Mafia love

Put someone I trusted completely in front of my face, and my guard dropped.

I still couldn’t believe this was her. I would never have guessed she’d be a threat.

It was all so obvious now though that it was her. I just didn’t want to believe it. Another person who broke my trust. Mom, Dad, Luc, Millicent.

It was fu

I shook my head. It wasn’t time to think about any of that.

Focus.

Focusing was the key. It was the key to hopefully saving my friend.

“Now, Gigi. Now. Ready?”

She sucked in a sharp breath and nodded.

Okay, well, here I go. This was the epitome of all my years of being a cop.

If it was only for this one moment. To save her.

I slipped the ropes from my hands and methodically bent down to undo the ropes from my legs.

Visualization. I had it all figured out, and so far, it was working.

I grabbed the key and made my way to Gigi.

Hands first, then I undid the rope binding her feet. My hands were working like magic, undoing the knots as quickly as I could.

As Gigi stood, I moved to the lock on the door hoping like hell Millicent hadn’t screwed me over and this wasn’t some stupid game to make us think we could escape when we couldn’t.

I could have cried when the lock clicked open and the door moved out.

Oh God, we could do this.

Gigi was behind me. We walked out to the corridor. I looked in the opposite direction to where everyone else had gone. There was a path that turned.

“This way. Run as fast as you can.” I pointed down the passage, and we started ru

Jesus Christ, off in the distance, behind us, I could hear hurried footsteps.

They must have seen us on camera.

I ran for all I was worth, and thankfully, Gigi was keeping up with me.

We turned down the corridor, and it was darker. No light but ounces of daylight shone through in various cracks under the doors and around the windows we passed. This section looked old. Old and completely out of use.

We ran into a large hall that held benches and tables. A cafeteria long out of use.

This place really was a prison. I could see all the cells now, overhead and all around. So, I was going to guess that this was the only abandoned prison I knew of, and it wasn’t in Chicago. If I managed to get to a phone or find some way of contacting Luc, I’d at least be able to tell him where I was.

We turned down another corridor. This one was much darker. I took Gigi’s hand when she started to slow down. Ahead was a brighter light, so we ran toward it.

Go toward the light?

Yes, indeed.

There was a room off to the corner that you could easily miss. There.

That might be a good hiding spot. Just somewhere we could come up with a plan.

The darkness gave us cover.

I was sure we could still be seen if they looked hard, but darkness made it possible for us to hide.

We went into the room and locked the door. In true old-school style, it had a bolt from the inside, and a lock.

The only light came from the window, and it was one of those windows that couldn’t be opened. It wasn’t surprising given the nature of the place we were in. And this room…

There was a metal chair that looked like something from one of the classic Frankenstein films.

It had metal manacles on the arms and a helmet-looking dome-shaped device that hovered above it.

“Amelia, I think it’s safe to say we’re at Peyton Prison.” Gigi looked nervously around the room.

Peyton Prison, yes I remembered seeing this place on TV. “Yeah, looks that way.”

“You know this was a heavily secured psychiatric unit?”

I didn’t know that part. “No, but look at the chair.”

She walked over to a cupboard and opened it. Inside were some bottles with the poison warning tags on it.

“Hydrogen peroxide,” she said and looked around some more. “Lots of it, and bleach. Amelia, I could make a potion with this.”

Oh Jesus. “Gigi, for God’s sake, this is not the time for that.” Maybe she hit her head.

She rolled her eyes at me. “I mean, I can make a bomb.”

“God, really?” A bomb could and would be very useful.

“Look around the room for stuff we can use. I need something to mix the stuff in. A bowl or something like that.”

More focusing.

I jumped into action and started looking. When I went to the cupboard by the window, I noticed for the first time how high up we were. I would say maybe the fifth floor. It had felt more like we’d been on the ground

floor with the cafeteria, but again, it made sense for everything to be so high up. Plus, there was probably more than one cafeteria in this place.

The prison was massive.

I opened another cupboard and saw it was one of those pulley elevators.

The kind you might put mail in from the ground floor and pull it up. I looked into the shaft, inspecting it. Looked sturdy enough. This could be our escape route. Outside, I could see the river. There had to be an exit from this side of the building.

“I found a bowl and some kerosene. That will help with the reaction.”

“Great.” I nodded and opened another closet. There were a few empty medicine bottles in there.

I grabbed those and went to the little table where she’d set everything up.

“Will this help?”

“Perfect. I’ll pour the liquid in, and we can have a couple each. All you need to do is drop it as hard as you can. When the glass smashes, it will blow up and release a gas that will sting their eyes.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Chemistry. I did advanced Chem in high school. I loved it, even though I loved art more. It felt like mixing potions to me.” She chuckled.

It was so like her to say that. My friend was a brilliant artist but also a practicing witch. I would be the first one to roll my eyes at her sayings, predictions, and ideas, but I was thanking my lucky stars now.

She mixed away from an assortment of bottles. Looked like she’d found more than what she’d mentioned before.

I held my breath, feeling the tension. It was too quiet, and I didn’t know when we’d get found.

We’d heard footsteps when we first broke out of the cell, and the guys must have known there was only one way we could have gone.

Gigi started pouring the mixture into the bottles I’d found.

She got to the sixth one when we heard voices. Then footsteps.

“Shit,” I hissed.

Gigi poured the mixture into two more bottles. Making that eight. There were two more, but we didn’t have enough mixture.

“This will have to do,” she whispered.

I nodded. “Gigi, here.” I gave her six bottles and kept two for myself as an idea formed in my head.

“No, we should get four each,” she protested.

I placed my hand over my lips and signaled for her to be quiet. There was someone walking by the door.

While she stood still, I placed the bottles in her pocket and nodded.

“Search every room,” called a voice from the other side of the door. It sounded like the biker. Ugh, I would hate for him to find us.

“I’m looking,” replied another guy. “It’s hard to see with no camera and power on this side.”