Letting the crowd push me inwards for a bit, when I was right in the midst of a sea of people, I ducked down, crouching, and kept myself low in the crowd. A bunch of people were running back and forth between the nearest booth to get napkins to help the victim of the beer spill, so I crept my way along the side of them until I was able to successfully duck behind the booth. Fortunately, a car was not far from the back of the booth, giving me a little nook to crawl into and hopefully stay hidden. I looked in all directions to see if the two were still following me, but no one was looking in my direction and I let out a sigh of relief.
I waited longer than felt comfortable before I stood up and looked around the booth to see if my pursuers were still nearby. The crowd that had converged on the woman had mostly dissipated as she’d chosen a specific person to help her, but the center was still thick with people eating and drinking. I scanned the group until I finally managed to catch a glimpse of the two people against one of the booths opposite the one I was hiding behind. Their eyes were flicking in all directions, and I could tell they had lost track of me. As long as I could stay hidden where I was, I would be able to stay out of trouble and meet up with Felicity when it was time.
At least that was the plan, until the two chasing me started to move.
I furrowed my brow and watched them closely. Were they giving up? Did they see someone else that they think was me?
Against my better judgement, I crept out from behind the booth and side-stepped my way back into the crowd. My height had me at a disadvantage as I was looking over the heads of most of the people around me, but at least I was able to keep an eye on the two goons. The tables were turned and it was now me who was stalking them, but what they were up to, I still wasn’t sure. Connor would have told them not to leave without me. There was no way they’d give up so quickly. Were they baiting me out? If so, it was working.
They had their attention focused on something in the distance, but it was difficult to see what until one person broke away from a group they were looking at. As soon as that person walked out of the group, their eyes followed and they changed direction to keep up. I stopped watching them long enough to get a glimpse of the new person they were tracking.
It was Felicity.
“Shit,” I growled to myself.
I thought I’d successfully kept them from figuring out that we were together, but maybe I didn’t do as well as I thought. That was proving to be the theme of the day. I wanted to believe that I was fully prepared to hunt Connor down and stop him from tormenting me and my family, but I was quickly learning that it was not the case. My confidence was shaken, but now was no time to worry about that. I had to protect Felicity.
Keeping a safe distance for the moment, I stayed on the trail of the two who’d been chasing after me, as they turned their attention on Felicity. They seemed to just be keeping tabs on her, maybe assuming that I’d show back up at her side at some point, but then she came to a stop near the front, at the car we’d designated as our meetup spot. She stood still, keeping her eyes out on the crowd, and eventually her eyes landed on our pursuers.
Slowly, they lifted their masks off their faces and revealed themselves to Felicity outright. Everyone around stopped and turned to look at them, and then backed away, giving them a ton of space. The man was the one who’d revealed himself to me earlier, and the other was, in fact, the woman who was the other torturer who’d captured me. She was the truly sadistic one of the pair, and I didn’t want her seeing Felicity’s face and knowing she was helping me out.
Leaving to come to the car show with her had been a mistake.
Then both of them reached for their waistbands. Peeling back the jackets of the suits they had on, they each reached for a gun they had hidden, but their eyes were on Felicity, not me. I panicked, thinking that things were going to get worse for Felicity or they were going to figure her out, so I did the only thing I could think to do.
The dumbest thing, for sure.
I stepped out into the clearing that the crowd had created and screamed out, “Hey!” Both of them turned to look at me and smiles curled across their faces. If it had been their plan to coax me out by threatening Felicity, it had worked. “I’m what you wanna see, right? Make good with your boss? Come get me.”
Felicity took a step forward. “Deon!”
“I’ll meet you near Concrete!” I screeched, then I turned around and bolted back into the fray of the car show.
A couple of gunshots cracked against the music playing in the background of the show, and all of the attendees started to duck and run for cover. There was no longer anywhere to hide, only do the one thing I’d mastered in the past year.
Run.
I leapt over anyone that got in my way, including shoving people aside to get around them. The good news was, they weren’t openly shooting at me, at least not while I was around everyone. As long as I could keep a few people between them and me, I could keep from getting shot in the back.
The car show was surrounded on all sides by barrels turned into a fence with the use of white poles that had been bolted to connect them. Some of the dirty cops that were on guard were standing near the perimeter, and I was hoping that maybe getting closer to them would turn my pursuers around. I ran straight in their direction, even after they locked eyes on me, but then they pulled their guns too.
“Stop!” One screamed.
“That’s the one,” the woman who had captured me screamed from behind me. “Grab him!”
I should have expected that they were all in on it together. Connor had more influence than anyone anticipated. Looking to the left and right, I considered turning around and dodging back into the show, but there were more people stepping away from the screaming, running people, all set for me. The longer I stayed in the show, the worse things were going to get.
I had to get out.
So I continued to run straight at the police officers. They had their guns drawn and were screaming at me to stop, but I didn’t slow. Similarly to the man and woman behind me, the cops weren’t shooting, so the public was working to my advantage. Once I was on the other side of that fence, that protection would be gone, so hopefully my limber wouldn’t fail me now.
I shoved between the two cops that were looking at me, and braced my hands on the top pole of the fence and vaulted myself over. I immediately threw myself into a serpentine movement, and not a moment too soon, as bullets immediately started to fly at me. Outside of the show, the warehouse district was nothing but shadows and shipping containers. Plenty of places to hide.
“Deon,” the woman who snatched me sang from behind me. “Don’t make me chase you. It’s only going to make things worse.
I could hide behind any one of the shipping containers, but there was only so much I could do before they found me again. However, the coast was directly in front of me. Thank god I didn’t have any electronic devices on me. I continued to charge forward, despite the people behind me screaming after me not to do what they could see I was doing, and a bullet pierced the silence.
And then I felt a burning pain in my leg.
My face hit the dirt before I even realized I was falling. The coast was about ten feet in front of me, but I could feel blood pouring down my shin and the stinging searing my skin. The gunshot wound I’d taken to the stomach courtesy of Connor still throbbed in the middle of the night sometimes. Now I was back to point zero.