CHAPTER 12 - BARRETT
Poor kid. I had no idea how she’d managed to get herself mixed up in all of this, but I damn well knew that I was going to have to keep her out of it for long enough for this all to blow over, and only then would she even have a chance of living through the next few days, much less having anything close to a normal life again.
I barreled down then hallway on the ground floor of Norman Towers, cradling Mallory in my arms and making sure her legs and head didn’t hit anything as I whipped around corners and got us out of this building before Tate went nuts and sent even more men after us.
I couldn’t go to the garage — by now Tate would have called down to make sure that no cars could leave, and I had a hunch that for good measure Tate had told security to look for me too, just in case I tried something - I hadn’t gotten too far from his office before the shit really hit the fan.
As I ran, every few seconds I glanced down at Mallory - she’d passed out by now, no surprise there. Very few people knew how to process seeing some crazy shit go down — it was only after seeing it happen over and over again that you could build a harder exterior, a way to mentally prepare and defend yourself from the nasty shit this world had to offer.
Poor kid never had a chance. Sleep right now was a good thing. Maybe she’d wake up and think this was all a dream.
Of course, I gritted my teeth as I charged down the dark corridors of Norman Towers, it wasn’t a dream. Unfortunately this was real. Tate had started the next step of his little plan ahead of schedule, and from what I gathered, Mallory had seen something she shouldn’t have, and now she was running for her life.
Of course, right now, I was doing the running - Mallory was more ‘holding on’ for her life.
I shook my head at the terrible joke and kept moving, eager to get out of here and into the fresh air of the Meridian evening.
As we turned the final corner, the side door I was looking for came into view. I hesitated, wondering if I should slow down and check it just like the others up above, but I wanted to get out of there quickly, so I figured I would just power through, and I lowered my shoulder, taking care to pull Mallory in closer, and slammed the door open, knowing that anyone waiting for us on the other side would probably lose their shoes as they got knocked to the ground.
The coast was clear, and the wind picked up right as we got outside; I saw Mallory shiver in her sleep and tighten her grip around my neck. I looked around, swiveling my head to take in as much as I could as the cold air assaulted me from every direction.
No one. If they were looking for us, and I knew they were, we’d managed to find a gap in the fence. I didn’t know how long it would stay open, but I sure as shit didn’t plan on being here when Tate’s goons descended on the place.
I stayed close to the walls of Norman Towers as I made my way down a back alley next door. Half a block down I turned left and stopped in front of a garage door that looked as nondescript as could be. Leaning over but making sure Mallory was well in hand and not going anywhere, I pulled open the decrepit-looking phone box, revealing a modern keypad, glowing green from its backlight.
I typed in the code and the old and creaky garage door started to open. I took one more look around to make sure no one was watching us before ducking under the garage door as it passed by my neck on the way up.
Once inside, I didn’t bother to turn on the lights; I knew no one had been here since the last time I was here — when I set it up. On any other day people could have rightfully accused me of being paranoid, but I chuckled under my breath as I realized that this time they really were out to get me.
And the girl I was carrying — the girl who had wandered about inside my head for the last week, ever since we met and briefly came together in what was clearly one of the defining moments of my life, if measured by how much I had thought about it since it had happened.
I could see from the barest amount of outside light coming in through the garage that the cover was still in place. I shifted Mallory’s almost-limp body around till she was on my right side and reached out with my left hand, finding the edge of the cover and lifting it over. Slowly I walked forward, pulling the cover with me until it fell off the bottom.
I walked around the other side of the now-exposed car, reaching over to the wall and getting the dangling key off the hook without even looking at it, once again proud of my adherence to routine and planning.
Even when everything was going to shit, it still felt good to be able to count on yourself.
I opened the door and put Mallory in the front seat, as gently as I could. She murmured something in her sleep, but I couldn’t make it out as I reached across her body to clip her seatbelt on. She moved around, her head lilting to one side as she got comfortable. I closed the door softly, trying not to disturb her.
The car was already gassed up and I knew my tools were in the backseat, just like I knew there was a loaded pistol under the driver’s seat.
Preparation was a skill, a skill that kept you alive.
I walked around the front of the car, peering out the garage door one more time to make sure no one was looking at us, though I didn’t expect to find anyone. This alleyway was disused, and I didn’t think even the maintenance staff knew this garage door still worked.
I got in the car, casting a glance at Mallory to make sure she was OK, but there was nothing to fear — she looked like the most peaceful girl in the world at that moment. I sighed and turned the keys, feeling the strong engine come to life and purr for me. Every week like clockwork I’d come down here and cycled the engine just to make sure that if I ever needed to get out of here in a hurry, the car would be ready.
Of course, I had never expected to need it, but then again, that was the purpose of preparation in the first place.
I pulled out of the garage, hitting the opener above me, and checking to make sure it started to close. I realized that I was unlikely to ever come back to Norman Towers, but there was still no reason to burn a perfectly good hideout if there was no reason to.
I eased the car out into the main street outside Norman Towers and merged with traffic, another blip on the traffic map in a huge city, just as I wanted it. Getting lost in the crowd was exactly what Mallory and I needed right now.
I drove through downtown Meridian, weaving in and out of traffic, efficient but without being memorably so — it wasn’t like Tate would have the police come after us, but there was no sense in flying above the radar.
Mallory stirred in her seat and I reached over to hold her hand. I knew she was going to wake up, soon, and all the peace that came from the brief amount of sleep she’d enjoyed would shatter in a few seconds after the memories of what she’d just gone through came rushing back.
I looked over to my right and found another alleyway, slowing down and taking a right turn into it. I knew this was a bad idea — we needed to put as much distance between us and Norman Towers as possible, but I couldn’t really make sure Mallory was OK while driving at the same time.
“Wha-what happened?” Mallory whispered as I glided to a stop and put the car in park, turning off the lights but keeping the engine running just in case. Her eyes were still closed and she was pressing her fingers into her forehead, like she had a migraine.
I leaned over. “Hey, Mallory, it’s OK,” I said, a little more gruff than I wanted. “You’re with me, we’re safe, for now.” That last part was not as reassuring as it should have been.
“Safe?” The word hung in the air of the cabin of the car for a long few seconds before Mallory’s eyes fluttered open. “Oh shit!” She stared straight ahead, and I watched the horror of the last hour come rushing back all at once. Mallory slammed her eyes shut again, and the tears started flowing as she dropped her head forward, sobbing.
“Hey,” I said, softly, “you made it out. You’ll be fine…”
Mallory looked at me, opening her eyes again like she was seeing me for the first time, and then recognition came across. “Barr-Barrett? What’re you doing here?” She glanced furtively around the car. “Where are we?” She leaned back in her seat, away from me, throwing her hands up to fight me off. “You…you’re one of them!”
I shook my head. “I promise you, Mallory,” I said, looking into her eyes and reaching to take one of her hands in mine. “I am not one of them. I am here to help you.”
I could see the skepticism in her eyes. “Help me?” Her jaw dropped. “But you, you were at the office! I saw you!”
I nodded. “I was there. It turns out,” I said with a small smile, “that we have the same boss.”
“You work for Norman?” She definitely didn’t believe me.
I looked ahead. “Yeah, I do.”
“You’re not an accountant…you’re not in business. Not in any normal kind of business, anyway, are you?”
She had me there. “No, I’m not. I do…something else.” I looked back at her. “Look, I can answer some of your questions, but right now we have more important things to do.”
“Oh? This is pretty fucking important, Barrett,” Mallory said, still pressing herself as far from me in the seat as she could.
“Right now we should be more concerned with getting out of the city.”
“Are…they still coming after me?”
“They will be. That’s why we have to move.”
Mallory’s head turned as if on a swivel, to the front and back, in case someone was just outside the car. I squeezed her hand. “No one’s coming right now, but we have to keep moving.” I turned the lights back on and slipped the car into drive. “Trust me, I’ll keep you safe.”
Mallory didn’t say anything, she just pulled her feet onto the seat and hugged them close to her face. I could see the tears coming down.
I turned the car around and we left the alley, merging back into the Friday night Meridian traffic. As we drove through the streets I kept looking over at Mallory to make sure she was OK. Of course, she wasn’t OK, and far from it, but despite how much I wanted to pull the car over and pull her into my arms and hold her close to me till the pain went away, we would both be in a whole new world of pain if Tate Norman or any of his goons got ahold of us.
The best thing we could do was get the hell out of the city.
“What,” I heard Mallory say, haltingly, “is it that you do for Tate Norman?”
“There’s a long and complicated answer to that question, Mallory…” I started, trailing off after.
“I’m not going anywhere except with you,” she said, and I could feel her eyes on me even though I was concentrating on the road ahead. “I’ve got nothing but time.”
I nodded, knowing there wasn’t going to be any way out of this conversation, so we might as well have it now. “I was in the military before. I was really good at what I did.” I let that hang, hoping that Mallory wouldn’t ask me to elaborate on exactly what it was I was so good at.
Thankfully she took the hint. “And after you left?”
“I looked around for something to do with myself. I’ve never seen myself as cut out for office work, and so…”
“You turned to a life of crime?” There was a heavy dose of sarcasm in Mallory’s voice.
I chuckled, glad that she was already able to lighten the mood on her own. That was a good sign. “Yeah, I started with robbing old ladies and pizza places, but the returns weren’t good enough.”
I checked on Mallory and she nodded back at me. “I hear that’s a tough racket these days.”
“It is! Old ladies pack a mean left hook,” I said, rubbing my jaw for emphasis.
“Tell me the real story.”
I flailed about. “I was looking for something to do, and I heard through an ex-army buddy that old man Norman was looking for some help for some things that might be, uh, in line with my particular set of skills. So, I, uh, got in touch with him, and, uh…”
“You started working for one of the city’s most revered men, doing…illegal stuff?!”
I grimaced. “Norman was no saint, Mallory, everyone knew that, but he wasn’t a mob boss or anything. He just knew that sometimes to do the right thing, you needed to do a few things that weren’t as right.”
“That sounds like a perfectly reasonable philosophy, coming from a killer.” Again, with the sarcasm.
I shook my head. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this.”
“Because somehow you managed to drag me into your criminal world, and now it’s going to get me killed!”
“I dragged you into this!” I almost yelled, looking at her. “Are you kidding me?! I saved you back there, remember?” I knew it was a mistake as soon as the words came out of my mouth, sounding like that.
Mallory looked stricken, like she’d managed to bury the events of the last hour away until I had brought it up again. I sputtered, trying to find the words to say to make her feel better, but all I could do was watch her wipe the tears out of her eyes and stare out the window in silence.
I felt terrible. Sure, I was used to being attacked and nearly killed, shrugging it off, and moving on with my life, no problem there. But Mallory was a civilian, and she wasn’t ready for this kind of life. She had put on a brave face, cracking jokes and pretending like none of it was getting to her, but it was pretty clear that behind those gorgeous eyes her mind was racing, trying to make sense of this whole thing.
I knew I wasn’t helping by letting her get to me, so I kept quiet as we reached the outskirts of Meridian, and soon she fell into a deep sleep. I pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex, checked out the scene, then pulled out and parked on the street. I didn’t want to use the assigned or guest spots in case a nosy neighbor wondered why a never-there tenant had suddenly decided to show up.
I didn’t want to wake her up and have her go through it all again, so after looking around to make sure no one would notice a guy carrying a sleeping girl up the stairs, I carried her up and into the safe house apartment. Before I went down to get my tools from the trunk, I put her in bed.
Mallory didn’t make a sound, just stretched out under the covers and kept on sleeping.
When I was done getting everything into the apartment, I locked the door and sat in the easy chair next to the bed, way more tense than I should have been. I didn’t want to sleep - I just wanted to watch over her and make sure she was safe, even though I knew I needed rest just as much as she clearly did.
I couldn’t believe it had been barely a week since we had spent the night together and I had woken up in bed and watched her sleep — she was just as peaceful now as she had been then. No trace of the horrors she’d been through tonight.
Keeping that in mind was the only thing that made it possible for me to sleep.