bread was going to be smushed now, and if the juice carton was punctured, I’d have a backpack of soggy fruit punch flavored bread. Doing up the zip, I put the backpack on, making sure the straps were tight. I wasn’t impressed. At all. It had taken me two days of helping at the clinic to make the money to buy this food and a new pair of gloves. I looked at my new leather gloves. They were almost as important as food to me.
• Sighing, I peeked around the barrier again. There was a group of men, a trace of black all around them, so bad men. They were herding six others into the corner of the garage. The same corner I needed to use to get where I lived. The six people were scared, rightly so, judging by the size of a few of those men. Three women, a young girl, a little boy, and a man stood in the corner huddled together. What kind of shake-down was this? Over a dozen douche bags against a few scared people.
• I looked the men over, they weren’t from any gang I recognized. There were no colors, logos or symbols showing, and they were carrying barbaric weapons. Seriously, carrying swords in this day and age? It was like a role play group gone wrong. I looked back at the door wondering if I could get out without being spotted? I could just wait it out in the stairwell and sit at the top until they left.
• I closed my eyes berated myself—because turning the other cheek and pretending life was sweetly full of roses and pretty rainbows was so not in my DNA. I moved to the other end of the barrier and tried to find somewhere better to hide without being seen. I had no idea of what I could do against that many men, but I hadn’t done anything stupidly heroic in a few months, so why not think about it? YOLO, right? You only live once. As far as I knew, that was true.
• If I could move without making a sound, I could get to the large pillar and move into the dark corner behind the stairwell. If, was the key negative word pretending to be hopeful. It always led to thinking things were possible. Rolling my eyes at my own ridiculousness, I held the small pouch at my side, so the chain didn’t jingle. As long as they kept griping at each other, I shouldn’t be heard.
• I watched and waited for the best opportunity, mentally psyching myself up to succeed. When the focus turned to the big guy in the middle, I hunched down and hurried toward the pillar. I probably looked like a waddling duck, but I was going to pretend I was moving gracefully and undetected across the floor.
• Reaching the pillar, I braced against it before bending down to look around it. No one was looking at me. Good job, Rea. I touched my shoulder and gave it a pat. Another quick look and I made a split-second decision to rush to the dark corner.
• As soon as I reached the dark, I ducked down, just about to lean back against the wall before I remembered my bread in my pack. I rested my arm against the wall instead.
• A very unhappy looking man waved his hands around.
• “Why here?” He demanded.
• “In case it has escaped your notice, we’re running out of concealed locations.” The man in the middle replied tersely. “This place is hidden in plain sight.”
• The first man snorted, “well, if it’s going to be a regular drop off location, we need to have chairs while we wait.”
• “Yes, your comfort will be our top priority. I’ll bring it up at the next meeting.” Was the sarcastic response.
• “I think we should call, Nathas, they’re late.” Another man said while holding up his phone.
• Nathas, the man in the center of the men, nodded, “message them first, it might be poor timing for a call.” He turned to a man leaning against a pillar, his arms crossed over his chest. “You’re sure about this bunch?”
• The man nodded, then turned and looked over the scared people in the corner. “It’s faint, but they have the right genes somewhere in their history.”
• Nathas smiled briefly. “Good.”
• I looked back at the man watching their captives. His eyes were as dark as coal. I debated about getting out of here, Momma’s warning in my mind. Even if it put me at risk, I knew I couldn’t do it. My shoulders slumped as I sighed silently.
• I didn’t know what genes had to do with anything. I did know I was outnumbered, more bad dudes were on the way, and I could see no way I could get all six people away from these men. I didn’t know if they were a family, but there was no harm in romanticizing that it was a family huddled together—the family were about three feet away from my bungee. If I could get through the large men to them, I could grab one child, get over the railing and bungee down to my place. Probably. Hopefully. That half-baked plan left the other five with them and the role-playing failures would know where I lived.