“Head that way.” He jerked his head to the left. “Turn right at the T, and you’ll get to some stairs. They’ll take you to a back entrance.”
“What about you?” Her voice was a husky imitation of its usual self. Her throat felt as rough and sore as if she’d actually been screaming the entire time, instead of just wanting to. “How are you getting out?”
His half grin contorted his abused face, twisting the cuts and bruises and making his eyes almost disappear. “We’re going out the other back door. Good luck, Angel.” He and the other man started making their painful-looking progress in the opposite direction, the unconscious guy slumped between them, his boots dragging across the polished hardwood floor.
The sight of them walking away, leaving her alone, sent a surge of panic through her. She had to bite the inside of her lower lip to keep from calling after them. They were strangers, but it had felt like they’d been on her side. Now she was on her own.
At the thought, the voice in her head screamed at her to get out of the nightmare house. As she moved out of the doorway, Kaylee stepped on something and stumbled slightly. She glanced down and saw her silver clutch. Her fuzzy brain wondered how it got on the floor, until she recalled that she’d used it to prop open the door. Automatically, she bent to grab it.
Once it was in her hands, she remembered that it held her phone. “I can call the police,” she called in a carrying whisper to the retreating men.
They stopped abruptly. “Won’t help,” the one missing an eye said. His voice was raspy, too, and she wondered if he had been screaming. The thought made her shudder. “The Jovanovics have deep pockets and a wide reach. Just get out and get far away from these people.”
It felt wrong, not calling for help, and Kaylee’s fingers tightened around her clutch. Urgency was building in her, panic expanding like air inside a balloon, stretching her tighter and tighter. She needed to get out before she broke. Turning away from the men, she hurried in the opposite direction. It was hard to believe that Noah’s family had the entire police force on their payroll, but she’d wait to contact them, just in case. Later, after the men had a chance to get out and she was safe, Kaylee would call. The thought of being out of this nightmare mansion, of being home, made her hurry her steps.
As she reached the end of the hall, she snuck a quick glance behind her. The men were nowhere to be seen. Sucking in a shaky breath, she turned right toward the stairs…and what she hoped was safety. She refused to think about how she’d gotten so terribly lost in the rabbit warren of a mansion just a short time earlier, or about how easy it would be to get turned around again. The thought of running through Martin’s gilded house, frightened and trapped, made her throat close. There was a door right in front of her, but would it lead to escape or a continuation of her waking nightmare?
Turning the knob with shaking fingers, she didn’t know whether to be grateful or scared that it wasn’t locked. The door opened to a neatly kept yard, lit by an almost-full moon and discreet landscape lights. She was out. Relief flooded her, even as a hundred other emotions—fear and paranoia and horror—pounded through her veins. The cool night air felt good on her flushed cheeks, and Kaylee bent at the waist, trying to catch her breath and make her brain reboot. A revolving chain of images flashed in her mind—blood and knives and the one man’s ravaged, empty eye socket. Her next inhale sounded like a sob, and she forced herself to stand up straight.
There was no time to fall apart. She was out of the house, but Kaylee definitely wasn’t safe yet. Even though he’d been sitting innocently at the dining table with her and the rest of his guests all evening, Uncle Martin had to have given the order for those men to be tortured. After all, they were in his house. Her memory of his flat stare seemed even more menacing now, and she hurried to follow a flagstone path that led to the front of the house.
With every step, Kaylee’s shocked brain was tuning back in to reality, her fear spiraling into panic. Surely they would’ve noticed her extended absence by now. What if the men’s escape had been discovered? How fast would they put the two together?
Her breaths were getting quicker, louder, and she forced herself to slow. Hyperventilating until she passed out was not a good escape plan. In fact, it was a very bad escape plan. When the panicked haze had cleared slightly, she hurried along the path again. Her shoes were loud on the flagstones, and she shifted her weight to the balls of her feet.
The path ended at the entrance to what looked like a garage. Kaylee wasn’t about to go through another unknown door leading to who-knew-what horrors, so she turned, stepping onto the grass and staying close to the exterior of the building.