"Your brother? Why? How?" Andrews was pulling me to my feet and shoving the bed out of the way. "Why did he go after you?"
"No clue. I honestly don't know why he would do it," I shook my head. "Maybe killing that bastard gave him a taste for it."
"Fuck. Come on, down the hatch," he waved me over as he lifted a seemingly seamless section of the hardwood floor. "The ladder only goes for fifteen feet. The other thirty-five are covered by the equivalent of an elevator."
Nodding, I descended into the darkness; the rungs on the metal ladder cold to my bare feet and hands. Touching down, I let go as the dim light overhead went out. Andrews was silent as he came down; the only indication he was there the heat radiating from his body. His arm found my waist in the inky blackness as the platform plummeted. I felt weightless as we dropped; my stomach still up at the ladder from the sudden movement.
The brakes didn't make a sound as they abruptly brought us to a halt. Andrews didn't let go of my waist as he stepped forward and a red light blinked in front of us. It turned green with a beep and a sliver of light appeared to the left. Widening, it stopped when there was a full door in view.
"There's a locker through the far door. Left side has handguns, the fully loaded magazines for them are directly across from the compatible stocks," he gave me a little shove and sat in a very comfy looking chair in front of a state-of-the-art computer. "Don't touch the case in the bottom. A phosphorus grenade down here would kill us and render the point of this little excursion null and void."
"Understood," I snapped a mock salute before stalking to the door and down the dark corridor behind it. The locker took up the entire wall; however, it stood empty.
"Scream and I will slice your throat, do you understand?" my brother's slightly distorted voice followed the knife nearing my thin neck.
"Go to hell, Damian. I don't know how you could smile and hug me at all those family gatherings after what you did to me," I spat on his matte-black shoes.
"And I don't know how you could let Mr. Steroid fuck you on the kitchen floor," he snapped back, backhanding me when he was within reach.
Hitting the locker door on my way to the floor, the metal clanged loudly just before I let out a fake cry of pain. A thin trickle of blood ran down my cheek as I scooted to the wall and used it to sit up. Tucking up into a ball, I hid my head as Andrews slid silently around the corner and broke Damian's wrists. The sickening sound of breaking bones reached my ears as the knife hit the ground.
"You can look up now," Andrews gently pulled my right hand from my face and ran his index finger over the cut. "We need to get that cleaned up, in case he coated the blade in anything. I take it that he told you to not scream?"
"Yeah. Classic cliché with that one. I don't think he expected me to hit the locker after he smacked me though," I massaged my ribs. The only problem with hitting the locker was that I had lost any chance of softening my fall. The left half of my ribcage took the most damage, and would undoubtedly be bruised by morning. "I don't think he's been working alone. Either someone trained him, or he's been training someone else."
"I came to the same conclusion when you were walking down here. Staging his own death would definitely have taken another person, and then getting out of the morgue after -- that is definitely not a one man job," he slid an arm around my waist and eased me to my feet. "We'll get you cleaned up, your brother properly secured, and then find somewhere else to hide you until his partner is caught. This time we'll let them think we're still here, and not send in a report of location change."
"Good idea. The fewer people who know I'm still alive, the better," I nodded, grimacing as I attempted to walk.
"How hard did you fall?" he raised an eyebrow at me.
"That, I don't know. I smacked the locker door instead of cushioning my fall, so it was probably fairly hard," I managed half a dozen steps before crumpling.
"Too hard. I'll check them thoroughly later, but I wouldn't doubt it if you broke at least one," he slid an arm beneath my knees and lifted me easily. Striding down the hall, he toed open the door and set me on the soft cot I had failed to notice on my way by. Pulling the thick blanket over all but my head, he placed a small gun in my right hand and showed me the safety before grabbing a set of handcuffs from a desk drawer and returning to my evil brother.
"Fuck!" The shouted expletive bounced down the hall. Andrews was back mere seconds later with a murderous expression on his normally handsome face. "He's gone. The weapons are all there, but the fucking bastard is gone."
Blood drained from my face and I set the gun on the floor. "That proves the theory of an accomplice."
"Yes, it does. I'm just going to update the profile before getting you the hell out of here. Until we know who's helping him, the only way you'll be safe is if we're the only two people who know where you are."
"Is it day or night?" I murmured, bringing my now-free right hand to my still-bleeding face.
"Night, why?" he grabbed a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and some cotton balls from the cabinet. Squatting by my head, he applied the drying, disinfecting liquid to the cut.
I flinched with every careful stroke; the sting and roughness of the cotton on my sensitive skin more than my over-active sensation receptors could handle.
"Daylight would make it harder for him and his accomplice to sneak up on us, unless you have a garage down here that will lead us to a car far away," I held back a curse as he lifted a can of spray-on bandage and shielded my eye. The aqueous material felt odd, to say the least, as it adhered to my flesh and sealed the cut.
"Very true, however it also makes it easier for them to track us, and potentially cut us of from escape," he tugged his shirt off and flipped a switch set in to the wall above my head. The doors slammed shut, steel covers sliding in to place, as a red warning flashed on the computer screen. "The warning is just a notification that the people outside of this room are about to get knocked out for an unknown amount of time."
"Delectable," I smiled, trying to sit up only to have him push me back down.
"Yes you are," he pushed the blanket off and carefully removed my shirt. I held back a wince as his hands brushed over my ribs. "I'm going to miss you when we have to go our separate ways."
"Do we really have to?" I pouted, holding in a gasp of pain.
