Chapter 27: Action Movies part II

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OLIVIA

"Nice to finally meet you, Jones."

Rain dripped down Olivia's shirt and into her eyes as she took in all three of the men standing in front of her. They looked twice as tall up close, looming over her with dark, satisfied smiles on their faces. Two of them were clearly the ones who had been looking for her during the football game. The newcomer, their spotter, had blond hair and blue eyes. He was the one who had spoken. At the base of their necks, they all had a curling green tattoo with scales and a long purple tongue.

She wished it would bite them.

None of them were the police officers she had been researching for nearly the past two weeks. Olivia couldn't tell if they were police officers at all. She could see no badge or other identifying features. All she could see were the guns they had tucked into their belts.

"Wish I could say the same," grumbled another. Olivia recognized his voice. He was Michael from the lockers. "I'm sick and tired of chasing after this kid."

Well, I'm sick and tired of being chased by you too, she would have snapped at him if she wasn't so scared to death she would also end up on a cold steel table, cocaine poured up her nose.

"Alright, come on, Jones," said the blond man, reaching out for her arm. "Let's get out of here and go somewhere less busy."

Olivia shook her head violently and backed away, out of his reach.

The one who had griped about having to chase her down grabbed the gun from his waistband and drew it on her. "Stop treating her with your damn kid gloves, Hurst," he growled. "Let's just get out of here."

Olivia stared down the black barrel of the gun, her breath coming in terrified gasps. She didn't want to die.

She didn't want to die.

She had always imagined that she would never give up what she knew, that she would keep her mother's secrets until the very end like her mother had because they would kill her either way, but now she knew that she would give them whatever they wanted out of pure terror.

The third man pushed the gun away from her direction. "Stop it, Michael. You know we're not supposed to."

"Always a stickler for the rules, Cal. When are you ever going to learn that none of those damn rules matter! You do the job, and you get it done!"

As they argued, Olivia put her hands behind her back and slid her phone from her back pocket. Should she run? She didn't know if she would be able to outrun them. One of them, maybe, but all three of them chasing her down? The shortest of them was about half a foot taller than her. She wouldn't make it more than two feet.

She made herself look intensely at the garbage dumpster a few dozen yards behind the men, as if it were her lifeline, as if it was the most interesting thing in the world at the moment, hoping they would fall for it. The blond man, Hurst, suddenly seemed to notice and frowned at her.

"What are you-"

Olivia pressed play.

"HEY. HEY YOU THERE," yelled a man's voice so loud her phone vibrated with the noise.

The three men froze. Hurst looked behind Olivia, his blue eyes scanning, searching.

"HEY. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Cal began to visibly sweat. "Look, man, we don't want any trouble-"

"PUT DOWN THE GUN. PUT YOUR HANDS UP WHERE I CAN SEE THEM."

"Alright, alright," Cal said quickly.

"Where the fuck is he?" Michael hissed at Hurst as he put his gun down on the gravel road. "I don't see him."

Hurst was squinting at Olivia. She felt sweat running down her back. Did he know? Did he know that the sound wasn't coming from behind them, but from in front of them? From a recording she had found off Youtube?

"GET DOWN ON THE GROUND. NO SUDDEN MOVEMENTS OR I'M GOING TO SHOOT."

"Alright, alright," Michael yelled back.

"What the hell, Hurst?" Cal wheezed as he bent down. "I thought you said there weren't supposed to be any officers here."

"Stop freaking out, Cal," Michael snapped.

"Just both of you get on the ground," Hurst ordered. "Michael, you take care of the guy, I'll take care of the girl. Cal, you -" Hurst's lip curled. "You just stay down there."

"I SAID GET DOWN ON THE GROUND."

Olivia's hands were trembling wildly behind her back. She didn't know how long the recording was. She didn't know how much longer her ruse was going to hold up.

The three men all made to crouch down on the ground.

"HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM."

Cal raised his hands, but Hurst and Michael didn't. Hurst looked at Michael. "Do you hear that?" he asked.

"Hear what?"

"It's like - it's not coming from behind us."

Their gazes went from each other to Olivia.

Shit.

Olivia turned and began to tear down the alley, away from the direction of the parking lot. This was the direction she had been running in when she had turned into the dead end, but she wasn't going to make the same mistake this time. She could see where the alley ended, about a few dozen yards up ahead.

She heard gravel kick up behind her as the men scrambled to their feet. She heard them curse and skid across the loose stones.

"I don't see nobody!" Cal screamed into the fray.

"That's because there is nobody, idiot!" Michael growled at him.

Olivia let a small smile curl her lips. At least she had incapacitated one of them, no matter that he was clearly the idiot of the three of them.

A deafening boom came from behind her and Olivia's heart tripped over its own beat as something flew just a few feet away from her. She tripped on a loose stone in shock and looked back to see Hurst not far behind but Michael standing still, his gun back in his hands.

Was he actually shooting at her?

Her blood turned to ice water in her veins. Her limbs seemed to move twice as slow as they had been before. Olivia struggled to breathe.

"Stop that, Mike!" Hurst yelled. "Stop it, he said not to hurt her!"

"He only said to bring her in alive! There was nothing about hurting her or not hurting her!"

Olivia wished she could block her ears, block out the horrible words they were saying about her as if she wasn't there. She forced her legs to keep running, but she could hear Hurst gaining on her. He was huge, tall, built. There was no way she was going to be able to keep this up.

She turned the corner at the end of the alley and found herself in a back road to a residential neighborhood. She could see homes. Backyards.

Hiding places.

"Jones!" Hurst yelled right behind her as she jumped over a low metal fence, barely noticing as the wet metal cut into her fingers. She felt the back of her shirt be pulled back and ripped it out of his grasp as she hurled herself past the fence.

She nearly slipped in the mud as she ran through the backyard, shoes skidding in the slick grass. She heard Hurst jump the fence as well, and the other two men running close behind.

She turned the corner of the house and debated whether or not to knock on someone's door and demand they help her, but she realized they would call the police and inevitably bring the people that she was running from back to her.

Olivia turned corners in a maze of houses, backyards, and streets, trying to lose the three men after her, but it seemed that they were always just a step behind her. She could always hear their shoes pounding after her, their breaths coming heavy and quick. Eventually, her breath ran out and she stood, panting in a backyard, clutching her chest and wheezing.

She didn't have asthma, had never experienced an asthma attack, but she was sure at that moment that she was about to die from a burst lung. Her heart was killing her, her cold jeans clung to her legs with the pouring rain, and she couldn't stop her incessant trembling. Her whole body ached.

"I think I saw her here!" she heard Michael call from somewhere behind her for the other two.

There was no way Olivia could run any more. She wiped rain from her face and looked around at the backyard that looked like something owned by a family with children. In the dark, she could see there was a tire swing hanging from the tree, a small plastic slideset, a large red deck, and a shed in the corner.

Olivia pulled at the shed doors, but they were locked. In frustration, she almost kicked the wooden door.

"Where the fuck did Cal go?" Michael grumbled, his voice closer this time. It propelled Olivia into the only other hiding spot she could think of - she got down on her hands and knees on the wet concrete and crawled under the deck.

The bottom of the deck was raised barely a foot off the ground, and Olivia had to scoot along on her stomach to get all the way under. The wooden planks above her kept out a little bit of the rain, and she was glad for the little bit of reprieve from the cold wetness they gave her.

She heard Hurst say something in reply to Michael, and kept crawling further under until she reached three window wells, all covered in clear plastic domes to prevent water from leaking in. The plastic had cracked long ago and there was about a foot of water in each window well. Olivia grimaced but she didn't think twice about stepping inside and pulling the cover back on.

Now crouched inside the window well, she could see that the basement of the house was dark. It didn't seem like anyone was down there at the moment. She just hoped no one living there would come down while she was there in the window. She didn't want to give anyone a heart attack and kill them.

"Check in the shed," Hurst said, and there was grunting and the sound of metal clicking as the lock gave way and the door to the shed swung open.

"She's not here."

"Maybe up the tree? I'm pretty sure I saw her come in here. Look how high the neighbor's fence is, she couldn't have gone that way."

"You seriously want me to climb the tree?"

"Yes. I'm checking under the deck."

Olivia's hair was soaked. Her clothes were soaked. Her socks felt wet and slimy against her feet. A trickle of water coming from the cracked window well cover was dripping down her back.

She had tried too hard and she was too miserable to be caught now.

Please don't see me, please don't see me, she begged.

She heard shuffling above her as Hurst moved around, searching for her. She squeezed herself into a ball and desperately hoped he wouldn't think to look in the window well.

Please, Mom, please help me, please make him go away.

If he tried to pull her out of there, she was going to scream. She was going to scream so hard the people living in the house would come running. She was going to break their window and run into their house.

But she wasn't going to be caught by these men.

The shuffling above her stopped and Olivia held her breath. Could he see her? Was he looking into the windowell right now, looking down at her? She squeezed her eyes shut and wondered if the window in front of her was even breakable.

"She's not under the deck," Hurst's voice came from far away, not even close to above her head. "Is she up there?"

"No," Michael grumbled. "And next time, you're climbing the tree."

"Shh. You hear that? Someone's coming."

The backyard went silent.

Until-

"Guys?" came a high, tinny voice. "Are you in here?"

"Cal, what the fuck is your problem? You almost gave us a heart attack!" Michael snarled.

"I couldn't find you, I thought-"

"Thinking is not your strong suit, Cal, so just quit it."

"Can we please just get out of here now?"

"When did you become such a wuss, Cal? You're always just wanting to go back home to your girl and your kid. What did you agree to when you signed up for this job?"

"Look, I don't think she knows anything, so can we please just go?" Cal whined. "She would've told someone if she knew something. We would've heard."

"I'm telling you. She knows something. Why else would she be running?"

"Come on," Hurst broke in. "We've got to get back. I don't think she's here anymore. We'll meet up with the captain and discuss with the others later Saturday."

"Same time, same place?" Michael asked.

"We're still meeting at six, but we're not meeting at the laundromat anymore. The captain thinks someone snitched on us there." Hurst dropped his voice to a whisper and Olivia struggled to hear him over the pounding rain.

"We're going to the old cafe on Main. And Cal, don't be snivelling at the meeting. I don't want them thinking someone on my team is going soft. You hear?"

There was a squelching of shoes on grass, then concrete, and their voices moved away and faded into the rain.

Olivia stayed in her curled up position in the window well for as long as she could stand. She was terrified of having a repeat of what had happened in the alley. The three men had said they were leaving, but that didn't mean they had actually left.

Fifteen minutes passed. She stopped being able to feel her toes. Olivia took that as a sign that she had been there long enough, and uncurled her cramped, aching muscles from the window well. Shaking, she climbed out from under the deck, took out her phone, mapped the route back to her house, and began walking.

Half an hour later, she stood in front of her house, where the warm glow of the porchlight and the light coming in from the living room eased her tired limbs. She was shivering uncontrollably, but it was no longer from fear.

She was home.

With numb, fumbling fingers she pulled her keys from her pocket, unlocked the front door, and stumbled inside. She turned and shoved the door shut behind her, arms locked straight out, hands pressed down flat against the door as if that could keep the monsters out, as if just by the force of her grip she could keep the door shut against anyone who tried to come inside.

Sobs choked her throat as the warmth of the house and the scent of her brothers' colognes all mixed together washed over her. She took in deep breaths and tried to calm her aching heart, barely able to hear the disgruntled voice behind her over the roaring of blood in her ears.

"Olivia, what is going on?"

If anyone doesn't have a window well/doesn't know what it is, it's basically a hole in the ground next to your basement window so you can actually see out the window from the inside. 

One time we had a raccoon stuck in ours and it was the cutest, fluffiest thing I had ever seen, but my parents were absolutely terrified of it. 

My silent readers <3: if you tap that little star and vote for this story, it would seriously make my day :)

The next three updates will be this MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, and FRIDAY.

I think I had something else to say, but now I've forgotten. Be safe everyone <3

For next time: anyone want to guess the brother that asked that?

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