Miranda

“Fuck you.  If he thinks I am part of this, the last thing I’m going to do is stay where he knows I spend most of my day like a sitting duck.” There was zero chance I was going to allow Daniel to leave me.  Not now.  Not after all of this.  And especially after it turns out Professor McCreepy was actually worse than creepy.  Fuck to the no on that one.

“Shit, she’s right,” Daniel said, to himself, it seemed.

“She’s right here.” I stomped my foot in protest.  Being around Daniel had my emotions too all over the place to be acting sane.  Well, that and the fact that one of my coworkers was a freaking sex trafficker.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” He pointed to his ear.  Brilliant, we were being eavesdropped on this entire time. 

“Ohhh.” The man so had words coming to him after this mess was over and whatever techno magical hearing and speaking device he had was good and gone. This was all insane, but I was starting to get a picture of what he’d been hiding from me all those years ago.

“Fine,” he grunted before putting his full attention on me. “Come with me,” he demanded, like it wasn’t my idea.  “Do you have any pepper spray or a CC permit, by chance? Please, for the love of all that is good, say yes.”

I dug out my keys, showing him my kubaton from self-defense class. “I have this.”

“Which will only help if you are far too close to him.”

He wasn’t wrong.  My self-defense strategy, even after the course, was to flee like there was no tomorrow because if I didn’t, there might not be.

“It’s not like I thought collecting tuition from students was going to be a dangerous profession.” I was far too defensive and I saw him flinch at my words. I normally would’ve asked him what was going on in his head, but now that I knew there were people listening to our every word, I was holding it all in for later.

“I know.  I just…  I need you safe and I need to get the proof and any leads to help us find the missing girls.  There are as many as fifteen connected to Irving.” This time when he flinched, I knew it wasn’t at me.  He was getting an earful.  I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“Fif… f… fteen?” That was so many to go unconnected, or at least publicly unconnected.  Those poor girls.

“Yes.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a what looked like an inhaler.  “Here.  Just pull the green peg and point it at him before you spray.  Some will get on you and it will hurt like a bitch so make sure you know which way is out at all times.” And shit just got real.  More real.  Freaking terrifying.  Up until that point I still had myself convinced I was safe, but things were worse than I feared.

“Pull the peg.” I swallowed deep, picturing all the things that could go wrong. “Like a grenade.”

“You watch too many movies.  More like a fire extinguisher.”

And that gave me an idea.  I turned and walked to the fire alarm on the wall.  They called this a burn something or other.  That was a good enough reason to pull an alarm, right?

“Miranda?”

“Yes.” I answered as my hand settled on the lever.

“I meant what I said.”

With that, I pulled the alarm half way, not quite breaking the glass.  It was sadly easier to deal with smoking out a sex trafficker to get his information than it was deal with all Daniel had revealed.  That was just too much, too fast, after too long.

“I know.” I pulled the lever the rest of the way and the building filled with the alarm. “And we will talk about it all soon.  Now, we need to get moving.”

“What did you….”

“Now we can get the files.” I grabbed his hand, pulling him to the door.  “There will be a solid five to ten minutes before the fire department figures out it was a false alarm.” He stopped moving, staring at me with a look I couldn’t quite decipher.  “Don’t just stand there.  I committed a felony for you. Let’s get those files.”

“It’s a misdemeanor,” he chuckled as he began to move. Asshat.

“Are you going to argue semantics or are we taking advantage of the time we have?” We were already out the door and down the hallway before I even finished speaking.   If luck played out, we could get in, get the papers and leave before Irving figured out what we had done.  If he hadn’t already removed them.

What didn’t make sense to me was why he kept them in the first place.  Who does that?  He had committed an egregious crime. Why had he left evidence for anyone to find?  So many people had keys to his office.  Custodians, department heads, maintenance personnel.  It wasn’t as if it pretended to be safe.  Why?  I needed to talk to Daniel about that once his little friends were no longer in the party.

We made our way there in record time, catching the flow of traffic out of the building most of the way.  It wasn’t an overly crowded day, with only part of the student body beginning, but there were enough to cause a bit of chaos.  Hopefully enough chaos to keep us guarded. 

“I’ll stay out here while you grab what you need.” I all but pushed him into the room as we arrived. I saw him contemplate refusing and we didn’t have time for that. “I will stand guard.  If anyone comes near, I will be really loud as a warning. 

“If Irving comes?” he asked, eyeing my pepper spray.

“I will scream like a banshee and spray the crap outta him before running to the firemen.”

“Good girl.” He gave me a hard, fast kiss before using some little gadget to unlock the door and sneak inside. 

The building was nearly vacant from what I could tell, the alarms still ringing in my ears.  If we were lucky, the firemen would immediately go to my office, see it was pulled and get back to resetting things.  If I was unlucky, they would wander through this hallway first and I would need to be loud before exiting the building, leaving Daniel there on his own.  The thought of that filled my stomach with rocks.

“Hey.” A grad student I had seen around turned the corner. “Have you seen Professor Russell?”

“He must be outside with the fire drill and all.  You should be there too.” I held onto the pepper spray keeping it out of sight.  For all I knew he was a clueless student and I was a paranoid weirdo. “I’m here to make sure people exit in an orderly fashion,” I added lamely.

“Crap.  The professor told me I had a package to pick up, Miranda.” He took a step closer and I took a step back, my back now against the wall. Think, Miranda.  Think.

“How do you know my name?” As soon as I saw the glint in his eye, I knew I’d made a fatal mistake. But it was too late.  He sprayed something at my face.

Before I blacked out completely, I heard him brag, “I didn’t.  You’re the package.”