“Teaching your child great moral values already,” I deadpanned. “Do you have a plan to explain why you’re in here when the doors unlock, and you come face to face with Draven?”
Isabel looked at him and shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this with you. Can we find a way out?” she directed her question at the three of us.
“I’m with her man. I knew this was a bad idea. Robbing a place like this is bound to bring bad karma,” Dennis seconded.
“Fuck all of this and the money. Isa is pregnant. Can we focus on getting her and us out of here before someone or a whole fleet of people show up?” Jessica ranted.
I was starting to feel a lot better about her tagging along.
“You know what? You all go look for an exit and I’ll go find the money.”
He turned and began walking towards the right side of the room. This place was huge, I couldn’t imagine searching through the rooms. Who knows what the hell was inside of them?
A door slamming shut echoed from what could have been anywhere, causing everyone to freeze. Almost all of the lights cut off, plunging us into near-total darkness. This had to be the result of someone controlling things from somewhere else.
My breath caught in my chest. There was a fleeting moment of silence rapidly replaced by footsteps, multiple from the sound of it.
“Fuck,” Dennis breathed harshly.
Jessica and Kyle moved closer to me. I grabbed for them prepared to run.
I had no damn clue where to go but standing around like a welcome committee was the last thing, I thought we should do.
Troy took hold of Isa’s hand and pulled her into his side, removing the gun I didn’t know he had from his waistband. That was the last possible thing his dumbass needed.
I sucked in a breath as movement came from the left side of the room, from just inside one of the arched doorways that were full of darkness.
“Go!” I hissed at Kyle and Jessica, shoving them forward and darting to the right.
Troy and Isa headed in the same direction, zipping right by Dennis. We all weaved between the pews, the sound of increased movement shattering the silence around us. They were whispering to one another, nothing more than a shadow until a few made their presence more known.
In hooded robes of black, faces masked or painted to represent death, they blended with the shadows, wasting no time devouring us one by one.
Dennis cried out from behind me. I didn’t dare look to see why. My heart was seconds away from busting out of my chest, my stomach had plunged into my ass.
Everything thereafter happened in an almost dream sequence. Isa’s sudden scream had me shoving self-preservation to the side. I turned my head but didn’t stop my forward momentum. Where the hell did, she go?
My lack of attention had me colliding with one of the hooded figures as they emerged from the darkness like an apparition. Their face was covered completely.
I reflexively jerked back, slamming into another. A scream erupted from my throat as hands took hold of me, their grip strong enough to bruise.
From the row of pews beside mine, Jessica was apprehended and dragged off like a ragdoll, disappearing into the void, her screams abruptly cutting off.
I struggled futilely until a thick cloth was pressed over my nose and mouth, a sweet smell filling my lungs as I too was carted off. The sound of a gun discharging followed my descent into oblivion.
CHAPTER SEVEN
My body felt as if it’d been dragged behind a train for miles on end. Dragging a tingling palm over my grubby face, I worked my jaw to cure its stiffness and peeled my eyes open, finding myself staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Memories of what had gone down in the last twenty-four hours came rushing back.
With a sharp inhalation, I slammed my hands onto ribbed concrete and hoisted myself into a sitting position, immediately feeling a cinch around my midsection.
I looked down, more of my disorientation ebbing away as I became more aware of my surroundings.
“What the fuck?” I whispered, fingering the iron contraption someone had secured around my torso. There was a thick chain that protruded from its center.
I tugged to try and get it off, but both it and the contraption itself gave little resistance. Checking the rest of myself over, I realized someone had also dressed me in a nearly translucent white gown while I was knocked out. There wasn’t any soreness between my legs, so I was going to assume for peace of mind that I hadn’t been violated in that way.
I turned my head from left to right to loosen the kinks in my neck. Memories of what had occurred in the last twenty-four hours came rushing back as I studied the room. The walls just like the floor were made entirely of stone.