“What do you propose we do?” I asked.
“I don’t think anyone will find us here for now, so I say we stay here for the next thirty minutes. Then I’ll check outside again. If it’s clear, we go; if it’s not, we stay. Deal?”
Raisa looked at her. “You’re the samurai here. Whatever you say goes.”
4
Thirty minutes passed rather quickly while I walked around the room and browsed the items hidden in here. There was nothing like the Mona Lisa or any valuable Ancient Greek statue, but I liked it anyway. However, my mind wasn’t really on what I was looking at.
The demons were here. Omi was here.
Why were they here? I remembered those two demons looking straight at me and shuddered. Omi couldn’t know about me, could he? We had been careful. Brock was dead. Nobody knew who we were.
Even if they weren’t here because of me, they were here now and could find me if they got too close and sensed my aura. We couldn’t stay here much longer, trapped in a basement. We had to leave the city. The question was, how?
I eyed Keisha. She sat on the floor, her back against a wall near the door, playing with her sword as if she did that every free minute of her life. When I first laid eyes on her, she looked like an elegant teacher or law student. Determined, yes, but also ladylike and delicate, even with her tall, strong body. Then her eyes flashed—I wasn’t imagining things again, was I?—and she transformed into this brave warrior who didn’t care about losing a pair of expensive pumps or ripping her skirt so she could fight better. It was almost as if she had changed right in front of us.
Keisha and her mad fighting skills were probably our only way out of here.
Directly in front of our precious personal ninja, Raisa sat on a wooden box. She rummaged in her bag, but I could see her hands trembling from here. Oh God, how I wished Raisa hadn’t been here. How I wished she were at her parents’ house as they wanted, unharmed.
I frowned. I didn’t know if the entire country was under attack. My stomach twisted into dozens of knots. Oh God, no, no. I couldn’t bear to think about what could be happening to my family right now.
I took a deep breath and pushed those troubling thoughts aside. One problem at a time. First, we get out of town. Second, I send Raisa to her parents. Third, I somehow get to my own parents.
In the corner, Greg kept messing with the walkie-talkie trying to listen for more details and find out what was going on, if this was a random attack, what the creatures were, and which places were safe. However, the voices and the stories grew gorier by the minute, and it didn’t seem as if anyone would leave New York alive.
Not even us.
I shuddered.
Keisha shot up to her feet. “I’ll be right back,” she said, before slipping behind the door. Not even a minute later she was back. She opened the door wide. “I think we can make it now.”
Greg pushed away from the wall, Raisa jumped up from the crate, and I made my way back to the door. We picked up our stuff from the floor, and Greg checked his gun.
“Counting my second cartridge, I should have about twenty-four bullets,” he said.
“Make them count,” Keisha said. She glanced at the daggers Raisa and I were holding. “Be careful with that.”
As opposed to what? Not being careful? I was actually trying not to think about how I was holding a weapon capable of killing a person.
Raisa shook her head. “Are you sure we can’t stay here longer? Maybe we can wait for a couple of hours. Perhaps by then they will have left the city.”
Keisha took a deep breath. “I don’t think they will leave the city with anyone alive in it. They’ll scour inch by inch, even if it takes weeks.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I don’t. It’s just a hunch. It’s like they are looking for something, and they will keep killing and destroying until they find it.”
I swallowed. Damn.
Doing the noble thing crossed my mind. Surrendering myself. But … they were demons. They wouldn’t back out of destroying the city and killing everyone in it just because I had given myself up. And there was my family to consider. If I surrendered, who would take care of them? Who would send them money every week? Who would make sure they were okay?
Although now with NYU and the entire city destroyed, I wasn’t sure how that would work anymore. I shook my head. One problem at a time. First, getting out of here.
Greg turned off his radio. “Let’s do this.”
Keisha opened the first door. “Okay, we’ll go up to the alley. Try to stay in the shadows along the walls and make no sound. As far as I can tell, these monsters are dumb but they have good ears and noses. We’ll approach the street and make our way out of the city, sticking to the shadows and hiding in alleys or courtyards.”
“You do realize we’ll have to cross a bridge or a tunnel to exit the city, right?” I asked.
“Yes, but I’m trying not to think about that yet. One problem at a time,” she said, repeating what I had been telling myself. She looked at us pointedly. “Ready?”
We exchanged glances, and my grip tightened around the hilt of the dagger I was holding.
Keisha led the way. Raisa was second, I was third, and Greg was last. Once I stepped into the dark corridor, I felt sick to my stomach. Oh God, we were going out among the demons.
Without ceremony, Keisha reached the top of the stairs and opened the door. She put her finger over her lips and beckoned us out. Following her lead, we plastered our backs to the wall of the dark alley, and I had a hard time staying calm.
I couldn’t see the demons because of the darkness and the fact that we were trying to stay hidden, but I could hear them. Shrieks and grunts reached our ears, and I could only assume it came from demons crossing the street at the end of the alley.
I slowly breathed in and out, concentrating on staying calm.
The alley was wide and long. There were boxes and litter spread on the ground from an open garbage container, and it smelled almost as bad as the demons.
“Come on,” Keisha whispered. Tiptoeing along the wall, she pulled the bow and an arrow from her back. “Be prepared.”
“P-prepared for what?” Raisa asked.
“Anything,” Keisha responded.
Raisa whimpered, and I reached for her hand. It seemed to have helped before, and I was in need of some reassurance right now too.
A gust of wind surged into the alley bringing a chilly breeze around us. I shivered. If I knew we would spend a long time outside, I would have worn warmer clothes. Jeans, a dark green sweater, knee-high brown boots, a brown trench coat, a scarf, and gloves weren’t cutting it. But what else would I have worn? A blanket?
Crap, where were my thoughts going?